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Transfers Volume 9, Issue 1, Spring 2019: 1–19 © Transfers
doi:10.3167/TRANS.2019.090102 ISSN: 2045-4813 (print) 2045-4821 (online)
How “Poland Entered Europe”
The Motorway as a Space of Neoliberalism
Waldemar Kuligowski
Abstract
e article surveys a giant infrastructural construction project in Poland: the
A2 motorway, connecting Poznan´ and Warsaw with the P olish-German bor-
der. It was the rst private motorway in Poland, and the biggest European in-
frastructural project, and was realized in a public-private partnership system.
e last section of A2 was opened on 1 December 2011, which can be seen as
a key moment in Polish socioeconomic transformation. I examine it on two
levels: (1) a discourse between government and private investors in which
the motorway was the medium of economic and social development and in-
frastructural “the end” modernization of Poland; (2) practices and opinions
of local communities, living along the new motorway. On the rst level, the
construction of A2 was seen as an impetus for the economic and social devel-
opment of the regions where the motorway was built. But on the second level,
I observe almost universal disappointment and a deep crisis experienced by
local economies.
Keywords: infrastructure policies, modernization, motorway, multi-sited
ethnography, neoliberalism, Poland
At the beginning of the twenty- rst century, Poland was involved in giant
infrastructural construction projects. One was the construction of the A2
motorway, connecting Poznan´ and Warsaw with the Polish-German border
(see Figure 1). It was the rst private motorway in Poland, as well as Europe’s
largest infrastructural project, realized by the public-private partnership
system. e European Investment Bank co nanced the project along with a
consortium of eleven Polish and European banks.1 e one billion euros that
the European Investment Bank invested was the largest loan supporting any
infrastructural project ever realized in Poland.2 Moreover, the Polish govern-
ment also supported the project with the biggest nancial guarantee in its
history since 1989, making it a series of nancial and infrastructural record
breakers.3 For these reasons, I suggest that 1 December 2011, when the last
section of A2 was opened, could be considered one of the most crucial dates
marking political, economic, and social modernization in contemporary Po-
land. In this article, I question the importance of “modernization through the
motorway,” for local communities as well as for the entire country, which had
previously been deprived of any modern road infrastructure. Another ques-
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Waldemar Kuligowski
tion concerns the very idea of modernity, as well as the general framework
that must be perceived in terms of neoliberalism.
Moving Modernizations
e A2 motorway is where, for over three years (2013–2016), I carried out re-
search concerning a project entitled “Moving Modernizations: e In uence
of A2 Motorway on Local Cultural Landscapes.” e project was realized with
the help of many collaborators including university and doctorate level stu-
dents as well as professional researchers. Two problems were of central inter-
est for me: modernization and the motorway.
Undoubtedly, the notion of modernization sounds like an umbrella term.
e current anthropological debate on modernization depicts its many facets,
Figure 1. Route of new motorway, A2, and previous cross-country highway, DK92,
map design Irek Popek.
How “Poland Entered Europe”
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as well as a lack of continuity in the phenomenon. In many works on the sub-
ject, terms such as “multiple modernities,” “disjunctive order” of modernity,
or “limits of metropolitan meta-narration of modernity” can be found.4 Some
social practices—such as “the ritual of withdrawal,” “the shows of unsuc-
cessful transformations,” peasants’ “grouching” and “bellyaching”—should
be treated as essential elements of modernization rather than simply its im-
perfect reverse reactions.5 ere is, and never has been, no such thing as one
“proper” transformation, for such transformations are a product of both in-
stitutional and grassroots changes.6 Actions of self-agency and subjectivity in
the face of changes in living conditions assumes various forms such as hand-
icrafts, semilegal trade, collecting waste materials, gathering the fruits of na-
ture, spontaneous services, rental of land and buildings, and so on. Localized
modernization, as realized in small towns and villages, has bred not only “a
new poverty” but also “a new entrepreneurship.”7 Consequently, we should
examine modernity as being heterogeneous, as well as observe its multiple
and locally di erential phenomenon.
My research area extends over two Polish provinces (Wielkopolska and
Lubuskie) and includes twenty-two towns, villages, and settlements that are
related to the A2 motorway in various ways and that cut across national road
92 (DK92), which was previously the main communication corridor between
Poznan´ and Poland’s western border. My e orts concentrated predominantly
on individual interviews with the inhabitants. However, not all that can be
verbalized has relevance. Keeping this in mind, our team also observed auto-
mobile tra c and customers of roadside pubs and bars, read announcements
placed on bus stops and posts, archived thousands of websites, studied po-
lice and re department reports, and analyzed private and o cial chronicles
stored in libraries, public administrations, and district forestry o ces. How-
ever, above all, we worked with a wide variety of groups of people, includ-
ing local authorities and activists, local entrepreneurs and contractors (e.g.,
owners and directors of motels, roadhouses, bars, brothels, and agritourism
farms), drivers and tourists, owners and workers at petrol stations and mo-
torway service centers, and other inhabitants of selected towns, villages, and
settlements.8
As our research area stretched more than one hundred kilometers, we
faced many challenges, including having to regularly move from place to
place. Although modern mobility dominated the zone, this was, paradoxically,
no easy task, and it entailed our entire team being forced to use bicycles and
taxis, hitchhike, and even to walk along the dangerous waysides, bene ting
from the kindness of people we met along the way. We tried to work follow-
ing the logic of multi-sited ethnography, the concept introduced by George
Marcus.9 At its core, the idea of multi-sited ethnography is rather simple: it
is a move away from Bronisław Malinowski’s single-site-based ethnographic
research and toward a more methodological shift that proposes adapting a
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Waldemar Kuligowski
set of di erent sites and varying connections between them as the central
complex of ethnography. When conducting multi-sited ethnography, spaces
can be geographic, social, or virtual, depending on which ones the researcher
chooses to follow. Marcus wrote that researchers can follow people; a “thing”;
a metaphor, plot, story, or allegory; a life/biography; or con ict. However, the
primary essence of multi-sited ethnography is to follow people, connections,
associations, and relationships across space.
