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Journal Issues by Magdalena Muszel

FEMINIST MOVEMENTS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE, 2018

In recent years, Central Eastern Europe has been witnessing an unprecedented wave of feminist pro... more In recent years, Central Eastern Europe has been witnessing an unprecedented wave of feminist protests. In spring 2016, a group of Ukrainian, Russian and later, Kazakh activists organised a social media based campaign, where they stressed the immutable prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence in contemporary post-Soviet societies. Campaigners used the #ЯнеБоюсьСказать (#IamNotScaredToSpeak) hashtag, which was quickly shared by thousands of women in the above-mentioned countries. The action clearly demonstrates similarities to the North-American and later, global #metoo movement. It is important to note
however, that the Eastern European campaign not only preceded the more famous NorthAmerican mobilisation, but was also organised by, so called, “ordinary women” unlike its
celebrity-focussed counterpart. In the paper entitled “The #яНеБоюсьСказать (#IamNotScaredToSpeak) campaign in the Russian speaking community of Facebook in July
2016: A Critical Discourse Analysis” Anna Sedysheva provides a unique analysis of the character of mobilisation that had started in Ukraine and was overtaken by Russian activists. Attacks on reproductive rights have galvanised public opinion and brought thousands of people into the streets in Poland. An effective platform, countering right-wing and highly
patriarchal governments, has started to form around these protests.

Papers by Magdalena Muszel

Ethnologia Polona, Dec 30, 2022

This article discusses the authors' reflections on empathy in the context of fieldwork on feminis... more This article discusses the authors' reflections on empathy in the context of fieldwork on feminist activism in small towns in Poland and Eastern Germany. Our methodological reflection is further enriched by our referencing of challenges faced in researching activists mobilising for protests against COVID-19 measures. While the role and impact of an empathic approach to data collection and interpretation have been controversial since the 'erklären-verstehen controversy', empathy can be understood in very different ways, ranging from sympathy or compassion to the ability to put oneself in someone else's shoes. Against the backdrop of our case studies, we focus on the openness and curiosity we showed toward our interviewees' emotions and experiences, despite ideological or socio-cultural differences between us. The key themes of our discussion include the relationship between the researcher and the research subjects, the impact of this relationship on the research process, the constantly changing conditions for interpretative social research, and the impact of such changes on the use of empathy.

Ethnologia Polona

Ethnologia Polona vol. 43, 2022

Late 2020 witnessed one of the biggest cycles of protests in contemporary Poland that were sparke... more Late 2020 witnessed one of the biggest cycles of protests in contemporary Poland that were sparked by the decision of the Constitutional Tribunal further restricting the abortion law. This cycle of contention was somewhat similar to of the protests organized in 2016 and later but stood out in terms of scale and geographic distribution. The 2016 protests were surprising as they also emerged in Polish small and provincial towns. The scale of 2020's protests in small towns belies the common assumption about the string conservatism of Poland and in particular Polish small towns and rural areas. Besides the scale, there are other surprising elements in these protests, one of them being the harsher and more direct language used during the protests and the generational composition of the protesting crowds. Our hypothesis is that these protests mark the emergence of a new generation of feminist activists, while the whole cycle of protests marks deeper changes in Polish society. The inclusion of the Roman Catholic Church as one of the targets of the protests' claims can be linked to the increasing secularization of the Polish society; the growing and observed intersectionality during women's protests (i.e. inclusion of social claims, support for LGBT+ community, antifascism) points out to the changing nature of feminist activism in Poland; and finally the new language used during protests suggests a significant change in defining the protest arena s and a shift of scale from locality to the translocal reality of social media.

Monthly Review

Two years after the peak of the 2020 street protests for reproductive rights in Poland, Magdalena... more Two years after the peak of the 2020 street protests for reproductive rights in Poland, Magdalena Muszel and Grzegorz Piotrowski explore the movement's effects on Polish society. Despite the dissipating energy of the participants and continued intransigence of most major parties, this cycle of protests shifted the values and political preferences of specific gender and age groups, as well as affecting the common perception of protest movements in Poland.

