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This article is devoted to the contemporary process of the ethnic mobilizing of stateless European peoples. The Aromanians, who live in all the countries of the Balkan peninsula but have never experienced lasting statehood, are an example. Currently, members of the young Aromanian intelligentsia are creating a transnational, supra-state community by evoking old symbols and new myths: the cult of symbolic places, historic events, figures, family micro-histories (genealogies), and a common language and values. Access to modern means of communication plays an important role in the process. In the author’s opinion, a modern transnational people is emerging from the politically unformed—but culturally specific— Romance-language community of the Balkans. The group could be considered a “recovered community,” which is based on an ideological construction utilizing carefully selected elements of common history and culture.
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The Irish Travellers, a native, traditionally migratory group, were recently accorded formal recognition in the Republic of Ireland, ending more than three decades of political negation of Traveller ethnicity by the Irish authorities. Awarding the Travellers the status of ethnic minority should lead to changes in state policy, which previously perceived the Travellers and their way of life in terms of a social problem; above all, there should now be hope for a new, more equal social position for the Travellers in today’s increasingly diverse Ireland. The author discusses the mobilization of the Irish Travellers and the circumstances of their being awarded ethnic minority status. She also considers the Travellers’ attitudes to the question, on the basis of her own field work conducted among the Traveller community in Galway in western Ireland.
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This article discusses the phenomenon of academic silence in regard to Romani migration from Poland—both in Polish Romani studies and in migration studies. The absence of the subject of Romani migration in migration research in Poland is contrasted with the absence of the subject of migration in Romani studies. Paradoxically, the group most associated in the social imaginary with mobility is absent from migration studies in Poland. On the other hand, in studies of the Romani people in Poland, the group turns out to be surprisingly static and immobilized. The aim of the paper is to explore this particular type of discursive silence, to consider the underlying theoretical and conceptual reasons for it, and finally, to reflect on how it impacts migration and Romani studies.
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This article contains an attempt to determine the role of psychotherapy in constructing contemporary intimate relations in the postmodernist culture of individualism. The author bases her reflections on the hero of Steve McQueen’s film Shame. The movie’s protagonist, Brandon Sullivan, and his sister, are metaphors of such relations. The author asks whether psychotherapy, in desiring to help create proper models of attachment, contributes to the pathologization of contemporary ties and their culture, and whether it is a source of suffering where there should be room to respect free choice.
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Complex and changing social conditions engender the need to find a language to describe the phenomena and to elucidate their mechanisms. One possibility is the language of psychotherapy, which in itself is complex because it combines the various currents which have emerged in psychotherapy’s more than one hundred years of history. The author’s aim is to analyze the relations between culture, social reality (including Poland’s), and psychotherapy. On the one hand, she attempts to view psychotherapy as a cultural discourse, and on the other, to understand culture and social phenomena from the perspective of a psychotherapy office.
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his article contains meta-commentary on the statements of theoreticians and practitioners concerning the connections between psychotherapy and changes in contemporary society in regard to identity and relations. It also concerns various types of understanding of these areas ensuing from the field of practice and the field of science, and the connections being produced between them, including those that are unintended.
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This text was written in remembrance of Professor Jan Lutyński—an outstanding Polish sociologist, founder of the Łódź methodological school, and co-founder of the Polish Sociological Association—on the thirtieth anniversary of his death. The author presents the results of bibliographical research, which confirm the topicality of Professor
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This is a reprint of an archival text by Jan Lutyński, an outstanding Polish sociologist, founder of the Łódź school of methodology, and co-founder of the Polish Sociological Association. The text is devoted to the imperfections of the political system in Poland in the 1970s–1980s and their negative social consequences in the form of “apparent activities.” On the thirtieth anniversary of Professor Lutyński’s death, the essay is worth rereading as it is still topical and has inspired many authors.
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Sharing economy is a socio-economic phenomenon consisting in the direct provision of services by people, co-creation and sharing of available resources. Its main purpose is to move from ownership to access. The purpose of the article is to present the phenomenon of sharing economy in the context of urban issues in the awareness of officials and entrepreneurs of the Świętokrzyskie Province. In the tests, which were both qualitative and quantitative, the method of diagnostic survey and two research techniques were used: in-depth interview technique and survey technique. The tools used to conduct the research are an interview questionnaire and a questionnaire. The sharing economy is a relatively low developed area in the Świętokrzyskie province. Confidence is one of the critical factors that enable the functioning of the sharing economy.