Adapting Marcus’s approach, we followed people, objects, and problems.
We reached out to representatives of di erent locales and met with their key
gures and activists (this included talks with local government o cials, people
engaged in the activities of nongovernmental organizations, police o cers,
re ghters, priests, forest district employees, teachers, library employees,
culture center overseers, representatives of farmers’ wives’ associations, cur-
rent and former village administrators), local businesspeople (owners of ho-
tels, bars, nightclubs, shops, car parks, a pallet purchasing center, car washes;
people conducting di erent types of services, even including those selling
garden gnomes), and their employees (from petrol station directors to peo-
ple running public toilets). Moreover, we reached out to people employed in
motorway maintenance centers, tollbooths, motorway construction workers,
truck and bus drivers, immigrant workers, tourists, and the “common” inhab-
itants of various towns.
e area of our research ultimately encompassed the 170-kilometer-long
motorway connecting the Polish-German border in Słubice with Poznan´.
e most intensive terrain research was conducted in and around towns and
villages of various sizes, from S
´wiebodzin with twenty-two thousand inhabi-
tants to Jarosławiec with around a dozen people. is included studying the
inhabitants’ social structure, institutional and cultural setting, and public
infrastructure quality. Despite these di erences, the speci c roadside aes-
thetics and economy remained a connecting factor. e landscape of what is
mostly small villages is characterized by establishments catering to long-dis-
tance transportation and tourist industries (motels, hotels, petrol stations,
bars, restaurants, nightclubs) and motorway service stops, the operation of
which revolves around automobility (purchasing pallets, tractors, or trailers;
stations dealing with the repair of satnav or retreading; service stations; car
washes), warehouses, or shipping and logistical centers.
What do we see when observing a motorway? According to Polish law,
“a motorway is a public road with limited access that is designated for mo-
tor vehicles only and is marked with at least two continuous lanes in each
direction that are divided by a barrier. ey have no one-level interchanges
with any of the intersecting roads or with land and water transport. ey are
equipped with roadside rest areas, which are intended only for users on the
motorway.”10 Motorways are perceived as important elements of a modern
infrastructure—on regional, national, and continental levels. e A2 motor-
How “Poland Entered Europe”
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way became a part of the European motorway network and a local link in the
framework of road E30 from Cork, Ireland, to Omsk, Russia.
What more can we see? According to Tim Edensor, “everyday habitual
performances of driving” take place in “mundane motorscapes.”11 Looking at
a motorway, we see high fences, white stripes on the road, and sometimes
petrol stations, tollbooths, road signs, and the like. ey could be referred to
as “non-places” without permanent inhabitants and without their own local
identity. According to Marc Augé’s insightful formula, “If place can be de ned
as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which can-
not be de ned as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a
non-place”12.
Aug é de ned this term in opposition to the classical notion of an “anthro-
pological place,” which was built around “belonging,” inferring a speci c kind
of homology between peoples, practices, and places. e notion of “non-
places” describes a situation in which peoples, practices, and places are dis-
persed, and people act without reference to their common history or cultural
experience. ey are spaces for “circulation, communication, and consump-
tion.” e distinctive examples of non-places—such as motorways—can be
found in relation to mobility as a main human activity. In Augé’s model of su-
permodernity, a person is reduced to becoming a toll of mobility in transna-
tional space: “He becomes no more than what he does or experiences in the
role of passenger, customer or driver.”13 e concept of “non-places” suggests
that the modern infrastructure—especially motorways—are places devoid of
history and identity and are not stimulating for cultural researchers.
However, perceiving motorways as simply non-places is a grave mistake.14
is view reduces their meanings, functions, and dimensions. People who
use motorways are more than passengers, drivers, or customers: they are also
inhabitants, tourists, migrants, workers, employers, owners of motels or ho-
tels, hitchhikers, and others. I suggest that a motorway is an anthropological
place with its own sets of isomorphisms between culture, history, identity,
economy, and—not least—landscape. Moreover, I argue that a motorway is a
speci c space. Like Doreen Massey, I perceive space as a product of relations
between people, places, and things. According to Massey, we should under-
stand space in terms of “an emergent product of relations” and as “the di-
mension of multiple trajectories, a simultaneity of stories-so-far”; space must
be acknowledged to be always under construction, always in the process of
being made.15 I embrace this perspective because a motorway is a real space
with real people and its own problems.
e focal point of my research was the A2 motorway with its neighboring
parking spaces, service centers, tollbooths, intersecting bridges, overpasses,
and trestles, as well as its tra c lights, noise, pollution, and tra c regula-
tions. A2 might be perceived as a material object, but it should primarily be
viewed as a coinhabitant of the local universe with its people and animals.
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Waldemar Kuligowski
It is accompanied by national road 92 (DK92), which, before the motorway
was opened for use, was the busiest land route from Wielkopolska and cen-
tral Poland to Germany. e uniform infrastructural landscape of A2 and the
roadside spontaneity of DK92 are two opposite poles in the scene where the
local variations of “moving modernizations” have emerged. DK92 is a place
where war is waged for the attention of drivers and other tra c participants.
In fact, some of the attention-grabbing businesses include neon-lit night-
clubs, a hotel—Poland’s largest—in the shape of a pyramid (Figure 2), petrol
stations surrounded by fake palm trees (Figure 3), supersize plastic dinosaur
gures, a roadside zoological garden with a runway for ostriches, the gigantic
Monument of Christ the King (the world’s largest monument of Jesus Christ
as of its completion date), dozens of amboyant billboards, signs, and so on16
(Figure 4).
