Despre consumul cultural în România postcomunistă

Author(s): Dan Lungu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: VII/2014

The first part of the present article refers to the production of cultural data in post-communist Romania. We have identified the main research studies that provided cultural data, and dealt with both methodology and goals. In the end, we pointed out the contribution to the study on cultural consumption and reconstructed the dynamics of producing cultural data. From all that cultural consumption implies, the second part of our study refers to the consumption of books/ literature in post-communism, focusing on the problem of non-readers, readers and taste, acquisition behaviour and personal libraries.

Danuta Borecka-Biernat, Małgorzata Cywińska (red.), Konflikt społeczny w perspektywie socjologicznej i pedagogiczno-psychologicznej. Wybrane kwestie, Warszawa 2015, Wydawnictwo Difin SA, ISBN 978-83-793-079-99,ss. 323

Author(s): Anna K. Duda / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2016

Zarzut redukcjonizmu w kontekście relacji biologia–socjologia

Author(s): Łukasz Remisiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

In the article author discusses the three cases. First, how one should correctly express the problem of reductionism? Second, how many types of reductionism can we distinguish? Third, do contemporary attempts of linking biology and sociology are diff erent, in terms of reductionist tendencies, from sociology? Using fi ve-part typology of reductionism, the author indicates that the problem of reductionism can be taken only if some elements of sociology are eliminated in the process of theoretical or causal reduction. Analysing the assumptions of strong sociobiology, the author suggests that a lot of accusation were directed not against biologically complement sociological explanations, but rather against imperialist tendencies of sociobiology which tried to rebuild sociology. Unlike to sociobiology, newest approaches linking biology and sociology do not make such mistakes, hence the problem of reductionism is not relating to them.

Jerzy Szacki — uczony, nauczyciel akademicki, człowiek i obywatel

Author(s): Nina Kraśko / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

The author writes about the late Professor Jerzy Szacki, who died in 2016 and was a world-renowned sociologist and historian of social thought. She presents him as a scholar, teacher, citizen, and private person, trying to establish the facts as precisely as possible and placing them in the context of Polish social life from the Second World War to today. She draws on the available sources and on her own memories as one of Professor Szacki’s students and later as a member of the same academic milieu.

Rozmowa z Profesorem Szackim, 29 września 2015 w kawiarni przy ulicy Dobrej

Author(s): Filip Schmidt / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

This is a transcript of a conversation with Jerzy Szacki which was conducted for the research project ‘The Archive of Research into Daily Life’ of the UAM Institute of Sociology in Poznań. The aim of the project is to obtain information about past sociological research in Poland and, in the future, to make it available in an organized form. The professor spoke about the history of sociology in Poland a few months before his death.

Уводник

Author(s): Uroš V. Šuvaković / Language(s): English,Serbian Issue: 3/2017

Zapisy autobiograficzne – od doświadczenia do map interpretatorów

Author(s): Wojciech Doliński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2017

The golden age of memories recorded in written form (e.g., memoirs, diaries, letters) as the best source of biographical information in sociology has come to an end. Since the early 1980s, the number of contests for autobiographical documents has rapidly decreased. In the context of modern social changes, democratization of forms of written record, and the related development of “sociological imagination” there arises a need to “refresh” reflections on several elements of the method of personal documents, which is recognized worldwide thanks to, among others, Florian Znaniecki. This reflection concerns three categories of issues. First, the ethical involvement of phenomenological descriptions in casual and scientific interpretations; second, experience-related and reflective features of an act of creating a record, characteristic for both the researched and the researchers; third, the procedure of mapping written autobiographical records with the use of concept maps. These issues are presented in the article in relation to sociological and non-sociological literature, as social grounding of writing acts crosses disciplinary boundaries. Flexibility, openness, and simplicity of the mapping procedure make both theorists and practitioners from outside the university milieu aware of present possibilities of describing the grounding of human experience in multi-tier but ordered spheres of everyday life.

Why wear a prosthetics when you could become a superhero instead? Dzieci, protezy i kilka uwag o tym, jak słownik krytycznych studiów nad niepełnosprawnością może wzbogacić język nowych studiów nad dzieciństwem

Author(s): Maja Brzozowska-Brywczyńska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

The article aims at revealing the potential of critical disability studies’ concepts (prosthetic power, visual activism) as tools in the analysis of disabled children’s experiences within the new childhood studies paradigm. In disability studies, the childhoods of disabled children are still marginalized, and similarly—in childhood studies, there is still not enough space for analyzing disability as social marker (compared to gender, race, and class). I start with three examples of 3D children’s prosthetics projects that serve as starting points for redefining what an artificial limb can become—a platform of play shared with others, a superhero’s attribute, and a tool for agency in co-designing (oneself)—to find how they resonate with theoretical and interpretative endeavors of critical disability studies. I then attempt to set them against the premises of new childhood studies and see—taking as an example disabled children’s childhood studies—what can possibly emerge at the crossroads

