Film and the Politics of Negative Community. Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dialectic in the Late 1970s Polish People’s Republic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Leppla
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Urban Elites ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Organizing ◽  
Political Imaginary ◽  
Krzysztof Kieslowski

Polish People’s Republic (PRL) in the late 1970s saw an increased alliance among, and indeed, a blending of, workers and intellectuals, young and old, women and men, actively struggling against the state. A new kind of solidarity emerged that threw off tired notions of what constituted the working class. The preeminent filmmaker of this time, Krzysztof Kieślowski, is often seen as increasingly depoliticized as he moved into fiction, but in this paper the author argues for the dialogic value of his work with respect to political organizing. Kieślowski’s documentarist sensitivity to registering Polish reality and the intimacy of human engagement with the world led him to question the prevailing mode of representing these shifts in politics and class. His feature films, in articulating failures of representation, challenge a “realism” that purported to be universal, but instead reified a certain historical anxiety in the Polish political imaginary (workers vs. intellectuals, urban elites vs. peasantry), or precisely that which was being unraveled by the praxis of the late 1970s. Further, they refuse to cordon off interests of individuals from the very state shown to be oppressing them. Here we have a filmic counterpart to the immanent praxis of workers and intellectuals that turned one of the engines of the state—the trade union—into the greatest weapon against it. The author shows how this functions, in negative terms, in Kieślowski’s first feature, Blizna/The Scar (1976), in which class solidarity is felt stylistically as aporia, and is further developed in Amator/Camera Buff (1979), which expresses the personal as political in the tension between the desire for spokój (peace and quiet) and czegoś wiecej (something more). Rather than a retreat, we should see this in correspondence with the revolutionary consciousness being inscribed in individual Poles by the collective labor action of Solidarity in 1980.

Organizing Mobile workers

2019 ◽  
pp. 106-126
Author(s):  
David M. Struthers
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
The State ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
American Federation Of Labor ◽  
Top Down ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
The World

In 1909 the California State Federation of Labor (CSFL) voted to direct resources toward organizing migrant workers within a new branch of American Federation of Labor (AFL) affiliated United Laborers locals throughout the state. These locals gave form to a largely top-down attempt by the Anglo-dominated trade union to organize nonwhite unskilled laborers. This effort placed the AFL in the same organizing terrain as the expanding Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Competition between the unions, internal conflicts within the AFL, and the structural difficulties of organizing mobile workers at temporary jobsites all contributed to the CSFL withdrawing support for the United Laborers in 1912 and all of the United Laborers locals shuttering by 1913.

scholarly journals Political Theatre in the Age of Brexit: The State of Nation in Monologues

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-188
Author(s):  
Banu Öğünç
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Constant Flux ◽  
Social Events ◽  
The World ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractOn the British stage, political theatre, which emerged in the twentieth century, has been linked with the problems of the working class as initiated in the 1920s until the early 1960s. With the end of the official censorship of theatre in 1968, political theatre in Britain experienced a period in which socialist works marked the stage. Nevertheless, the 1990s challenged the association of political theatre with the conditions of the working class. Considering the current political and social events in Britain and around the world, it is appropriate to underline that political theatre is not only in a constant flux, but its definition has been once again challenged. In this regard, Brexit can be considered as one of the most significant movements to influence the understanding of political theatre in the twenty-first century. Consequently, this study aims to analyse Brexit Shorts: Dramas from a Divided Nation (2017), a co-production by the Guardian and Headlong Theatre Company and discuss their contribution to the changing definition of political theatre. Brexit Shorts will be further explored regarding their influence on the popularity of monologues as a mode of performance.

scholarly journals Frontera Combustible: Conceptualising the State Through the Experiences of Petrol Smugglers in the Colombian/Venezuelan Borderlands of Norte de Santander/Táchira

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-60
Author(s):  
Charles Beach
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Final Section ◽  
The State ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Informal Workers ◽  
Anthropology Of The State ◽  
Union Leaders ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Phenomenology

This paper is based on an ongoing ethnographic research project conducted in the borderlands between Colombia and Venezuela, in particular the Colombian city of Cúcuta. There is a thriving smuggling trade between the two countries caused by Venezuela’s economic crisis and the extreme devaluation of goods. The area has become one of Colombia’s ‘hottest’ regions due to the proliferation of armed gangs that make money by smuggling of contraband, especially petrol. The article aims to describe how petrol vendors, transporters and smugglers conceptualise the state and how they negotiate and interact with state actors present in the borderlands. It engages in an anthropology of the state through the ethnographic lens of organised informal workers. Starting with a theoretical framework, it criticizes attempts to do anthropology in the margins of the state for its uncomfortably Hobbesian vision of the world, and settles instead on a ‘critical phenomenology of power’ (Krupa and Nugent 2015) as a methodology. It goes on to introduce two pimpinero trade unionists and the struggles of running petrol from the border as well as of political organising. The final section analyses this struggle as ‘insurgent citizenship’, a citizenry’s bottom up attempt to claim full access to their rights as citizens (Holston 2013), as well as ethnographically justifying the need for a conceptual borderland region. All informants’ names are anonymized apart from two trade union leaders who requested not to be anonymous.