After the opening of a new section of the A2 motorway and the other global,
political, and economic processes involved, the examined area was clearly
a ected by numerous discernable yet varying transformations from the very
beginning. Until recently, the towns were located along what was the main
transit road connecting East and West and could bene t from the automobile
tra c resulting from modernization and expansion of the mobility infrastruc-
ture and deferred, post-transformative e ect. With the opening of A2, the in-
habitants were forced to invent new economic strategies and reevaluate the
Figure 2. Piramida Horusa Hotel, Nevada Center, Poz´ rzadło, Lubuskie Province,
photo by Mariusz Forecki
All photographs from author’s collection
How “Poland Entered Europe”
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approach to their locales in a new transit-centered setting. e multidimen-
sional transformation caused by these changes and the theoretical growth of
the potential of mobility provoked by A2’s presence made us treat the socio-
economic processes, which I have had the opportunity to closely observe, as
equivocal. at is, the regimes governing them, the discourses surrounding
them, and their resulting manifestations—as well as the manner of ascribing
Figure 3. Las Vegas Center, Mostki, Lubuskie Province, photo by author.
Figure 4. Roadside plastic animals, Miedzichowo, Wielkopolska Province, photo by
author.
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Waldemar Kuligowski
value, their experiencing, and their utilizing modernization—all turned out
to be important aspects for understanding the current socioeconomic condi-
tions in this part of Poland.
Whose Ceremony?
In this section, I would like to focus on one level of this infrastructural project
and its consequences: the o cial discourse created by investors and the Pol-
ish government, de ning the motorway in categories of economic and social
development and as a de nitive end toward Polish modernization. On the
rst level, the construction of the A2 motorway could be seen as Poland’s -
nal stage in joining a united Europe. It was also intended to provide a strong
impetus for the economic and social development of the regions where the
motorway was being built. In this context, I use “modernization through the
motorway.”17
Recent Polish modernization has a strong political dimension. On 4 June
2014, A2 was dubbed the Motorway of Freedom (the German side was called
Autobahn der Freiheit). Polish President Bronisław Komorowski and German
President Joachim Gauck attended the ceremony. e presidents unveiled
a plaque with the motorway’s name and planted a tree. In his speech, Ko-
morowski said that the Motorway of Freedom “connects and will connect not
only as a transport route, but also in terms of mutual friendship and respect.”
Gauck described his visit to Poland as “a kind of pilgrimage,” serving as a re-
minder that “we regained our freedom and it all began here in Warsaw.”18 e
tree planted by both presidents—the Oak of Freedom—marked the twenty-
fth anniversary of the fall of Communism. Tolls for using A2 were symboli-
cally waived on this day.
It should be emphasized that A2’s construction was part of the process of
modernizing Poland’s road infrastructure. e importance of the motorway’s
construction can only be fully understood in the historical context of the lack
of roads and low density of cars prevalent in socialist (and even pre-socialist)
Poland. Postwar Poland was a destroyed country, with a devastated infrastruc-
ture and practically devoid of motorways. e existing fragments were parts of
the previously built latitudinal sections. Most were the result of investments
carried out by the ird Reich in areas incorporated into Poland in 1945.19 A
few decades later, in connection with the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow
and the accompanying project for the construction of transit roads, work on
the Wrzes´nia-Konin motorway commenced, along with a few short, scattered
sections of highways. Earlier, in October 1976, the Warsaw-Katowice express-
way (almost three hundred kilometers long) was o cially opened. e entire
length was equipped with two parallel roadways and bypasses to most cities
and was considered a symbol of modernization of Poland in the 1970s.
How “Poland Entered Europe”
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We have an interesting paradox here: socialism perceived itself as a mod-
ern ideology, but it was modernity without mobility—without a free ow of
people and without an advanced road infrastructure.20 Consequently, the
idea of mobility and possessing an automobile exempli ed the tension be-
tween the dominant ideological imperatives and the aspirations of ordinary
people. For most Polish citizens, an automobile represented a ticket to per-
sonal freedom and an element belonging to the imagined consumer paradise
of the West. e “socialist car” and the socialist roads can be perceived as the
result of a compromise between the o cial ideology of modernity, available
resources, and the desires of ordinary citizens.21
Just before the opening of the new motorway, Janusz Kalin´ski, an econo-
mist and a historian, described the history of Polish motorways as a “real or-
deal.”22 In response, Jan Kulczyk, chair of the supervisory board of Autostrada
Wielkopolska (the main company engaged in building and operating A2), for-
mulated a special message:
It is a great success of the Poles, including hundreds of people, companies and
institutions, who have consequently and professionally supported the realiza-
tion of a dream that we had almost 20 years ago. Connecting the Wielkopolska
Province and the whole country via a supermodern motorway with the rest
of Europe is the nal point in the important stage of the transformation pro-
cess. e A2 motorway will boost the economic development of its transit re-
gions and open the door for foreign tourists and investors. is motorway is
also creating a new standard for implementation of very complex international
projects, which are implemented long before their deadlines and within their
budgets. We performed our task reliably for the bene t of the generations to
come.23
Kulczyk was a highly successful Polish executive whom Forbes magazine for
many years ranked as the richest Pole. He was very in uential in the construc-
tion process of the motorway, including raising funds, and was the main pri-
vate investor in constructing A2.24 During the o cial ceremony of opening
the last section of A2, Kulczyk sententiously announced that on “1 December
2011, Poland entered Europe.”25
ree years later, Polityka, Poland’s most popular and opinion-forming
weekly, published an interview with President Komorowski entitled “ ere’s
No Freedom without Modernization.”26 e paper’s title is meaningful. Dur-
ing the past decade, especially after the Union of European Football Asso-
ciations European Championship in 2012, the discourse on modernization
gained momentum in Poland and has been dominated by announcements of
the modernization of its infrastructure as an ultimate goal. Mobility, and the
possibility of smooth travel, was perceived as an important way of belonging
to today’s modern Western society. New motorways were a crucial symbol in
this context. is was also intended to be a strong impulse for the economic
and social development of the regions where the motorways were being built.