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Regional development is currently perceived as a multifaceted process, using components, properties and events occurring in spaces. The direction and dynamics of development depend on many factors. Diagnosing endogenous and exogenous factors is very important. The basis is the activating of soft resources, which consists of population, human and social capital. The article presents definitions and differences between demographic, human and social capital as factors of regional development. An important issue indicated by the author is the assessment of capital quality in space, allowing to estimate the supply of development opportunities of the selected territory and identify the inequalities. The aim of the article is to answer the following questions: what is population capital, and what is human and social capital? What are the methods of measuring or the approach to measuring these capitals? What impact do these capitals have on regional development?
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The article’s aim is critical analysis of the Great War’s cultural memory in Poland and its production’s mechanism that emerged during the war and just after the conflict was over. Masculinist, heroic, brave – always heterosexist – and picturesque vision of the war that dominated, both, official and collective war memory, described by Maria Janion as “the uhlan western”, is a critical point of departure for introduction another version of the Great War memory in Poland. This one, contrary to the official one, is rather antiheroic and traumatic, and might be read as a kind of counternarrative that goes against the official ways of the Great War’s conceptualisations. The article wishes also to discuss the role and mechanism of the “war rumour” that has been identified by Marc Bloch in his study Réflexions d’un historien sur les fausses nouvelles de la guerre by means of applying it to selected life narratives from the Eastern front – in particular memoirs and diaries written by male participants of the Great War. The French historian was particularly interested in how lying affects the psychology of war witnesses, how the witnesses constructed stories about the war events in which they participated or observed, as well as how rumours contribute to the birth of mass psychosis and hysteria. An in-depth scrutiny of several texts written in Polish during the war will also facilitate an identification of another, i.e. gendered, racial, and class aspect of the “false news” which Bloch ignored: namely its role in the creation of male hysteria. One could risk a claim that the relationship between war rumours and male hysteria is a major feature of the war narratives that are to be favoured by this article. The narratives, one should note, which have been erased from the official memory of the Great War and substituted by a heterosexist, masculinist tale about brave and rational soldiers and – here’s another lie – about irrational and hysterical women, civilians, and Jews.
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The Soviet Union authorities created such a political system according to which invention of myths, convenient for the authority was quite a simple task. Any „inconvenient” event was considered within „secret” stamp, the truth was either just hidden or (if publicity was inevitable) was transformed through mythologization – i.e. certain alternative soviet reality was created. Th e Chornobyl catastrophe which took place on April 26th in 1986 can be considered one of such „inconvenient” events for USSR. Purpose Th e purpose of the article is to reveal practical technology of alternative reality formation in soviet society dased on the example Chornobyl catastrophe (1986) mythologization. Material and methods During the research analyses and generalization of archive sources which were declassified by the Security Service of Ukraine have been performed. Also, analyses of scientifi c sources and documents, overview of soviet mass media related to the topic has been carried out. Conclusions All elements of alternative reality formation (mythologization), commonly used by KGB (Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union) namely truth secrecy; documents and material evidence destruction; intimidation; true information sources blocking; alternative „truth” formation; spreading such „truth” in mass media – all of them were implied in full. But the detection of the myth within historical time period came very quickly. Myth proved to be fragile – the occurrence of chemical reactions couldn’t be subordinated to the soviet power prescripts, they couldn’t be intimidated with KGB methods, however, the catastrophe consequences seemed too vivid for the full suppression. Main reason of failure in formation of soviet myth about harmlessness of radiation was international publicity.
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The article presents the right to legal aid in civil litigation in Poland and in Spain. The analysis proves that overburdening Polish courts (judges and court referendaries) with duties related to considering applications for appointing a legal representative for the purpose of litigation ex officio and exempting from court costs as well as granting the right to legal aid in cross-border disputes cannot be justified by ensuring effective access to justice for indigent subjects. Decisions made on these issues do not count as the administration of justice, and only the said administration is restricted to courts. What is more, court instruments to verify the truthfulness of statements which provide a basis for granting exemption from court costs or appointment of a legal representative for the purpose of litigation ex officio are exceptionally inefficient. Granting the right to legal aid to parties by the state should rather be treated as an administrative case. Th e state has a specialised administrative apparatus which is prepared to support subjects that are incapable of overcoming difficult life situations by using their own powers, resources, and opportunities. Social workers could verify the correctness of the information concerning the financial status of the interested parties. Being aware of a petitioner’s situation, such clerks determine whether exemption is sought by an indigent person or whether this person can afford to cover court costs and remuneration of a professional legal representative for the purpose of litigation but prefers to pay for litigation from public funds.