Biographical meanings of work: the case of a Polish freelancer

Author(s): Karol Haratyk,Kamila Biały,Marcin Gońda / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

The sociological analyses of contemporary society mostly emphasize its liquid and flexible character, which provides new opportunities, but also threats, on both the macro and individual level. The incoherence of the present times could, however, also be perceived as the interference of various social orders that have been described by scholars as “premodernity,” “modernity” and “postmodernity.” In Poland, these tensions are particularly acute because of the collision of the regimes of modernity, postmodernity and elements of traditional culture that are still more visible than in the West. The aim of this paper is to present the relationships between two of the above-mentioned orders: modernity and postmodernity in the sphere of work, with reference to the biographical structure of an individual’s experience. An empirical example of these tensions is demonstrated in the autobiographical story of Piotr, a freelance business psychologist. The article’s first part focuses on the theoretical framework and methodology that were applied while investigating the biographical manifestations of the clashes between these orders. The second part includes a detailed analysis of the narrator’s life story, linking the psychological and sociological perspectives. Furthermore, two meanings of work and their implications for the given case are presented. Finally, the analyzed interview is discussed in a broader perspective, in comparison to other cases

Zetterberg and Malewski-Unfinished Collaboration and Friendship

Author(s): Katarzyna M. Staszyńska,Krzysztof Zagórski / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2017

(Un)Making Europe: Report on the 13th Conference of the European Sociological Association

Author(s): Ildikó Hrubos / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

Od socjologii transformacji do socjologii sfery publicznej. Nowe możliwości syntezy wiedzy o zmianie systemowej

Author(s): Kaja Gadowska,Marek Rymsza / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

Sociological reflection has accompanied the quarter-century of systemic changes in Poland. However, despite the expectations associated with the sociology of transformation, that approach has not yielded a coherent and consistent theory capable of aggregating and synthesizing the wealth of research gathered under this frame of reference. This article attempts to elucidate the determinant factors behind those unfulfilled expectations. More significantly, it aims to identify the new possibilities for accrual of knowledge about the formation of a new post-transformative collective order via a new framework which we label the sociology of the public sphere. The possibilities for developing such an approach are discerned in the growing popularity of the neo-institutional paradigm in the social sciences.

Alternacja systemowa. „Dobra zmiana” w perspektywie socjologii sfery publicznej

Author(s): Lech Szczegóła,Mariusz Kwiatkowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

Phenomena and processes that emerged in Poland after the elections in 2015 are the subject of numerous comments. Many authors interpret them in terms of “dismantling” of democracy and weakening the political and cultural foundations of the political system shaped in Poland after 1989. The conceptual apparatus of social science is missing the terminology that would allow allowing to adequately describe the observed change. It features a “turn”, it is an attempt of comprehensive reorientation of the style of the state and its design philosophy .The article presents a proposal for the analysis of this process as a “systemic alternation.” We use this term to refer to a situation in which an alternation of power, which would be natural in democratic realities, constitutes a beginning of a sequence of actions and decisions with the status of evolutionary change of the rules of the political system. Today we observe at least three such cases: Poland, Hungary, and Turkey. This context, together with its many historical analogies, directs attention toward the search for the logics of the processes de-democratization (Huntington 1995; Tilly 2008), authoritarian turns carried out within the democratic system and using its procedures.

Między deklaracjami równego traktowania a realiami wykluczenia. Polityka wobec niepełnosprawności jako przejaw dysfunkcji sfery publicznej

Author(s): Barbara Gąciarz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

This article analyzes the significance of disability as one of the most important social problems of modernity for the public sphere (in the context of Habermas’s conceptualization). It discusses the role of models of disability in shaping the status of this issue in the public sphere and their consequences for the formulation of public policy. Based on a review of the results of research on institutional support mechanisms for people with disabilities in Poland, it formulates a thesis of the axiological fracture of social order in the context of disability. Public policy dysfunctions are a consequence of this phenomenon and have serious implications for the public sphere, which deepen phenomena such as marginalization and social exclusion. The permanent elimination of the axiological fracture can be accomplished through the empowerment of the people with disabilities.