10 • Transfers • Volume 9 Issue 1 • Spring 2019
Waldemar Kuligowski
It is worth noting that in November 2010, the Deal of the Year was awarded
in London to the nancing, construction, and operation of the A2 section
reaching the German border. e committee of experts and journalists of
Jane’s Transport Finance who were responsible for granting the award ac-
knowledged the fast pace of the process and the complexity of the project.
Robert Nowak, vice president of nance of the Concession Company that was
building A2, stated: “Within less than two months we succeeded in clinching
a deal worth 1.6 billion Euro. It was an unprecedented pace of the process,
which will permit us to open the road to tra c before the 2012 EURO champi-
onships.” Zo a Kwiatkowska, spokesperson of the concession company, said,
“ e new section of the motorway will be of tremendous importance to the
country’s economy by way of facilitating the trade exchange and mobility be-
tween Poland and Germany.”27
In the context of this type of opinion, it is not surprising that government
policy and the investor’s ambitions were intended as a response to public
expectations.28 A 2011 survey held by PBS DGA, at the request of On Board
Public Relations Ecco Network, shows that 75 percent of Poles considered in-
vestments in road infrastructure a priority for the coming decade.29 And when
the Wielkopolska branch of Gazeta Wyborcza, one of Poland’s most in uen-
tial daily newspapers, announced a poll in 2014 that asked readers to select
the most important event of the past quarter-century (1989–2014), rst place
was claimed by the construction of the A2 motorway. is event was consid-
ered more important to the Wielkopolska region than was any cultural festi-
val or even Pope John Paul II’s visit to Poznan´. e newspaper said: “Poznan´
citizens waited almost twenty years to be able to smoothly travel from Poznan´
to both capital cities [Berlin and Warsaw], and nally, Poznan´ has been inte-
grated with Europe.” And a local political scientist said, “ e motorway be-
stows upon us a special sense of being between the East and the West,” while
one local businessperson claimed, “ e motorway is of crucial importance to
business.”30
Contradictions of Infrastructure
However, that is only the o cial side of the coin. On another level, I also ob-
served strong disappointment and a sense of exclusion from participation in
A2’s promised development and bene ts. I can a rmatively state that the
new motorway caused a multitude of economic, cultural, and social conse-
quences that transformed the local landscape. Major changes a ected two
speci c areas: communes through which A2 was built, and communes lo-
cated within the area of DK92, which lost its status of being the main thor-
oughfare. A dramatic qualitative transformation has a ected the latter area.
Towns that until only recently had been located along what was a transit road
How “Poland Entered Europe”
Transfers • Volume 9 Issue 1 • Spring 2019 • 11
and pro ted from vehicle tra c in numerous ways have now been deprived
of this ow of income by the motorway. “ e trauma of a big change” took
place, consisting in an unexpected degradation of an external, faultless, and
rapid nature.31
Before the inauguration of the A2 motorway, nearly all small, local busi-
nesses were near DK92. ese businesses consisted of bars, restaurants, mo-
tels, workshops, nightclubs, gas stations, car parks, car washes, convenience
stores, and groundcover, handicraft, and garden decoration stands (including
sellers of the famous garden gnomes). A vast tra c of trucks, personal cars,
and coaches had previously provided a constant ow of clients and money.
Both Polish citizens and foreigners were customers. Illegal activities also be-
came a part of the normalized local landscape, including prostitution, selling
of stolen fuel, and smuggling (of goods and people). e constant and heavy
tra c on DK92 brought with it both a ow of money and a wave of crime. Au-
thorities also reported a signi cant number of tra c accidents. Nevertheless,
local communities saw all these conditions as “natural” and even favorable.
e opening ceremony of A2 disturbed this well-established “normality.”
Consequently, the movement of people and cars decreased. e motorway
took over most of the transfer, depriving the local population of their pro t.
Big companies, with gas stations and restaurants chains, dominated the ser-
vice infrastructure. Small retail businesses and services were excluded beyond
the motorway’s barrier, so a good part of local businesses fell or came close to
bankruptcy. Hotels are now owned mostly by families. Many original busi-
ness ideas such as dancing events for drivers have failed. In general, only the
poorest of users continued to tra c DK92—those who cannot or do not want
to pay the toll for driving on the motorway nor desire to spend their money
on bars and motels. From the perspective of local inhabitants, the motorway
seems to be a black hole that has swallowed their money and customers, as
well as the energy, ideas, and inspiration of the local businesses. e old traf-
c jams, heavy 24/7 tra c, and even roadside prostitutes that were once the
source of complaint are now remembered with nostalgia. As one inhabitant
of the village located by DK92 noted: “ ere are no jobs, and the young run
away. When this was the main road, tra c was bigger and everything on the
road prospered.”32 Now, instances of successful new businesses or even peo-
ple nding a new line of work along DK 92 are rare. Frustration and a lack
of perspective have become the dominant experience. A construction worker
(temporarily employed in renovation) summed it up in an uncompromising
manner: “We’ve got shit here. e motorway gave us nothing and took every-
thing away from us. It doesn’t really matter. ere is no more work, no new
perspectives. On DK92 everything has died.”33
Moreover, the motorway is perceived as an alien object in a normal and
naturalized landscape, as well as an experience in terms of extraterritorial-
ity. One clear sign of extraterritoriality is its high fence, which plays a leading
12 • Transfers • Volume 9 Issue 1 • Spring 2019
Waldemar Kuligowski
role in the story about Chociszewo village. e motorway was built no more
than half a kilometer from the local farms. ere is also a McDonald’s with a
McCafé and a modern Gym & Fun playroom. e complex was quite an at-
traction for the local people, but the entire complex is fenced with a net and
a secure gate and is inaccessible to the villagers. e young people from Cho-
ciszewo must climb over the fence to enter—unless they have a friend working
a shift who, if the matter is arranged beforehand, can sneak them in through
the gate. Moreover, rumor has it that “someone” from the motorway side has
been lubricating the upper part of the net with used motor oil—to ght o the
“intruders from the outside.” Obviously, the elder generation will not climb
over the fence. One resident remarked how much the local people wished
they could simply cycle to the drive-thru on a Sunday afternoon, order a take-
away, and cycle back home. But they have no hopes for dialogue, despite how
much the children from the village would like to go with their parents to the
Gym & Fun, as this type of place is very di cult to nd in rural areas.34
is alienation has several di erent sources: economic, infrastructural,
and social. For many drivers, the A2 toll is too high, particularly when an al-
ternative route (DK92) is available free of charge. According to drivers pay-
ing to access A2, a large toll cannot be justi ed, as the motorway is neither
accompanied by a local infrastructure nor comfortable to use. is is the
primary reason for rejecting its use. Another is the lack of a proper infrastruc-
ture: many drivers do not like McDonald’s, and no other restaurant chain was
granted a license to operate along the motorway. For many, the restaurant’s
menu and layout are not satisfying. During their stops, travelers are usually
tired and want to relax, which is nearly impossible at a McDonald’s because
of the many customers and ongoing noise. Many of the travelers simply do not
like fast food. Finally, the restaurant stigmatizes the drivers’ casual dress. Driv-
ers also complain about the impersonal atmosphere. e opinion of a local
o cial can be considered typical: “I spoke with a Ukrainian truck driver who
told me why people like him don’t use the motorways: they can’t have a good
meal, wash their vehicle, or nd a girl.”35 A Lithuanian truck driver added an
important point: “Polish motorways are good but expensive, so I use DK92.”36
Faced with motorway tolls and an infrastructure dominated by international
corporations, many drivers still prefer DK92. ey openly say they need no
“luxuries” but just somewhere to park and a place to take a shower. Finding
prostitutes working on the new motorway, which is an important part of some
drivers’ work-rest cycle, is also di cult.
