Historical Sociology in Poland: Transformations of the Uses of the Past

The development of Polish institutional sociology since the 1920s reflects the combined effects of domestic political and cultural factors, along with international interdependencies. Historical sociology shares in the vicissitudes of the whole discipline. Although historical sociology was only weakly institutionalized before 1989, some of the best sociological studies produced in Poland under socialism display the keen use of historical imagination, inspired both by the pre-1939 domestic tradition and by Marxist theory. This article examines the path of historical sociology in Poland after 1989 and the connection between the sociological uses of history and the experience of post-communist transformation. We posit that the social transformation experience and how it was addressed by social science directly translate into the use of history in Polish sociology after 1989. We argue that the role of historical sociology in Poland since the end of the 1990s was a function of the potential of the past as a symbolic resource in the growing interdependence between Poland and Western Europe. However, the post-1989 research agendas of historical sociology were forged according to the mode of responsiveness to political agendas predating 1989. An overview of the development of Polish historical sociology demonstrates that the ahistorical transitological thinking after 1989 has been challenged by critical agendas in historical sociology, but it was, in the first place, a reaction to the increased potential of the past as a symbolic resource in political debates. Thus, the rationale for the passage to the third wave of historical sociology was primarily political.

City’s Cultural Memory: Modern Practices of Symbolizing the Past

The article is devoted to the discourse of the city’s cultural memory. The relevance of studying this topic is determined not only by the fundamental aspect associated with the episodicity of existing studies of this phenomenon. From an applied point of view, the city’s cultural memory is a symbolic resource that can be used to create an appealing image, form a sustainable urban identity, and strengthen the citizen’s sense of belonging to the city. The accumulation and objectification of cultural memory take place in symbolic forms, which makes it important to study the practices of symbolizing the urban past, the essence of which is to generate the significance of the relevant or latent layers of cultural memory for the citizens.The article presents the results of the final stage of research related to the study of the process of constructing the cultural memory of the city. The purpose of the article is to analyze modern practices of symbolizing fragments of the urban past, which mean their significance for contemporaries. Basing on the culturological cross-section of the issue, the author integrates different research contexts. The methodological basis of the article is the communicative approach that focuses on the processes of meaning formation, and the constructivist method that considers memory as a multi-layered and dynamic construct. Analyzing the practices of symbolizing the urban past by the example of Russian cities, the author of the article demonstrates how the episodes of the city’s memory are updated in the modern world, how cultural meanings become memorable for citizens. The author uses the results of previous studies and identifies the following elements of the symbolization of the urban past: a) ways of encoding fragments of the past; b) communicative trajectories of memory symbolization; c) factors of producing meanings about the collective past of the city. The obtained results open up new frontiers in understanding the processes of formation of the collective ideas about the city, and prospects for empirical research, forecasting and constructing the cultural memory of Russian cities, giving them the opportunity to change their present and future.

The Buryat Intellectual Migration to Western Europe from the Perspective of Friendship Connections and Foreign Languages Competencies

The article examines the Russian ethnic migration on the example of Buryat migrants in Western Europe. It is noted that this topic is poorly studied and that the group under investigation belongs to intellectual migration. The subject of the study is foreign language competence, peculiarities of the functioning of foreign languages in post-migration life, as well as the relationship between languages and the social communication circle of Buryat migrants. Based on the materials of interviews and ethnographic observations, a conclusion is made about the change in the nature of modern migration towards increased mobility and transmigration, the blurring of the boundaries between temporary, circular and other types of migration. This primarily affects young people, leading to the weakening of group identification strategies, including ethnic ones, and to the strengthening of individual as well as cosmopolitan tendencies. In communication with friends and partners a wide repertoire of Western and Eastern foreign languages is used, among which English certainly dominates. Multilingual linguistic competencies by Buryat migrants are closely related to their high level of education and are used as a symbolic resource to achieve professional and personal goals. Language strategies and practices vary widely, depending on migrants life plans, family status, and a number of other external and internal factors.

PAISAGENS CULTURAIS E IMAGINÁRIO COMO RECURSO SIMBÓLICO DA CIDADE PEQUENA: um estudo sobre Triunfo, Sertão de Pernambuco