Instytucje totalne dzisiaj: stan badań, krytyka, rekonfiguracje

Author(s): Łukasz Posłuszny / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

Goffman’s concept of total institutions seems to have lost its significance and raises a lot of questions. From the perspective of more than 50 years since the first publication of Asylums, there has been a great deal of confusion surrounding this work. The definition of total institutions itself is fuzzy and ambiguous, applicable to almost any social institution. This article aims at offering a corrected, precise and up-to-date definition of total institutions. It starts with placing the concept in the context of other social studies and its applicability. Then it moves on to reconstruct the critical comments, identifying the weak and strong points of Goffman’s concept. It discusses other alternative theoretical constructs which build on his work. Finally, the author formulates a reconfiguration of the concept.

Wpływ pochodzenia społecznego i czynników merytokratycznych na kapitał społeczny

Author(s): Henryk Domański / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

This paper extends the debate on relationships between social capital and social stratification. Drawing on the longitudinal study based on pupils born in 1992-1993 I investigate the effect of social origin, education and cognitive skills on social capital defined in terms of help expected from friends. I detail the characteristics of these networks across different classes and then explore the ways these networks are affected by family background confronted by educational achievements and abilities related to meritocracy. Evidence suggests that all these variables affect social capital although abilities exert relatively small impact on getting help. According to expectations pupils originating from the upper-middle class families can receive more help than lower class categories that may display an important role of social capital in reproduction of the class structure. At the same time, the net effect of educational level affirms the importance of achievements that maintain openness and counter-vail intergenerational transmission.

Robert Michels jako prekursor socjologii organizacji

Author(s): Radomir Miński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

In Polish academic discourse Robert Michels is quite stereotypically regarded only as one of continuators of Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca, unambiguously associated as “the one from the Iron Law of Oligarchy”. Little-known is a fact, that in the United States Michels is not only considered a pioneer of political sociology, but he is also appreciated for his contribution to sociology of organizations. Furthermore, American scholars regard Michels as the discoverer of the goals-displacement phenomenon. His masterpiece – Political Parties – has become a starting point for many empirical studies on this phenomenon. Scholars of pathologies in the functioning of social organizations have identified the presence of the goals-displacement phenomenon not only in political parties and trade unions, but also in social movements, business corporations, non-governmental organizations and religious groups. The aim of this article is to reconstruct Michels’s contribution to sociology of organization and to draw attention to the universality of the goals-displacement phenomenon in social movements. In conclusion of this article the author asks whether the goals displacement phenomenon affects the European Union as well.

Socjologia ciała, czyli (póki co) teorie dekoracyjne

Author(s): Izabella Bukraba-Rylska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

The sociological interest in the body is defined mainly by the so called Cartesian paradigm, which posits that everything in society and culture (including human bodies and material objects) has only arbitrary qualities. This position negates the existence of prior physical and embodied meanings, which have been studied by late phenomenology and which have been studied by anthropologists (Paul Willis, Kirsten Hastrup). Such theories, focusing on descriptions of social and cultural reconstructions of the body, have been called “decorative theories” by Bryan Turner. The validity of this critique is confirmed by other researchers, who call for a renaturalization of social research and the humanities (Doris Bachmann-Medick, Jürgen Habermas, Ted Benton, and Ian Craib). Recent work by Polish and international scholars allow us to expect a shift in the current sociological paradigm towards one that is materialistic, embodied, and thus naturalist.

Od inspiracji monastycznych do socjologicznych badań nad zakonami i klasztorami

Author(s): Marcin Jewdokimow / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2017

he aim of the paper is to present and discuss selected sociological and other approaches to monastic issues and monastic inspirations. The paper is divided into two parts. Part one focuses on sociological theories in which one may find monastic inspirations: Weber’s, Foucault’s and Parsons’ theories of modernity and Goffman’s total institution. The second part is a review of selected, contemporary texts from emerging subfield of sociology of monasticism. I refer to Jean Séguy, Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Isabelle Jonveaux, Stefania Palmisano and, briefly, to Polish authors.

Geoekonomika głodu i sytości Pułapka rozwojowa państwa narodowego w erze przejścia żywieniowego

Author(s): Michał R. Węsierski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 48/2017

The article is devoted to the influence of the phenomenon of the nutritional transition, and the epiphenomenon causally connected with it – the socio‑economic development and institutional changes taking place in contemporary nation‑states. This paper discusses the most important political, economic and natural costs combined with nutritional transition. The author tries to show the main obstacles to the effective implementation of political decisions on particular areas of social reality, and taken in the situation of rising costs (as a consequence of the deteriorating health condition of citizens and ways of industrial food production) to maintain healthcare systems, pension systems and the protection of the natural environment. The current eating habits and the epidemic of obesity were recognized as a new, yet usually omitted in political science, factor defining long term potential and capability of states and indirectly their position as a subjective actors in international relations.