It is worth noting that the local population feels the same: the motorway is
too expensive, and there are no decent places to stop. Social relations proved
to be most important. Many drivers take their stops and return to the same
places where they already feel comfortable and welcome. A waiter from the
Pod Sosenka˛ [Under Little Pine] restaurant noticed this need for socializing:
“We have always had di erent customers: Poles, Russians, but also English-
How “Poland Entered Europe”
Transfers • Volume 9 Issue 1 • Spring 2019 • 13
men. Most of them come back. I know their faces; we chat, and they like to
show me pictures of their growing kids.”37 During my eld research, I ob-
served many examples of such familiarity: drivers and the sta of markets or
restaurants and bars address each other by their rst names, are friendly with
one another, and talk about their health and family a airs. ese custom-
ers often have regular habits: their favorite dishes, tables, or kind of co ee.
When the sta know this, they can satisfy such needs, and both sides bene t.
Such behavior ensures psychological comfort and helps form social bonds.
Unfortunately, nding such familiarity is not possible within the motorway
infrastructure.
As in the case of economic conditions, the cultural consequences of oper-
ating the A2 motorway can also change. My studies describe its present state,
as the motorway is still a symbolic “alien.” However, some current phenomena
suggest that the economic importance and cultural status of A2 will change.
Some members of local communities—ironically, especially the mothers with
small children—admit that they have become accustomed to the noise of the
motorway. Some even claim that the noise helps them sleep. Paradoxically,
even animals have become accustomed to the motorway. Initially, they did not
use the underpasses built for them, as they were afraid of the noise and lights of
cars. Recently, however, roadside surveillance has shown an increased activity
of fauna, including crossing passes. It can be concluded that the local ecosys-
tem has adapted to the motorway—and in some cases, faster than people.
e new infrastructure has caused many changes, while the old infra-
structure has changed as well. Historically, “infrastructure” meant roads
and irrigation systems, but with the rise of modern transportation and com-
munication systems, the new technological understanding of this term has
changed. Today, it “refer[s] to the basic structures, facilities, and services that
are needed for the (smooth) functioning of a country or organization . . . .
ey include transportation and communication systems, water and power
systems, and public institutions such as schools and hospitals.”38 Rather than
considering their technological characteristics, social anthropologists focus
on how people view, use, understand, and experience infrastructure and the
e ects it has on people’s lives.39 Infrastructure provides the framework within
which people can, or cannot, act, develop their entrepreneurship, and hope
for a better life (as well as a mobile and neoliberal life). For the development
of infrastructure, it is important that the locally constructed systems are in-
terlinked, standardized, coordinated, and adapted to local socioeconomic
conditions. Such things as connections with large systems (international mo-
torways, national roads, internet portals), adaptation to local requirements
(arranging “green schools” or trainings in bars, motels, etc.), and standardiza-
tion (striving for higher standards, which can match Western standards) have
become key reasons for tension, con ict, and “the trauma of the big change
e ect” from A2 in western Poland.
14 • Transfers • Volume 9 Issue 1 • Spring 2019
Waldemar Kuligowski
Concluding Remarks
e starting point of our research, its pretext, the area it covered, and its point
of reference is the A2 motorway, the last section of which was released for use
on 1 December 2011. However, this “modernization holiday,” which was cel-
ebrated by investors and central authorities and even spawned an orchestra
piece entitled Fanfares to A2 (composed by Academy Award winner Jan A. P.
Kaczmarek), was not accepted by everyone. It quickly turned out that the in-
frastructure does not solve the most pressing problems of local communities,
such as unemployment or lack of perspective,40 which have become even
more pressing, as they are experienced in proximity to a giant investment. A
motorway infrastructure can a ect the economy in several ways: it can enable
producers to reach markets more cheaply, increase the speed with which pro-
ducers can reach markets or inputs, enable workers to choose among a wider
array of employment opportunities, and give consumers a greater variety of
goods, services, and prices. But not all motorway infrastructure produce these
outcomes in the same way. Some mainly service international users, produc-
ers, and companies, not the local communities. Obviously, infrastructure pro-
vides an important framework within which people can, or cannot, act, but a
pure infrastructure is not enough.