TOURIST BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE

2019 ◽  
pp. 39-46
Author(s):  
Stefania Mosiuk ◽  
Igor Mosiuk ◽  
Vladimir Mosiuk
Keyword(s):  
National Economy ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Business Development ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
The State ◽  
Complete Analysis ◽  
Resource Potential ◽  
The World ◽  
Potential Resource ◽  
Favorable Conditions

The purpose of the article is to analyze and substantiate the development of tourism business in Ukraine as a priority component of the national economy. The methodology of this study is to use analytical, spatial, geographical, cultural and other methods. This methodological approach provided an opportunity to carry out a complete analysis of the state of the tourism industry of the state and to draw some conclusions.The scientific novelty lies in the coverage of the real and potential resource potential for the development of the recreational and tourism sphere in Ukraine, detailing the measures for the country ‘s entry into the world tourist market. Conclusions. Analyzing the state and prospects of tourism business development in Ukraine, it should be noted that this industry is one of the priority areas for improving the economy of the country. Historical, cultural – ethnographic, gastronomic, sanatorium and resort potentials of the country will lead the country into world leaders of the tourism industry when creating favorable conditions for investment and proper marketing.

Unification and Its Discontents

2016 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-16
Author(s):  
Brian Kovalesky
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School District ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Los Angeles County ◽  
The State ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
City Schools

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, during the height of protests and actions by civil rights activists around de facto school segregation in the Los Angeles area, the residents of a group of small cities just southeast of the City of Los Angeles fought to break away from the Los Angeles City Schools and create a new, independent school district—one that would help preserve racially segregated schools in the area. The “Four Cities” coalition was comprised of residents of the majority white, working-class cities of Vernon, Maywood, Huntington Park, and Bell—all of which had joined the Los Angeles City Schools in the 1920s and 1930s rather than continue to operate local districts. The coalition later expanded to include residents of the cities of South Gate, Cudahy, and some unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, although Vernon was eventually excluded. The Four Cities coalition petitioned for the new district in response to a planned merger of the Los Angeles City Schools—until this time comprised of separate elementary and high school districts—into the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The coalition's strategy was to utilize a provision of the district unification process that allowed citizens to petition for reconfiguration or redrawing of boundaries. Unification was encouraged by the California State Board of Education and legislature in order to combine the administrative functions of separate primary and secondary school districts—the dominant model up to this time—to better serve the state's rapidly growing population of children and their educational needs, and was being deliberated in communities across the state and throughout Los Angeles County. The debates at the time over school district unification in the Greater Los Angeles area, like the one over the Four Cities proposal, were inextricably tied to larger issues, such as taxation, control of community institutions, the size and role of state and county government, and racial segregation. At the same time that civil rights activists in the area and the state government alike were articulating a vision of public schools that was more inclusive and demanded larger-scale, consolidated administration, the unification process reveals an often-overlooked grassroots activism among residents of the majority white, working-class cities surrounding Los Angeles that put forward a vision of exclusionary, smaller-scale school districts based on notions of local control and what they termed “community identity.”

The World Opened to Everyone. The Main Library of Krasnoyarsk Region has Celebrated 75-year Anniversary

2010 ◽  
pp. 99-100
Author(s):  
Julia N. Shubnikova
Keyword(s):  
Russian Federation ◽  
The State ◽  
Krasnoyarsk Region ◽  
The World ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Krasnodar Region

On the State Universal Scientific Library of the Krasnodar region, which is one of the largest regional libraries in the Russian Federation.

Digital Economy: New Opportunities and Threats for the Development of the World Economy

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. A. Strelkova
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Digital Economy ◽  
The State ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Country Level ◽  
The World ◽  
Business Structures ◽  
Definition Of

The paper examines various approaches to the definition of the term «digital economy» in the scientific and business environment along with factors and forms of its development in different countries taking into account the specifics of the current stage of the Russian economy, which is a matter of particular importance in seeking new sources of the world economy growth. The subject of the research is opportunities and threats inherent in the process of digitalization of economies and their impact on the operation of international and national markets as well as the development of the world economy as a whole. The purpose of the paper was to analyze the practical experience in the formation and development of the digital economy in foreign countries and Russia and identify the changes it brings to the activities of state institutions and business structures, established rules of market exchange, the process of promotion and use of innovations. All the above made it possible to determine the country-level specifics of the digital economy evolution reveal the contradictory nature of its manifestations and justify the necessity for active participation of the state in stimulation and support of potentially promising digital innovations in various sectors of the economy. It is concluded that the level of the digital economy development depends on the real-sector performance, the maturity of markets, the state of the national economy. It is highlighted that the criteria for a comprehensive assessment of the results of the economy digitalization must be developed.

KEY ASPECTS OF TRANSFORMATION OF THE STATE AUTHORITIES IN THE WORLD AND TO THE MODERN SOVERUM UKRAINE: A JOINT AND PERSONALITY

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (11) ◽  
pp. 164-174
Author(s):  
Оlena Fedorіvna Caracasidi
Keyword(s):  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Human Life ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Power ◽  
The People ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The World ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Key Aspects

The article deals with the fundamental, inherent in most of the countries of the world transformation of state power, its formation, functioning and division between the main branches as a result of the decentralization of such power, its subsidiarity. Attention is drawn to the specifics of state power, its func- tional features in the conditions of sovereignty of the states, their interconnec- tion. It is emphasized that the nature of the state power is connected with the nature of the political system of the state, with the form of government and many other aspects of a fundamental nature.It is analyzed that in the middle of national states the questions of legitima- cy, sovereignty of transparency of state power, its formation are acutely raised. Concerning the practical functioning of state power, a deeper study now needs a problem of separation of powers and the distribution of power. The use of this principle, which ensures the real subsidiarity of the authorities, the formation of more effective, responsible democratic relations between state power and civil society, is the first priority of the transformation of state power in the conditions of modern transformations of countries and societies. It is substantiated that the research of these problems will open up much wider opportunities for the provi- sion of state power not as a center authority, but also as a leading political structure but as a power of the people and the community. In the context of global democratization processes, such processes are crucial for a more humanistic and civilized arrangement of human life. It is noted that local self-government, as a specific form of public power, is also characterized by an expressive feature of a special subject of power (territorial community) as a set of large numbers of people; joint communal property; tax system, etc.

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