Civitas : Studia z Filozofii Polityki, Dec 22, 2020

Głównym celem niniejszego artykułu jest przedstawienie praktyk obywatelskich działaczek z małych ... more Głównym celem niniejszego artykułu jest przedstawienie praktyk obywatelskich działaczek z małych miast i miejscowości-organizatorek serii kobiecych protestów zapoczątkowanych Czarnym Poniedziałkiem 3 października 2016 roku. Na podstawie 24 pogłębionych wywiadów przedstawiamy charakterystykę praktyk obywatelskich w prowincjonalnych 1 Grzegorz Piotrowski (ORCID: 0000-0001-5193-4661)-doktor, socjolog i antropolog kultury, absolwent Europejskiego Instytutu Uniwersyteckiego we Florencji, adiunkt w Instytucie Socjologii Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, pracownik Europejskiego Centrum Solidarności, wiceprezes Fundacji Zatoka. Specjalizuje się w badaniu ruchów społecznych Kontakt:

Some sources in 2006 stated that as many as four million Poles had left the country in the two ye... more Some sources in 2006 stated that as many as four million Poles had left the country in the two years following the EU accession (Kłos 2006), mainly going to the UK, Ireland and Germany. The main motivation for this migration was for economic reasons. Transnational reality has become a part of the migration experience of women and men, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers. It became a part of their family life. When someone migrates to a new country his or her family life might be affected by this fact in a variety of ways. Thomas Cooke (2006: 2) noted that, “migration and the family are interdependent because a change in one nearly always involves a change in the other”. There may be some benefits from the move, but there are also costs. The consequences often differ for different members of a family. There is a need to develop a better understanding of family relationships that both shape and are shaped by migration (Kofman 2004). Moreover, as Pribilsky noticed, family studies r...

interalia: a journal of queer studies

Family gender roles and family relationships influence the lives of Polish transnational families... more Family gender roles and family relationships influence the lives of Polish transnational families to a great extent. Traditionally adopted gender roles connected with being a mother and wife largely shape the experience and attitudes of Polish female migrants in Ireland: starting with the decision about the migration, through family relations during the separation period, and ending up at the point of reunion. Attempts to continue to perform the traditional role of a mother and wife in the face of the transnational migration is an effort to preserve Polish women’s sense of identity as well as provisional power within their families.

Praktyka Teoretyczna

Jak to jest być aktywistką w małym lub prowincjonalnym miasteczku? Czy wyzwania strukturalne, któ... more Jak to jest być aktywistką w małym lub prowincjonalnym miasteczku? Czy wyzwania strukturalne, które stoją przed aktywistkami z małych miast, są jakie same jak ich odpowiedniki z dużych miast, które zwykle są studiowane i opisywane w literaturze naukowej? Jeśli środowisko jest inne, to czy małomiasteczkowi aktywiści i aktywistki podejmują inne praktyki, aby poradzić sobie z wyzwaniami wynikającymi z różnych kontekstów, w których działają? W artykule staramy się odpowiedzieć na niektóre z tych pytań, przyglądając się organizatorkom Czarnych Protestów z 2016 roku i późniejszego okresu w prowincjonalnych miastach Polski. Protesty te, zorganizowane w celu przeciwstawienia się planowanym zmianom w już i tak represyjnej ustawie antyaborcyjnej, nie tylko zaskoczyły wszystkich swoją skalą i intensywnością, ale także zasięgiem, ponieważ większość protestów miała miejsce w małych i prowincjonalnych miastach w Polsce. Artykuł ten ma na celu wypełnienie luki w literaturze dotyczącej ruchów społe...

This thesis tries to determine the impact of transnational family migration on the gendered divis... more This thesis tries to determine the impact of transnational family migration on the gendered division of labour and power dynamics between the couples either entrenching inequalities and traditional roles, or challenging and changing them. It shows also how ideas about gender shape transnational family migration patterns, and affect the individual family life of transmigrants. And eventually, it examines the social and family-related consequences of these processes. The research questions have been formulated as follows: How do gender role beliefs and family gender arrangement (gender practice, family gender organization) affect transnational family migration? And how are gender role beliefs and family gender arrangements affected by transnational family migration? It is crucial to stress that the answer to these questions will shed light on potential gender transitions, its directions, circumstances and social and familial consequences of transnational family migration. In order to explain the research problem from a dynamic perspective and distinguish various transnational family phases, I introduce three stages which I call; pre-transnational, transnational and post-transnational family stage. The pretransnational stage refers in retrospect to the time of decision making process about migration, the transnational family stage is about the time of transnational family separation due to migration and the nature of family life during this time while the post-transnational family stage considers the time after family reunification which in my thesis is limited only to the reunification in Ireland.An important part of the thesis is a chapter that is dedicated to the role of Polish Church in Ireland and the correlation of migrant's religiosity and their gender roles. Muszel, Magdalena (2013), Families in migration through the gender lens : a study of Polish transmigrants in Ireland