CULTURAL AND IMAGINARY LANDSCAPES AS A SYMBOLIC RESOURCE OF SMALL CITY: a study on Triunfo, in the Pernambuco BacklandPAISAJES CULTURALES E IMAGINARIOS COMO RECURSO SIMBÓLICO DE CIUDAD PEQUEÑA: un estudio sobre Triunfo, en PernambucoRESUMONesta pesquisa desenvolve-se o argumento de que paisagens culturais e o imaginário constituem recursos simbólicos a serem considerados na inserção da cidade pequena nas distintas redes urbanas do país. Paisagens culturais (incluindo os biomas locais), na amplitude do imaginário local, podem constituir potenciais recursos simbólicos que singularizam a cidade em sua condição genérica. Metodologicamente, adota-se uma perspectiva qualitativa de estudo de caso sobre o município de Triunfo, no sertão do Pajeú, em Pernambuco, por meio da qual buscamos compreender em que medida o imaginário pode atuar de forma a potencializar as paisagens em seu potencial simbólico e socioeconômico. A partir do campo cultural, a pesquisa desenvolve-se em prática interdisciplinar, na interface com geografia cultural, comunicação e antropologia do imaginário, com pesquisa de campo com ênfase em registro fotográfico como elementos constituintes do imaginário estudado.Palavras-chave: Paisagens Culturais; Imaginário; Recurso Simbólico; Cidade Pequena; Triunfo-PE.ABSTRACTThis research develops the argument that cultural landscapes and the imaginary are symbolic resources to be considered in the insertion of the small city in the different urban networks of the country. Cultural landscapes (including local biomes), in the breadth of the local imagination, can constitute potential symbolic resources that make the city unique in its generic condition. Methodologically, a qualitative perspective is adopted, a case study about the municipality of Triunfo, in the Pajeú “sertão” (hinterland), in Pernambuco, through which we seek to understand to what extent the imaginary can act in order to potentiate the landscapes in their symbolic potential and socioeconomic. From the cultural field, the research develops in interdisciplinary practice, in the interface with cultural geography, communication and anthropology of the imaginary, in a qualitative approach, with field research and the with an emphasis on photographic record as constituent elements of the studied imaginary.Keywords: Cultural Landscapes; Imaginary; Symbolic Resource; Small City; Triunfo-PE.RESUMENEsta investigación desarrolla el argumento de que los paisajes culturales y lo imaginario son recursos simbólicos que considerar en la inserción de la pequeña ciudad en las diferentes redes urbanas del país. Los paisajes culturales (incluidos los biomas locales), en la amplitud de la imaginación local, pueden constituir recursos simbólicos potenciales que hacen que la ciudad sea única en su condición genérica. Metodológicamente, se adopta una perspectiva cualitativa, un estudio de caso sobre el municipio de Triunfo, en el “sertão” (interior) de Pajeú, en Pernambuco, a través del cual buscamos comprender en qué medida el imaginario puede actuar para potenciar los paisajes en su potencial simbólico y socioeconómico. Desde el campo cultural, la investigación se desarrolla en la práctica interdisciplinaria, en la interfaz con la geografía cultural, la comunicación y la antropología del imaginario, en un enfoque cualitativo, con la investigación de campo y el con énfasis en el registro fotográfico como elementos constitutivos del imaginario estudiado.Palabras clave: Paisajes Culturales; Imaginario; Recurso Simbólico; Ciudad Pequeña; Triunfo-PE.

Vygotsky’s Tragedy: Hamlet and the Psychology of Art

Lev S. Vygotsky is one of the major figures of psychology; however, his deep engagement with the arts is less known. This is surprising, given the fact that the arts, and especially Shakespeare’s Hamlet, are present throughout his career. In this article, we argue, first, that Hamlet was a major symbolic resource for Vygotsky in times of liminal transitions, and second, that it is this very deep experience of having been transformed by means of Hamlet that grounds his psychology of art, which aims precisely to show how Hamlet works as a “technique of emotions.” Our demonstration is organized into three main movements. In Part 1, we retrace the historical and cultural context in which Vygotsky grew up as a young man. We emphasize his experiences of liminality and transitions, due to transformations of the social world and his own life. In Part 2, we examine Vygotsky’s proposition itself through a close analysis of his Psychology of art. Finally, in Part 3, we further explicate the relation between art and life at play in Vygotsky’s approach and relate this to Vygotsky’s broader psychology.

From the Greek Revolution of 1821 to the Metapolitefsi: Historiographical Debates in Greece across Two Centuries

Nowadays, with the celebration of the Greek state’s bicentennial, the exploration of how the national past was debated, historicised and narrated through historiographical and political means holds an interesting position: by examining how certain pasts entered the national canon, how events and figures were pantheonised, and how history and memory wars were conducted, we may be able to assess why and how nation-states commemorate themselves and formulate narratives about the shared past. Using the past as a symbolic resource, the agents of political and social power seek to provide the definitive version of how and why did we arrive at the present. Simultaneously, these official versions of the past are constantly contested by opposing social forces, which frequently manage to have their versions merge with, incorporated into or stand alongside those of their opponents. It is through these procedures, namely historiographical debates such as these explored in this issue of Historein, that the past turns into history.