In the context of A2, the phenomenon of “clashing scales”—described
by omas Hylland Eriksen in terms of a “qualitative shift” in ows of capi-
tal, modes of employment, and new forms of consumer marke—is only one
problem.41 Another is the recent Polish modernization that I de ned earlier
as modernization through the motorway. Following the poetic perspective
of Allen Ginsberg, it could be said: “What sphinx of cement and aluminum
hacked open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? Moloch
whose buildings are judgement!”42 Marshall Berman wrote about modernity
through the motorway in a more conventional and academic way: “Sic transit!
To be modern turned out to be far more problematical, and more perilous,
than I had been taught.”43
In conclusion, I would like to return to the dimension of nancing the A2
motorway. As mentioned, it was a giant project supported by a large consor-
tium of international banks and nancial agencies, as well as the Polish gov-
ernment. ey presented the construction of A2 as a happy event and a festival
of modernization. However, for most local businesspeople, A2 has been noth-
ing less than catastrophic. eir small shops along DK92 selling mushrooms,
asparagus, wicker works, and objects of small wooden architecture no longer
have customers. What was formerly the main transit corridor from Poznan´
to the West now has become nothing more than an outlying road. ey have
no access to the new motorway’s area, where there is only space for big inter-
national companies. e spokesperson of the concession company in charge
of construction stated, “ e new section of the motorway will be of tremen-
How “Poland Entered Europe”
Transfers • Volume 9 Issue 1 • Spring 2019 • 15
dous importance to the country’s economy by way of facilitating the trade ex-
change and mobility between Poland and Germany.” In other words, if you
have a motorway, you should be happy because a motorway means positive
change and money. Before A2 became known as the Motorway of Freedom,
it was described as a motorway of modernity, mobility, and progress—at least
from the perspective of the o cial politico-economic discourse that domi-
nated Poland at the time.
In November 2016, I presented selected eld materials to a wider audi-
ence in the Hotel Nevada, located near A2. We invited representatives of local
authorities, business leaders, members of nongovernmental organizations,
journalists, and so on. At the end of the presentation, I asked them why they
don’t like the A2 motorway. ey said many things, but the most common
opinions focused on money, the local natural environment, and the elusive
phantom of progress. For many, motorway tolls are too high, so they don’t
use it; for others, the motorway—with its cars, continuous noise, and tra c —
seems to pose a real danger to the natural local environment. Almost all were
convinced that the motorway took customers from the local hotels, shops,
motels, and bars. As someone told me: “No tra c, no money.”
As I mentioned earlier, Samuel Eisenstadt’s notion of “multiple moderni-
ties” goes against the classical (Marx, Weber, Durkheim) theories of modern-
ization. Eisenstadt also suggested that one of the most important implications
of this notion is that modernity is not “identical” and that there is no one and
only “authentic” way of modernity and modernization.44 Particularly, the Pol-
ish idea of “modernization through the motorway” is an argument that con-
rms Eisenstadt’s thesis. In the case of A2, the new road infrastructure is an
agent of multiple transformations far away from idea of progress associated
with classical modernization. As I have emphasized, A2—constructed in the
framework of a public-private partnership system—was presented as a mod-
ern gate to a better future and a more modernized Europe, but today it’s a
tool of the neoliberal order. According to David Harvey: “ e fundamental
mission of neoliberal-state is to create a ‘good business climate’ . . . . Public-
private partnerships are favored in which public sector bears all of the risk
and the corporate sector reaps all of the pro t.”45 Consequently, the A2 motor-
way should be viewed as a very expensive infrastructural project and a strong
metaphor for neoliberal modernization.
Waldemar Kuligowski is a professor at the Department of Ethnology and
Cultural Anthropology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan´. He is
editor-in-chief of “Czas Kultury” [Time of Culture], Polish socio-cultural
quarterly. His research interests focus on the theory of culture, re exive eth-
nography, anthropology of motorway and festivals and festivalization. He
has conducted eldwork in Poland, Hungary, Germany, Uzbekistan, Spain,
16 • Transfers • Volume 9 Issue 1 • Spring 2019
Waldemar Kuligowski
Serbia, and Albania. He has published dozens of books, some as co-editor,
including Art in Contemporary Cultural systems: Central and Eastern Europe,
Poznan´ 2014; Sterile and Isolated? An Anthropology Today in Hungary and
Poland, Poznan´ 2015; Cultures of Motorway. Localities through Mobility as an
Anthropological Issue, Poznan´ 2016.
Email: walkul@amu.edu.pl
Notes
Research for this article was funded by the National Center for Science for the project
“Moving Modernizations: e In uence of the A2 Motorway on Local Cultural Land-
scapes” (NCN OPUS grant no. 218958). All translations in this article are my own un-
less otherwise indicated.
1. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Bank Pekao, BRE Bank (now mBank), Caja
Madrid, Calyon, Deutsche Bank, Espirito Santo Investment, KfW IPEX-Bank,
Powszechna Kasa Oszcze˛dnos´ci Bank Polski, Societe Generale, and WestLB.
2. “Budowa i eksploatacja autostrady płatnej A2 z Nowego Tomys´la do S
´wiecka:
Studium przypadku” [ e construction and exploitation of toll road A2 from
Nowy Tomys´l to S
´wiecko: A case study], 2011, accessed 4 March 2017, http://www
.ppportal.pl/artykuly-polskie/budowa-i-eksploatacja-autostrady-platnej-a2-z-
nowego-tomysla-do-swiecka-studium-przypadku.
3. Michał Matys, “Dr Kulczyk majster-styk” [Dr. Kulczyk as a kind of trickster] Gazeta
Wyborcza, 22 July 2000, http://wyborcza.pl/1,75398,18449871,dr-kulczyk-maj
ster-styk.html.
4. Samuel N. Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities,” Daedalus 129, no. 1 (2000): 1–29;
Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Min-
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Harri Englund and James Leach,
“Ethnography and Meta-narratives of Modernity,” Current Anthropology 41, no. 2
(2000): 225–248.
