Remaking National Identity: Two Contested Monuments in Post-Communist Poland

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore the remaking of national identity in post-communist Poland through the analysis of urban spaces, and, in particular, two controversial monuments that were erected under communism and survive to this day in two Polish cities. By systematically tracing the trajectory of the contested monuments, from their inception through their changing symbolism to their disputed legacies, this article will pose important questions not only about the development of cultural memory and of Polish civic society, but also the role of various agents involved in these processes. The article will examine the interaction between the official and local ‘politics of memory’ and individual initiatives centred on these monuments in an attempt to unravel the intricacies of Poland’s de-communization and nation-building following the fall of communism.     

Making space for fish: the regional,network and fluid spaces of fisheries certification

In this paper, we examine the multiple spatialities of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certifications. The MSC uses its ecolabelling scheme to promote sustainable fisheries management; its logo may be used on the products of certified fisheries. The certification process involves the definition of a ‘fishery’. This involves the designation of boundaries around a particular location. While these boundaries suggest exclusivity for each fishery, these regional spaces are also entwined in the MSC's network, whereby they are viewed relationally. The utility of areal boundaries is also rendered problematic by the materiality of the seas: coastlines change, fish swim, water moves and ships travel. To operate its scheme successfully, the MSC has to recognise this spatial fluidity, acknowledging the rupture of boundaries and the movement of actors. We argue that attention to a multiplicity of spatialities helps direct attention to the role of non-humans in the acting out of hybrid geographies.     

Flexible topographies: Muslim spaces in a German cityscape

This paper examines transient and semi-permanent Muslim spaces, their social construction, use, and relevance for diverse pious Muslims in Stuttgart, Germany. I describe the location, creation, negotiation, and maintenance of such spaces and analyze their position and contribution to a larger urban Muslim social geography. Based on several years of ethnographic fieldwork in Stuttgart, Germany, I illustrate how individuals mark or inhabit spaces momentarily or more permanently as Muslim spaces. I illustrate how at least for the length of a particular encounter, spaces are used in manners that reflect Islamic sensitivities and normativities. These spaces are ever more inseparably and irreversibly woven into the urban fabric. Over time they become and indeed some already have become integral parts of the cityscape. Some spaces in the process of recurrent islamically inspired uses become semi-permanent or even permanent Muslim spatialities, especially in contexts with considerable Muslim interaction or movement. The density of transient encounters and spaces over time contributes to the consolidation of an increasingly well-known and shared urban Muslim social geography. Within this spatiality, pious Muslims know that planned or unplanned encounters will be framed by Muslim beliefs and practices. Paying attention to the ‘elusive evidence of the ordinary’ [Chauncey, G. (1994). Gay New York. New York: Basic Books, p. 10], I demonstrate how increasingly visible Muslim spaces and practices slowly become part of the urban fabric and every day culture.     

他者的身体实践与城市公共空间融入研究——以“麦宿者”为例

“身体”是管窥和解读社会文化现象的重要视角。基于身体地理学,探讨他者身体与城市空间之关系,可为理解边缘群体与城市公共空间融入提供有益视角。文章以长期夜宿于麦当劳餐厅的“麦宿者”为例,探讨其身体实践与城市公共空间之相互作用,以剖析边缘群体对城市公共空间融入的过程机制。研究发现：麦宿者身体特征具有鲜明的他者性,并主要通过物质性和非物质性的身体实践来与饮食空间开展协商,通过在特定时空下的弱化他者性,来实现饮食空间的融入。文章建立了他者身体与城市公共空间相互作用的理论框架,在身体实践方面对身体地理学的相关理论进行了补充。     

Agricultural structure and the rise of the Nazi Party reconsidered

There is widespread agreement within academic literature that the NSDAP systematically and effectively targeted the rural areas beginning with the Agrarian Crisis in 1927/8. However, one issue is left unresolved: were specific levels of agricultural strata differently attracted to the Nazis, and if so, how? In light of the economic and political incentives offered to German peasants with differing farm sizes, we expect that regions characterized by middle peasants were most likely to have electorally swung in a distinct, asymmetric and relevant way towards the Nazis. In order to test this hypothesis, we have used a country-wide data set, which includes the original categories of ‘parcel peasants’ (0–2 ha), ‘small-sized’ (2–5 ha) and ‘medium-sized’ farmers (5–20 ha). These specific classifications were introduced and behaviorally legitimated by the Statistical Office of the Weimar Republic at that time. We present the first analysis applying generalized additive models (GAM) for the assessment of ecological relations. In order to account for the construction of political spaces – and therefore of spatial dependencies, we offer a new mechanism based on stipulations of the electoral system. Even after controlling for pre-established impact factors (Protestantism, urbanization, etc.) and for spatial effects, we identify a clear impact of the agrarian middle classes (5–20 ha) on the Nazi vote beginning with the election in July 1932.     