'Civilized dispossession': Corporate accumulation at the dawn of modern capitalism

Critical scholarship views corporate accumulation – a fundamental driver of capitalism – as inherently dispossessive, involving violence and expropriation. However, dispossession also involves practices of legitimation that are related to coercive violence in complex ways. We examine the roles of dispossession and legitimation practices as constitutive of corporate accumulation. Specifically, we analyze how dispossession is connected to the appropriation of legitimacy as a symbolic resource which justifies and enables violence and expropriation. Taking an historical perspective, we examine a paradigmatic case of corporate accumulation: the Dutch East India Company’s monopolization of spices on the Banda islands (1599-1621). In this process, the Dutch moved from 1) initial instances of legitimation to 2) legitimation to enforce Dutch-Bandanese agreements, to 3) legitimation to enable dispossession of the Bandanese, to finally 4) wholesale dispossession of the Bandanese. These four phases reflect a mechanism that we call ‘civilized dispossession’, which describes the escalating three-way interplay between Dutch practices of dispossession and legitimation and Bandanese resistance, and which was driven by institutional experimentation and multi-level institutional work. Integrating institutional and critical perspectives, the notion of ‘civilized dispossession’ provides a novel theorization of corporate accumulation, elucidating the mechanisms by which corporations promote the diffusion of capitalism.

I: COVID-19 pandemic and the politics of risk: Perspectives on science, state and society in India

Health behaviour of the people is said to be shaped by market forces, scientific or religious institutions or the state. It is pertinent to examine the dominant institutions that shape health cultures in any society, at any given point in time. While public health has not been a priority for the Indian state, the COVID-19 pandemic created an unmistakable opportunity for state regulation. It is the argument of this article that the state has been central to the framing of the COVID-19 pandemic and the identification of relevant interventions, such that the borderline between the political and medical is blurred. The influence of these institutional decisions on the health behaviour of the people indicates that compliant health behaviour is a symbolic resource for the state in societies like India, irrespective of whether the government actually delivers on its health care delivery.

Language Ideologies and Transnational Migration: A Study of Cape Verdeans in Galicia

Changes to the global infrastructure have contributed to the growing (linguistic) diversity of large metropolises. However, there have been calls from scholars to explore “emerging superdiversity” (DePalma and Pérez-Caramés 2018) in peripheral regions in order to fully understand the complexities and nuances of the sociolinguistics of globalisation (Wang et al. 2014; Pietikäinen et al. 2016). This article, therefore, explores language ideologies among a purposive sample of five young adults of Cape Verdean origin living in the peripheral region of Galicia, Spain, and draws on interview data to examine the ways in which multilingual migrants engage with the language varieties in their linguistic repertoire. In studying immigration from a former African colony to a bilingual European context, we can see how language ideologies from the migrant community are reflected in local ones. The sociolinguistic dynamics of Cape Verde and Galicia share many similarities: both contexts are officially bilingual (Galician and Spanish in Galicia, Kriolu and Portuguese in Cape Verde), and questions regarding the hierarchisation of languages remain pertinent in both cases. The ideologies about the value and prestige of (minority) languages that Cape Verdean migrants arrive with are thus accommodated by local linguistic ideologies in Galicia, a region which has a history of linguistic minoritisation. This has important implications for the ways in which language, as a symbolic resource, is mobilised by migrants in contexts of transnational migration. The findings of this study show how migrants are key actors in (re)shaping the linguistic dynamics of their host society and how, through their practices and discourses, they challenge long-standing assumptions about language, identity and linguistic legitimacy, and call into question ethno-linguistic boundaries.

ELDERLY WOMAN IN KARELIAN TRADITIONAL CULTURE: AGE BOUNDARIES AND SOCIOCULTURAL STATUS

To a larger extend than in case of a man the transition of a woman from one socio-age status to another in traditional culture was connected with her physiological changes. Stages of growing-up and ageing which were similar in many societies were regulated by the means of local tradition. It included complex of rights and obligations, restrictions and opportunities, which were determined by a combination of climatic, socioeconomic, cultural, religious, ethnic and other factors. The focus of the paper is to identify the universal and the ethnically specific traits in the scenarios of women aging in Karelian culture. Research purposes included consideration of issues about the old age limits, the field of female socio- age stratification terminology, the matter of sociocultural status, limitations and opportunities for Karelian women within and outside the family. The study observes the period of the late XIX - early XX century. The territorial framework is outlined by the boundaries of the Karelian population dwelling in the Olonets and Arkhangelsk provinces (the part of the Republic of Karelia in present). The authors conclude that late maturity was an important milestone in the life of Karelian woman. Normative role was growing, hierarchical relations in the family were redefined. However, the life of an elderly woman was not limited to family affairs. Participation in life cycle ceremonies, religious and missionary activities was a symbolic resource of the Karelian women in rural society and could be converted into revenue.