5. Roch Sulima, “O rytualnych formach komunikacji społecznej” [On ritual forms
of social communication], Przegla˛d Humanistyczny 47, no. 6 (2003): 133–139;
Piotr Ke
˛dziorek, “Chłopskie zrze
˛dzenie” [On peasants’ grouching], Konteksty:
Polska Sztuka Ludowa 1–2 (1996): 114–123; Michał Buchowski, Klasa i kultura w
okresie transformacji: Antropologiczne studium przypadku społecznos´ci lokalnej
w Wielkopolsce [Class and culture in a time of transformation: An anthropological
case study of the local community in Wielkopolska] (Poznan´: Drawa, 1996).
6. Anna Giza-Poleszczuk, Mirosława A. Marody, and Andrzej Strategie i system: Po-
lacy w obliczu zmiany społecznej [Strategies and system: Poles in the face of social
change] (Warszawa: Instytut Filozo i i Socjologii PAN, 2000).
7. Elz˙bieta Tarkowska, “O dawnej i obecnej biedzie w Polsce” [Old and new poverty
in Poland], in Zrozumiec´ biednego: O dawnej i obecnej biedzie w Polsce, ed. Elz˙bi-
eta Tarkowska (Warszawa: Instytut Filozo i i Socjologii PAN, 2000), 49–60.
8. Waldemar Kuligowski and Agata Stanisz, “On the Road: Polish Modernization
from the Perspective of the Anthropology of the Motorway,” in Rethinking Eth-
How “Poland Entered Europe”
Transfers • Volume 9 Issue 1 • Spring 2019 • 17
nography in Central Europe, ed. Hana C
´ervinkova, Zdenek Uherek, and Michał
Buchowski (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 175–193.
9. George E. Marcus, “Ethnography in/of the World System: e Emergence of
Multi-sited Ethnography,” Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995): 95–117;
George E. Marcus, Ethnography through ick and in (Princeton, NJ: Prince-
ton University Press, 1998). See also Simon Coleman and Pauline von Hellerman,
eds., Multi-sited Ethnography: Problems and Possibilities in the Translocation on
Research Methods (New York: Routledge, 2011).
10. “Obwieszczenie Marszałka Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z dnia 23 sierpnia
2016 r. w sprawie ogłoszenia jednolitego tekstu ustawy o drogach publicznych”
[Announcement of the Speaker of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland of 23 Au-
gust 2016 regarding the publication of a uniform text of the Act on Public Roads],
9 September 2016, Dziennik Ustaw 2016, poz. 1440, http://isap.sejm.gov.pl/
DetailsServlet?id=WDU20160001440.
11. Tim Edensor, “Automobility and National Identity: Representation, Geography
and Driving Practice,” eory, Culture and Society 21 (2004): 101–120.
12. Marc Augé, Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity,
trans. John Howe, (New York: Verso, 1995), 77–78.
13. Ibid., 103.
14. For more, see Peter Merriman, “Driving Places: Marc Augé, Non-places, and the
Geographies of England’s M1 Motorway,” eory, Culture and Society 21, nos. 4–5
(2004): 145–167; Marco Lazzari, “ e Role of Social Networking Services to Shape
the Double Virtual Citizenship of Young Immigrants in Italy,” in Proceedings of
the IADIS International Conference on ICT, Society and Human Beings 2012, ed.
Gunilla Bradley, Diane Whitehouse, and Angela Lin (Lisbon: International Asso-
ciation for Development of the Information Society, 2012), 11–18; Maximiliano
E. Korstanje, “Philosophical Problems in the eory of Non-place: Marc Augé,”
International Journal of Qualitative Research in Services 2, no. 2 (2015): 85–98.
15. Doreen Massey, For Space (London: Sage Publications, 2005), 24.
16. e Monument of Christ the King was built, located, and consecrated in
S
´wiebodzin, a town in the western part of Poland with twenty-two thousand in-
habitants. It is also an important junction for railways and motorways, as national
roads no. 2 (from the S
´wiecko border crossing to Germany, to the Terespol border
crossing to Belarus) and no. 3 (from S
´winoujs´cie, north of Poland, to Jakuszyce,
the Czech Republic border crossing) intersect. S
´wiebodzin is also located halfway
between Poznan´ and Berlin. e monument is easily visible from the S3 express
road (and is supposedly visible from Zielona Góra, forty kilometers away). The
originator of the monument—the spiritus movens behind its construction, height,
and nal shape, its location, and its meaningfulness—was the Catholic priest
Sylwester Zawadzki. He decided that the giant statue should stand almost half-
way between Berlin and Poznan´ , on the junction of important national roads, with
thousands of people driving by every day. For these people, the monument has
become a reminder that there are things beyond their present destination. Walde-
mar Kuligowski, “33 Meters of Sacrum: e Analysis of Discourses Surround-
ing the Statue of Christ the King of the Universe in S
´wiebodzin,” in Art in Con-
temporary Cultural Systems: Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Waldemar Kuli-
18 • Transfers • Volume 9 Issue 1 • Spring 2019
Waldemar Kuligowski
gowski and Adam Pomiecin´ ski (Poznan´: Wydawnictwo Nauka i Innowacje, 2014):
137–148.
17. Kuligowski and Stanisz, “On the Road,” 177.
18. “Polish and German Presidents Open Freedom Motorway,” 4 June 2014, President
of the Republic of Poland, http://www.president.pl/en/president-komorowski/
news/art,641,polish-and-german-presidents-open-freedom-motorway.html.
19. Stanisław Koziarski, Rozwój przestrzenny sieci autostrad na s´wiecie [Spatial devel-
opment of the motorway’s network in the world] (Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwer-
sytetu Opolskiego, 2004).
20. Kathy Burrell and Kathrin Hörschelmann, eds., Mobilities in Socialist and Post-
Socialist States: Societies on the Move (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
21. Lewis H. Siegelbaum, ed., e Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011).
22. Janusz Kalin´ski, Autostrady w Polsce czyli drogi przez me
˛ke
˛ [Motorways in Po-
land: A real ordeal] (Łódz´: Ksie
˛z˙y Młyn Dom Wydawniczy, 2010.
