The Continuity of Expecting Discontinuities (original) (raw)
Related papers
We Just Want to Live Normally": Intersecting Discourses of Public, Private, Poland, and the West
Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, 2003
about what constitutes the normal life continued, though In postcommunist Poland, discourse on "the normal urban residents with a university education were more life" provides a view into young Poles' identity as inclined to describe their own experiences as normal shaped by processes of democratization, niarketization, than others, who felt the idealized normal life was still and globalization. In this article, I compare uses of impossible to achieve in Poland. In this paper, I show the term "normal" for a group of urban and rural that discourse about "the normal life" functions as a youths during two periods in the 1990s. I show that means of evaluating public structures in relation to normal, like public and private, is a "shifter"-individual experiences and expectations. Just what the because the same term is used in a variety of contexts "normal" entails is difficult to pin down-specific uses to describe various situations, it helps to integrate new of the term shift from person to person, and from context experiences in a way that maintains a sense of to context. Sometimes, it refers to "that which actually continuity with the past. This discourse reveals young occurs most often and is therefore 'typical'," but it is Poles' simultaneous attraction and resistance to used more often to refer to "how things should be" idealizations of the West, and it also reflects the (Wedel 1986:151). Varied characterizations of "the different opportunities available to rural and urban normal life," shaped by ethical stances that inform and residents. These factors, in turn, help to shape young are informed by perceptions of public, private, Poland, Poles 1 orientations toward the future within and beyond and the West, provide a view into young Poles' identity the borders of Poland. [Key words: public/private, as Poles. They also reveal the simultaneous attraction marketization, Poland, globalization, national identity] and resistance to processes of globalization-increasing long distance interconnectedness across nations and "In Poland, times are always interesting. There is never continents (Hannerz 1996)-in post-communist Poland, 'normality'. Rarely is life pretty-there are only pretty I focus on the words of urban and rural youths moments." (Krzysiek, a resident of Lesko, age 21, who were in high school when they first talked to me in 1993) 1992 and 1993 about their lives in postcommunist Poland. I compare their earlier comments with those "To me, this is a normal country. Whatever we don't they made in J999, when they were young adults like, we should change. [The country] is moving in a beginning their own families and professional careers, very positive direction." (Piotr, a resident of Krakow, In the earlier interviews, exclamations such as "we just age 25, 1999) want to live normally in a normal country," or "our normal [what is familiar] is not normal [the way things When discussing their frustrations with should be]" came in response to my questions about everyday surroundings and experiences, high school recent changes in Poland. As I became attuned to these students in Poland during the earJy J 990s often made phrases, I noticed they were used in casual, unsolicited references to "the normal life." As Krzysiek put it conversations, as well. Usually, they were said in a shortly after he graduated from a rural technical high tone of frustration, and preceded a litany of problems school, "more than anything, I'd like to find a little with the existing system in Poland. Most notably, youths lady and get married. I just want to live normally (zyc complained about the threat of unemployment and the normalnie)." Young Poles expressed longing for high cost of living. In my interviews in 1999,1 asked normalcy within both the public and private realm-respondents whether they think Poland is a normal they wanted a stable economic and political system that country. This is consistent with my approach to would enable, not hinder, their ability to achieve their ethnographic research-I listen for significant themes personal goals. Several years later, in 1999, discourse and patterns that emerge in everyday conversations, and JSAE Spring/Summer 2003 then build my study questions around those themes. In defined space of the home, there are public rooms (the these later interviews, I noted a marked split between living room) and private rooms (the bedroom), and each responses of urban and rural residents. Those who live of these spaces may be further divided into public and in Krakow, most of whom have attended university, have private, depending on specific elements and uses. a greater sense of progress toward the normal, and, The public-private dichotomy has been used however they define it, they feel confident that they can to characterize state socialist systems in Eastern Europe achieve a normal life in Poland. Those in the rural by natives and by foreign scholars. The difference was town of Lesko and the adjoining Bieszczady region tend variously described as: the political divide between the to feel more limited and correspondingly were more state-the institutions of the socialist government-and inclined to say that Poland is not a normal country and the nation-the people united by a shared sense of the normal life still eludes them. 1 identity (Galbraith 1997, 2000; Herer and Sadowski Little has been written about uses of the term 1990; Kubik 1994); the centralized, state-controlled "normal," with the notable exception of Wedel (1986).2 economy and what was variously called the black However, because the tension between public and market, gray market, second economy, or private sector private usually informs Poles'characterizations of the (
20 Years After the Collapse of Communism. Expectations, achievements and disillusions of 1989
2011
