Piotr Filipkowski’s research while affiliated with Institute of Philosophy and Sociology and other places

In this short introduction we set out the aims of the volume, which represents the fruits of two seminars held in the autumn of 2020. The chapters respond to one big thematic issue: how to research and understand historical societal resilience; and one big question: what sort of past does the future need? They attempt to address these through three linked themes: can history be made more relevant to modern policy in respect of environmental and climate challenges? To what extent do our various sources indicate awareness and management of risk and/or the implementation of mitigating strategies in the past? And how can we identify ‘resilience’ in the social praxis of historical agents?

Oral History as a Selection of Sources: Discussion Around „O tym nie wolno mówić…” Zagłada Żydów w opowieściach wspomnieniowych ze zbiorów Dionizjusza Czubali [“We Are Not Allowed to Speak About It...” The Extermination of Jews in Memoirs from the Collection of Dionizjusz Czubala]This article reviews the book „O tym nie wolno mówić…” Zagłada Żydów w opowieściach wspomnieniowych ze zbiorów Dionizjusza Czubali [“We Are Not Allowed to Speak About It...” The Extermination of Jews in Memoirs from the Collection of Dionizjusz Czubala], selected and edited by Piotr Grochowski, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, Toruń 2019, 236 pp. Historia mówiona jako wybór źródeł Wokół „O tym nie wolno mówić…” Zagłada Żydów w opowieściach wspomnieniowych ze zbiorów Dionizjusza CzubaliRecenzja książki „O tym nie wolno mówić....” Zagłada Żydów w opowieściach wspomnieniowych ze zbiorów Dionizjusza Czubali, wybór i opracowanie Piotr Grochowski, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, Toruń 2019, s. 236.

Oral History as a Selection of Sources: Discussion Around „O tym nie wolno mówić…” Zagłada Żydów w opowieściach wspomnieniowych ze zbiorów Dionizjusza Czubali [“We Are Not Allowed to Speak About It...” The Extermination of Jews in Memoirs from the Collection of Dionizjusz Czubala] This article reviews the book „O tym nie wolno mówić…” Zagłada Żydów w opowieściach wspomnieniowych ze zbiorów Dionizjusza Czubali [“We Are Not Allowed to Speak About It...” The Extermination of Jews in Memoirs from the Collection of Dionizjusz Czubala], selected and edited by Piotr Grochowski, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, Toruń 2019, 236 pp. Historia mówiona jako wybór źródeł Wokół „O tym nie wolno mówić…” Zagłada Żydów w opowieściach wspomnieniowych ze zbiorów Dionizjusza Czubali Recenzja książki „O tym nie wolno mówić....” Zagłada Żydów w opowieściach wspomnieniowych ze zbiorów Dionizjusza Czubali, wybór i opracowanie Piotr Grochowski, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, Toruń 2019, s. 236.

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”

The article is an analysis of a single case—a biographical narrative of a Tri-City resident who enters adulthood at the beginning of political transformation in 1989, and whose life path turns out to be an unintentional, dynamic journey between various professions, social worlds and structural positions. This creates a complicated and ambiguous biographical pattern which does not fall into either the socio-economic promotion of the “winner” or into the degradation of the transformation “loser.” The reconstruction of this pattern reveals the hero’s great resourcefulness and entrepreneurship, but also the fragility of the structures stabilizing his life and the volatility of life orientation points. The binder of this biography turns out to be, above all, reflexivity and, what I suggest calling, the narrative agency of the narrator, who can transform his structurally dispersed and chaotic life experiences of the time of transformation into a very original story, making him a strong subject of his own fate. This, however, creates the inevitable tension between the experienced or lived life, life history and the narrated life, life story, prompting us to again pose the question about the commonly assumed, although differently defined, correspondence between the level of reality and the level of its linguistic (in this case—autobiographical) representation.

Tekst jest zapisem głównych tez wystąpień wygłoszonych podczas debaty, która odbyła się na Wydziale Humanistycznym Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu 14 listopada 2019 roku. W moderowanej przez Marcina Stasiaka dyskusji udział wzięli: Piotr Filipkowski, Marta Kurkowska-Budzan oraz Tomasz Rakowski. Punktem wyjścia dla rozmowy były teksty panelistów dotyczące kondycji historii mówionej i jej roli w badaniach dziejów najnowszych w Polsce. Kluczowym elementem rozważań stał się potencjał relacji ustnych w proponowaniu obrazów przeszłości odmiennych od utrwalonych w narracjach profesjonalnych historyków akademickich. The paper is a summary of speeches delivered during the debate held on the Faculty of Humanities at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń on 14th November 2019. The discussion was anchored in panelists’ recent texts concerning state of art in Polish oral history and its significance in contemporary history academic research. The key problem discussed was ability of oral history to create innovative, fresh images of the past – especially in the field of professional, academic historiography.

Sociological, qualitative, biographical research is distinguished by its interest in the case. At the same time, this research seeks—often through case studies—to understand or explain supraindividual, repetitive phenomena which are, to some extent, general. In this article, we look at how cases are treated in biographical sociology. We present our own empirical experience, consisting in autobiographical narrative interviews with participants of a nationwide panel survey, who were randomly drawn to the panel many years ago. We show the possible consequences, both methodological and theoretical, of this way of selecting cases, quite unusual for biographical sociology. We wonder whether and to what extent the experience of the “ordinary person,” the Everyman, can be reflected in sociological works based on the biographical method.

Artykuł jest wstępem do zbioru prezentowanych w tym numerze tekstów na temat różnych sposobów i możliwości powtórnego wykorzystania materiałów pochodzących z jakościowych badań społecznych. Zastanawiamy się, jak taka powtórna analiza wpływa na pogłębienie refleksji metodologicznej na temat działalności badawczej w terenie, statusu samych danych i kontekstów ich wytwarzania oraz tworzonej na ich podstawie wiedzy socjologicznej. Próbujemy również podsumować sześć lat działalności Archiwum Danych Jakościowych przy IFiS PAN oraz opisać zmiany, jakie dokonały się w tym czasie w podejściu do dzielenia się materiałami badawczymi zarówno u nas w kraju, jak i za granicą.

This article focuses on a still fresh initiative (started in 2013) of The Qualitative Data Archive affiliated to the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences. Stemming from the tradition of Polish qualitative sociology, especially from Znaniecki’s biographical method, it also draws inspiration from oral history but nonetheless attempts at defining its own academic identity. The archive’s profile is not only confined to rescuing of dispersed collections, exposed to destruction, but also - or even primarily - researchoriented, supported by a critical theoretical and methodological reflexion. We further present a sample of our critical work with the ethnographic material from the research on urban Polish families lifestyle carried out in the late 1970s, whose elaboration and disclosure gave rise to our archiving project.