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Th e article presents the subject of public communication in local self-governments in Poland. Th e possibility of including more inhabitants is the main advantage of the process. Th e main disadvantage is the diffi culty of determining the person actually involved in the consultation. Th erefore, the purpose of the article is to present the existing procedures of using the Internet in the process of public consultations. Legal acts and regulations of public consultations indicate the internet as an appropriate communication tool. Most documents do not specify the number of participants in this process. Th ere are many risks when conducting online consultations. Th erefore, the most oft en the quantitative factor is not essential. Online consultations are used to provide information about the project and to gather ideas from residents directly related to the place of planned investments. Th ere are already voting procedures for a civic budget. Th ey are much more diffi cult and more expensive. However, they give the opportunity to personalize the vote. Th is will be the main mechanism of social consultations in local self-governments and regional governments in the future.
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Objectives Th e objective of this paper is to investigate the admissibility of enforcing the values expressed in the homogeneousness clause of the European Union. It is postulated that the issue of the practical application of Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union is regarded diff erently by the institutions of the EU, and diff erently by the member states. Material and methods In the dogmatic, comparative, and also that of the analysis of political documents of the European Commission and the European Parliament, the following issue will be considered: does the EU have the individual, fully-shaped mechanism of collective memory, making it possible to form and enforce a single model of democracy and the rule of law common for entire Europe. Results According to the current state of judicial decisions, given the absence of the conclusive position of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the automatic application of Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union iuncto with Article 2 of Treaty on European Union, sentence 1, without determining precisely how a member state commits the violation of common values, may still be found ineffective by member states.Conclusions The possibility of enforcing the values expressed in Article 7, and also in ‘New Frameworks’, exists, but is illusory unless it concerns the values actually recognised as common by all the member states. According to the current state of judicial decisions, given the absence of the conclusive position of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the automatic application of Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union iuncto with Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, sentence 1, without determining precisely how a member state commits the violation of common values, may still be found ineffective by member states.
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Financial system is a „blood circulation” of country economy. Since China is attempting to establish modern economy (within authoritarian political system though) the creation of institutions and regulations of the system became crucial. The system as such is enormously complex and requires sophisticated structure of institutions and flexible rules. Major institutions are: central bank and commercial banks, policy banks, international banks, insurance system, money markets, capital markets operating within stock exchange system and outside it and many others. Creating transparent regulations requires to determine dependency rules and legal standards monitoring and enforcing governance towards projected directions. The paper briefly presents major achievements and still existing issues that China has to cope with.
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This article focuses on the results of the study on family values of Vietnamese living in Vietnam and Poland. The participants were 196 Vietnamese (100 people in Vietnam, 96 people in Poland) and 15 people who got married with Poles. The methods used included questionnaire and intensive interview. The study used traditional family values of Vietnamese as the background for data analyses and comparison of two groups. The study results showed that Vietnamese participants continued to confirm basic traditional family values such as filial piety, respect for parents, especially in parents – offspring relations; faithfulness, benevolence and righteousness in husband – wife relations. Besides, some differences were revealed such as participants living in Poland having more freedom than other group in relationships with offspring, and are more flexibility in opinions and behavior about sex issues. These findings confirm that living and working overseas bring some changes to the system of accepted family values.
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In this paper I describe how we identified the language symbols used on street and road signs in Ukraine’s westernmost town, Berehove. In linguistic landscape studies, multiethnicity is a significant aspect indeed. Insofar as numerous ethnic groups live in Berehove side by side, it seems plausible to analyze the linguistic landscape of this settlement. In this study, two analyses (involving linguistic landscape items collected in 2013 and 2017) are used to elucidate this settlement’s linguistic landscape. I demonstrate the linguistic landscape collections using two methods of analysis (quantitative and qualitative), studied in a town characterized by its multilingual history. I also analyze ethnolinguistic vitality research in bilingual settings of various time lines. Furthermore, I introduce inscriptions and symbols collected at a street fair in relation to their language and its richness.
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