Obviously, the Europeanization process has not yet brought the expected “common house of Europe” with all the freedoms and values linked to the symbol of 1989. It is true that Europe has been able to give important support to the transformation processes in Central and Eastern Europe. But it is equally true that the underlying ideas of Europe have not found their way to almost all countries of the former Soviet Union. In this regard Russia stands for an ideologically and power oriented regime, contrasting its authoritarian “model” to the Europeanization process and particularly to all the “coloured” democratic experiments in its neighbourhood. The eastwards movement of experiments with democracy, as it could be observed in the “colour revolutions” in Ukraine and Georgia, is challenged by a westwards movement of the quasiauthoritarian Russian model. The recent repressions in Belarus followed by the rigged elections in December 2010 obviously stand for the westwards move of the Russian model. And it remains to be seen to what extent the achievements of the “colour revolutions” can be at least partially maintained in Ukraine and in Georgia. Freedom is not an uncontested value in the post-Soviet space. But it has been claimed at its periphery where a lot of hybrid and transitional situations can still be observed. Typically countries characterised by transitional or hybrid regimes are oscillating somewhere in a grey zone between the democratic and the authoritarian poles. They may have halted, delayed or impeded their transformation process. In order to prevent the risk of an authoritarian backlash, an European democracy promotion strategy would make sense in those countries that show unclear prospects for democracy. This would be in line with what 1989 was about: overcoming the division of Europe and avoiding new division lines between East and West. It is precisely the challenges of ambiguous transitions that the contributions to the volume try to address from their various regional and disciplinary perspectives. The book is organized into three larger parts, respectively, (1) covering ambiguities of unfinished transformations, (2) attempting to make sense of the past and its implications for the present, and (3) deliberating over values and meanings in changing contexts. They do not assemble the countries regionally, but rather attempt to organize various narratives around problems, as there seem to be three large areas of difficulties experienced along the different paths of transformation.
Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs
When I was introduced this evening, the moderator reminded me that when I last spoke before the Council in January 2014, I had said that when the Third Polish Republic, the one that we founded in 1989, had lasted one day longer than the interwar Second Polish Republic, I and others like me got roaring drunk out of joy at a dream come true. 1 The turning point in the history of our part of the continent began a year later, and we all started living the dream. Yet today, though there are still reasons to get drunk, they are hardly joyful ones. Some say that this is simply the nature of the beast, that Central Europe is unfit for democracy; that the demons of nationalism-and that is a phrase that often comes up-have been reawakened; that a genie has been released from the bottle. If only the problem were unfinished business with democracy and history on the European periphery, I would be much more optimistic. Were that the case, I would say that Poland, Hungary, and some other countries are still paying the price for our peripheric development, unfinished democratic achievements, or simply our badly digested history, and that we will eventually get over it and catch up to the European norm-and recover the dream. However, the way Europe is going, I am not sure we want to catch up. What we are facing in Central Europe is simply the more developed phase of a process that is reemerging all over the continent and beyond. Not in my darkest dreams-nightmares, rather-would I have imagined an Israeli prime minister explaining that Israel is not a country of all its citizens. Nobody could have imagined the phenomenon of Donald Trump-not even Trump himself-that is, until he "trumped" 1
The meanings of 1989. The Right Wing Discourse in Post-Communist Poland
2009
As every experienced researcher knows, the most difficult task for the social anthropologist during his field work is to determine the meaning of a few keywords , understanding of which affects the outcomes of the scrutiny" 1. Similarly is in the case of the analysis of discourse, striving to reconstruct the specific meanings social actors inscribe in categories they use to communicate. Such an effort is necessary to establish precise content of the representation of reality typical for a specific epistemic or interpretive community 2. In order to trace keywords one does not necessarily need to employ quantitative approaches, which are not always able to reflect the meaning or significance of the particular categories within a text 3. Sometimes the detailed and systematic reading of the empirical data is enough to reveal an internal structure of discourse with the certain categories around which the meaning is constructed. First, it may turn out during analysis, that political subjects perceive certain X category as significant and crucial for the appropriate perception of the status quo. The X might be responsible for the shape of reality, it may also be the source of causality or may determine the structure of reality. Secondly, all the key political actors are not indifferent to this category. It may provoke positive or negative reactions, expressed either explicitly or implicitly in the utterances of the politicians. Thirdly, it is not restricted to one issue, appearing in the multifarious contexts. It may refer to different topics, relate to various issues and hence be used in many different functions. As to the latter it can be the basis for the words construction and serve as a prominent element of narration. Moreover, the X may be used to positive self-legitimation and negative othering, proving its usefulness in the political struggle. One does not have to follow very carefully Polish political life to trace that events and phenomena which took place in the 1989 has become crucial points of reference and constitutive