Local gender contract and adaptive capacity in smallholder irrigation farming: a case study from the Kenyan drylands

This article presents the local gender contract of a smallholder irrigation farming community in Sibou, Kenya. Women's role in subsistence farming in Africa has mostly been analyzed through the lens of gender division of labor. In addition to this, we used the concept of ‘local gender contract’ to analyze cultural and material preconditions shaping gender-specific tasks in agricultural production, and consequently, men's and women's different strategies for adapting to climate variability. We show that the introduction of cash crops, as a trigger for negotiating women's and men's roles in the agricultural production, results in a process of gender contract renegotiation, and that families engaged in cash cropping are in the process of shifting from a ‘local resource contract’ to a ‘household income contract.’ Based on our analysis, we argue that a transformation of the local gender contract will have a direct impact on the community's adaptive capacity climate variability. It is, therefore, important to take the negotiation of local gender contracts into account in assessments of farming communities' adaptive capacity.     

Landscapes of (neo-)liberal control: the transcarceral spaces of federally sentenced women in Canada

This article maps the racializing, classing and gendering cartographies of cross-spatial marginalization and social control experienced by women who were formerly federally incarcerated in Canada. By investigating women's criminalization, prison and post-prison experiences, this article traces practices of racialization, gendering and classing that underwrite liberal to neo-liberal forms of social control. Results from 68 interviews with women released from federal prisons in Canada show that women's criminalization cannot solely be traced to shifts from liberal to neo-liberal governance, but rather to the ways in which structures of oppression have influenced women's criminalization across liberal to neo-liberal rationalities. This analysis shows how liberal ‘welfarist’ ideas and ideals are embedded in neo-liberal reforms and provide the discursive platforms of an extended and widened network of social control of criminalized women beyond prison walls, across institutions, including a variety of (non-)government actors and the women themselves. This widened web of (neo-)liberal social control constitutes practices that have formed carceral spaces beyond prison walls and have perpetuated and exacerbated women's marginality after their release from federal prisons in Canada.     

The production, symbolization and socialization of gentrification: impressions from two Berkshire villages

Gentrification has long been the subject of considerable interest and debate amongst geographers. A range of differing ontological and epistemological conceptions of gentrification have been advanced, with attempts often being made to legislate between them to establish some definitive categorizations of gentrification. The majority of gentrification studies are also highly urbanized: gentrification is seen explicitly or implicitly as a phenomenon that occurs in urban space. This paper questions both the legislative and urban foci of gentrification studies, by outlining an interpretative study of material, social and symbolic dimensions of gentrification within two villages in rural Berkshire.     

可疑的繁盛——日军阴影下的都市女性文化探析

Wartime Shanghai (1937–1945) was a crucial period in women’s Yue opera history, during which the opera took roots in the city and was transformed into a modern art form. The opera established itself as a dominant presence in the city’s popular entertainment in the first half of the 1940s and gained national and international influence in the 1950s and 1960s with its masterpiece plays such as The butterfly lovers and Dream of the red chamber. The rise of women’s Yue opera in wartime Shanghai was more a ramification of long-term developments in urban migration, urban cultural transformation, and women’s integration into society that ran through the entire Republican even the early PRC periods. Translated and revised from Huadong Shifan Daxue Xuebao 华东师范大学学报 (Journal of East China Normal University), 2008, (2): 56–67     

Archives and care: Caring archival research practices in geography

Archival research has been long recognized as a key method in geography, and such research continues to appeal to scholars excavating historical influences on contemporary places. At the same time, geographical literature on care is growing rapidly. However, while geographers have often implemented care into their archival research and practice, these literatures have remained largely distinct from each other. In this paper, I bring archives and care into closer conversation. Drawing on existing geographical literature on care and on archival methods, work in archival studies, and my own research and ethnographic experiences in archives, I show how the socio-material practices of geographers in the archives help generate spaces of care, where ethical caring practices exist, and caring relationships flourish. I demonstrate how archival work in geography and beyond includes relationships of care between archivists, researchers, and archival records. I share some examples and strategies that geographers and other researchers can—and do—follow in maintaining, continuing, and repairing archival relationships, even in times of precarity and uncertainty.