23. “106 km of the New Motorway Straight to Europe,” Autostrada Wielkopolska
press release, 30 November 2011, https://www.autostrada-a2.pl/press:106+km+
of+the+new+motorway+straight+to+Europe,95.
24. I should note that the situation of crisis and disintegration created numerous
forms of verbal aggression toward Kulczyk. Complaints, curses, accusations of
corruption, and focusing only on his own interests constituted the main elements
of this stigmatizing narrative. is was an important element of “local knowl-
edge.” Jan Kulczyk died in Vienna on 29 July 2015. He was sixty- ve. His death was
unexpected and the result of a routine medical treatment.
25. “Raz, z˙e najnowoczes´niejsza autostrada w Polsce, A2, z˙e betonowa” [First of all
it is the most modern motorway in Poland, A2, and it’s concrete], Polski Ce-
ment, 1 December 2011, http://www.polskicement.pl/aktualnosci/Raz_ze_najno
woczesniejsza_autostrada_w_Polsce_A2_ze_betonowa-203.
26. “‘Nie ma wolnos´ci bez nowoczesnos´ci’” [“ ere’s no freedom without modern-
ization”], President of the Republic of Poland, 3 May 2014, http://www.prezyd
ent.pl/archiwum-bronislawa-komorowskiego/aktualnosci/wydarzenia/art,
2891,nie-ma-wolnosci-bez-nowoczesnosci.html.
27. “European Road Deal of the Year Goes to the Financing of Construction and Op-
eration of A2 Motorway Section S
´wiecko–Nowy Tomys´l (106 km),” Autostrada
Wielkopolska press release, 27 November 2010, https://www.autostrada-a2.pl/
press:European+Road+Deal+of+The+Year+goes+to+the+financing+of+cons
truction+and+operation+of+A2+Motorway+Section+%C5%9Awiecko+-+Nowy+
Tomy%C5%9Bl+(106+km),83.
28. It is worth noting that the A2 motorway became an artistic inspiration. Works
about it include a disco polo (a very popular genre of dance music) song by the
Saturn Band titled “Autobana” recorded in 2012; On the Road between Poznan´-
S
´wiecko, an artistic lm by Anna Raczyn´ski; Autobahn der Freiheit, a photography
series by Mateusz Skóra, a regionalist from Frankfurt (Oder) who organizes trips
that follow the paths of the rst Nazi investments along the stretch of land where
the motorway is located today; and the song “Autostrada A2 na nowo,” the trans-
lator Filip Łobodzin´ski’s Polish-language rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61
Revisited.”
How “Poland Entered Europe”
Transfers • Volume 9 Issue 1 • Spring 2019 • 19
29. “Komu potrzebne sa˛ autostrady? Najwaz˙niejsze obszary inwestycji w infrastruk-
ture
˛ komunikacyjna˛ według Polaków” [Who needs motorways? e most im-
portant areas of investment in communication infrastructure by Poles], On Board
Public Relations Ecco Network periodical report, August 2011, http://www.on
board.pl/data/ le/pdf/raport_komu_potrzebne_sa_autostrady.pdf.
30. Natalia Mazur, “Wygrała autostrada” [Won the motorway], Gazeta Wyborcza, 14
February 2014, 1.
31. Piotr Sztompka, “Cultural Trauma: e Other Face of Social Change,” European
Journal of Social eory, no. 4 (2000): 449–466; Piotr Sztompka, “ e Trauma of
Social Change: A Case of Post-communist Societies,” in Cultural Trauma and
Collective Identity, ed. Je rey C. Alexander, Ron Eyerman, Bernard Giesen, Neil
J. Smelser, and Piotr Sztompka (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004):
155–195.
32. Interview, Miedzichowo, 17 April 2014.
33. Interview, Brójce, 15 September 2015.
34. For more, see Agata Kochaniewicz, Ewa Krygiel, Łukasz Kordys, Dawid Niemer,
Marta Machowska, Piotr Nisztuk, Z
˙aneta Wechterowicz “Motorway, Moderni-
sation, Culture: Ethnographic Re ections,” in Cultures of Motorway: Localities
through Mobility as an Anthropological Issue, ed. Waldemar Kuligowski and Agata
Stanisz (Poznan´: TIPI, 2016): 69–92.
35. Interview, Trzciel, 5 May 2015.
36. Interview, Miedzichowo, 20 April 2014.
37. Interview, Brójce, 20 September 2015.
38. Steven Jackson, Paul Edwards, Geo rey Bowker, and Cory Knobel. “Under-
standing Infrastructure: History, Heuristics, and Cyberinfrastructure Policy,”
First Monday 12, no. 6, http://www. rstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/
view/1904/1786.
39. Mari Korpela, “Infrastructure,” in Keywords of Mobility: Critical Engagements, ed.
Noel B. Salazar and Kiran Jarayam (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016), 113–132,
here 113.
40. See also Penelope Harvey, “ e Topological Quality of Infrastructural Relation:
An Ethnographic Approach,” eory, Culture and Society 29, nos. 4–5 (2012): 76—
92; Penelope Harvey and Hannah Knox, “ e Enchantments of Infrastructure,”
Mobilities 7, no. 4 (2012): 521–536.
41. omas Hylland Eriksen, Overheating: An Anthropology of Accelerated Change
(London: Pluto, 2016).
42. Allen Ginsberg, “Howl,” in Collected Poems 1947–1997 (New York: HarperCollins
e-books, 2007).
43. Marshall Berman, All at Is Solid Melts Into Air: e Experience of Modernity
(London: Verso, 1983): 295–296.
44. Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities,” 2–3.
45. David Harvey, Spaces of Neoliberalization: Towards a eory of Uneven Geograph-
ical Development (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005): 25.
