Telling the Great Change: The Process of the Systemic Transformation in Poland in Biographical Perspective
Abstract
The book is pioneering in Poland. but also in Central Europe. lt shows the mechanisms of adaptation to the systemie transformation in Poland after 1989, based on the analysis of narratives of people barn in 1960, 1970 and 1980 who are representatives of diverse social milieus and have different professional and life experiences. The reader will find here a model application of the biographical research methodology developed by Fritz Schütze for a series of case studies. which makes this publication the most extensive work using the indicated method for research on transformation. The authors of the individual chapters, emphasizing the individual agency of the subjects, avoid the pitfalls of neoliberal discourse shifting responsibility for their fates onto individuals. Apart from the analysis of autonomous ways of agency, they show various potentials of losing control over one’s life, biographical trajectories, as well as biographical resources, mainly of a family nature, which serve to deal mare effectively with the consequences of systemic transformation. The book has received funding from the National Science Center, Poland under grant agreement No. UMO-2013/09/B/HS6/03100 “Experience of the Process of the Transformation in Poland. A Sociological Comparative Analysis Based on Biographical Perspective”
Celem artykułu jest odpowiedź na pytanie, czy i w jaki sposób studiowanie socjologii może być traktowane jako rodzaj kapitału kulturowego oraz symboliczny zasób biograficzny. Na podstawie trzech wybranych autobiograficznych wywiadów narracyjnych z osobami, które zajmują się szeroko rozumianą twórczością internetową, a w przeszłości studiowały socjologię, artykuł pokazuje, jakie istotne – lecz trudno mierzalne – korzyści przynosi jej studiowanie. Analizie porównawczej poddano: biografię Anastazji, zarabiającej na treściach rozrywkowych, Patryka, tworzącego treści dotyczące gier komputerowych oraz Zbyszka, który publikuje materiały na temat piłki nożnej. Wyniki badania zaprzeczają popularnemu neoliberalnemu przekonaniu, mówiącemu że studia powinny, przede wszystkim, wyposażać młodych ludzi w konkretne kwalifikacje i określone kompetencje.
The aim of this study is to capture the continuities and transformations of everyday small-scale business practice in the period of "long change" between late socialism and postsocialism in Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic. Both of these periods are characterized by the employment of informal and purely illegal practices, although they took on different meanings in both periods. To capture continuities and differences, we employ the concepts of field, capital and habitus developed by Pierre Bourdieu. Based on interviews with small-scale entrepreneurs active in both periods under review, we argue that informality and illicit practices in the late socialist period primarily enabled entrepreneurs to fulfil consumption needs in a dysfunctional planned economy. In this regard, small entrepreneurs were willing to use a large amount of different informal practices to achieve material goals. The article demonstrates that in the post-1989 era of neoliberal reform, small-scale entrepreneurs continued to employ informal and illegal practices as a means of "playing the system", integrating them into their formal business efforts in order, among other things, to sustain their businesses in the face of new conditions of liberalization, increasing competition and criminality. The article thus analyses economic transformation through the tension between institutional change and continuity of social practices.
The article analyses how Lithuanian inhabitants remember and assess the post-communist transformation and searches for the narratives that can be interpreted through the lens of modernization theories. The paper draws on a dataset of 43 biographical interviews collected in 2021 in Panevėžys city and Panevėžys district. Employing the method of thematic narrative analysis, four dominant narratives of post-soviet transformation were identified: “demodernization”, “real modernization”, “continuation of neo-traditionalism” and“continuation of modernity”. In the narrative of “demodernization”, the Soviet regime is seen as the true modernity, and the post-Soviet transformation is perceived as a process of demodernization, when progress is replaced by stagnation or regression, manifested in the decline of industry and the disappearance of other attributes of modernity. In the narrative of “true modernity”, on the contrary, the Soviet era is seen as a false or failed modernity characterized by inefficiency and backwardness, and the features of modernity are attributed to the new order emerging after the restoration of independence. The narratives of “continuity of neo-traditionalism” and “continuity of modernity” observe similar features in both the Soviet era and the period of transformation, but the former emphasizes the neo-traditionalist or “anti-modern” features of both periods, such as inefficiency, corruption, and privilege, while the latter sees both periods as progressive in their own ways.
W artykule przedstawiono, w jaki sposób przebiegało kształtowanie się twórców internetowych, czyli osób zajmujących się wytwarzaniem autorskich treści zamieszczanych w mediach społecznościowych, na stronach internetowych itp. Rozpatrując uwarunkowania indywidualne i społeczne tego procesu, szczególną rolę przypisano kontekstowi technologiczno-medialnemu, znacząco wpływającemu na ich dorastanie oraz tworzenie. Jako ramę teoretyczną wykorzystano koncepcję sieciowych imigrantów/tubylców, a rozważania oparto na sześciu autobiograficznych wywiadach narracyjnych z twórcami internetowymi reprezentującymi zróżnicowane obszary zainteresowań. Ich analiza dowiodła, że doświadczenia z technologiami informacyjno-komunikacyjnymi „nie mieszczą się” w proponowanej typologii, gdyż narratorzy stosują zindywidualizowane strategie uczenia się ich oraz ich użytkowania.
Reconstructive biographical research is a diverse and differentiated sociological field. In this introduction, we trace its interdisciplinary and transnational historical development, consider the most important theoretical influences, and characterize central research areas. In this way, we show that reconstructive biographical research is a distinct sociological approach to social analysis. It offers a reflexive access to understanding, classifying, and explaining social processes and social challenges through the analysis of experienced and/or narrated life stories.
Volunteering and care are concepts that have rarely been considered together in contemporary historical research. This article now combines both concepts in an examination of voluntary care practices in People’s Solidarity (PS, Volkssolidarität), an East German organization that has specialized in elder care since the post-war period. The study explores the motivations and perceptions of people who have volunteered in this organization from late socialism to the post-1989 transformation period. Having experienced both state-socialist and post-socialist East Germany, their particular notions of society, care, gender, ageing, and belonging have hardly been recorded so far. Their voices introduce alternative narratives of solidarity and agency, and thus contribute to a more nuanced understanding of East German transformation experiences. Revisiting informal care for the elderly is a subject that remains acutely relevant up to today. “Who cares for the elderly?” is a question these people have answered with determination and initiative over the past thirty years. The article explores the extent to which their practices of volunteering and caring intertwined with their diverse responses to the post-socialist transformation.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.