Etnografia Polska

CFP Special Issue of Etnografia Polska 2023: UKRAINE: LIVED EXPERIENCES OF PAST AND PRESENT

CALL FOR PAPERS TO A SPECIAL ISSUE  OF ETNOGRAFIA POLSKA IN 2023
CFP DO UKRAIŃSKIEGO NUMERU SPECJALNEGO

UKRAINE: LIVED EXPERIENCES OF PAST AND PRESENT

Guest Editors: Julia Buyskykh, Tetiana Kalenychenko

Since the outbreak of the full-scale Russian invasion on 24 February 2022, Ukraine has experienced unprecedented attention from academic and intellectual circles worldwide. That attention was focused not only on the Russian-Ukrainian war per se, but also on the Ukrainian state, its history, culture, economics, and society. A number of scholars, professional associations, and research institutions issued supportive statements condemning Russian aggression and violence towards Ukraine. Many followed Polish intellectualist Adam Michnik’s empathic statement “We are all Ukrainians now”, written on the first day of the war (Michnik, A. 2022). Simultaneously, a new line of thought known as “westplaining” has become visible in academic discourse about Ukraine. This term is used in reaction to patronizing, superficial, and colonial commentary on Ukraine that is delivered by established Western intellectuals with biased perspective (Smoleński, J., Dutkiewicz, J. 2022).

With these challenges in mind and considering the vulnerability of the current socio-political context, in our call for a special issue of the Etnografia Polska (Polish Ethnography) journal, we aim to give voice to the scholars who are usually perceived as “local” and therefore “lacking distance” to the region, field, events, and people. We believe it’s time to question the epistemic authority of research knowledge production when it deliberately keeps a “safe”, “appropriate”, non-emotional distance from fluctuations of the history in the making. Therefore, we want to bring local voices and experiences of Ukrainian scholars as well as scholars in Ukrainian studies to the surface, to give them an opportunity to speak about multi-sited and diverse Ukraine from their point of view, and their experiences from the ground. Also, we are striving to reflect on such issues of Ukrainian ethnography and history that have been silenced or haven’t been voiced enough to get academic recognition.

Therefore, we plan not only to stretch the boundaries of traditional ethnography but to go beyond it into a multidisciplinary space, engaging researchers who use qualitative methods of study in anthropology, sociology, history, conflict studies, and religious studies to reflect upon the contested spaces of past, and present lived experiences. We invite you to think about the history of diverse Ukrainian regions, local communities and personalities connected to the regional history; about the rivalry of colonial ambitions and perceptions, and establishing one's own, unique identity; about the possibility of reconciliation having as a background difficult contradictory memories; about physical, phantom, and imagined borders. Past and present lived experiences can help us understand, at least partially, the changes that are happening right now and focus on where we would like to go in the future, as human beings, and as researchers. We hope that this issue will be an opportunity for joint reflection on complicated topics that should not be silenced, but rather become explicitly vocal.

Focusing on Ukraine, the upcoming issue engages but is not limited to such topics as:

Shared history(ies), memories, and identities on the borderlands of Ukraine;
Physical, phantom, and imagined borders in Ukraine;
Historical diversity of Ukrainian regions and local ethnic and religious groups;
(Post)colonial legacies and their impact on language, religion, society, and academia;
Representations of the Other in cultural, religious, social, and academic discourses;
Uses and misuses of history in politics, propaganda, and peacebuilding;
Research ethics in times of war;
The potential of empathy in qualitative research on violence, war, and reconciliation.

Dr. Julia Buyskykh - a historian and socio-cultural anthropologist affiliated with the Institute of History of Ukraine, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and an NGO the Centre for Applied Anthropology in Kyiv. She had a post-doc at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw (2015 – 2016), and a number of research stays in Polish academic institutions (2014, 2015, 2022). She spent the academic year of 2019-2020 at Pennsylvania State University as a Fulbright scholar. Her research interests include lived religion (Christianity) in Ukraine and Poland, inter-confessional relationships, memory and border studies, Polish-Ukrainian shared history, ethics and empathy in qualitative research. Currently, she is a Sanctuary Fellow at the University College Cork, Ireland.

dr Tetiana Kalenychenko - Ph. D. in Sociology of Religion (National Pedagogical Dragomanov university, 2018), her thesis work about “Religious component in Socio-Political Conflict in modern Ukraine”. Currently working in the field of Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding as dialogue facilitator, trainer and mediator. Co-created peacebuilding initiative “Dialogue in Action” helping to cooperate religious and secular worlds. Now working as executive director of NGO “Center for Strategic Analytics”. Main interests: sociology of religion, conflict studies, peacebuilding and reconciliation.

Proposals: Please submit a 250-word abstract and a short bio in English by the 1st of December 2022 to Tetiana Kalenychenko soc.injener@gmail.com and Julia Buyskykh julia.buj@gmail.com. 

The languages of the issue will be English and Polish.

Notification of acceptance will be sent by 15 December 2022. The deadline for submission of full articles (6000-7000 words) is 1 March 2023. The issue will be published at the end of 2023.

Nowy numer Etnografii Polskiej już na stronie

Miło nam ogłosić ukazanie się nowego tomu Etnografii Polskiej. 

Dedykujemy go profesor Iwonie Kabzińskiej, wieloletniej redaktor naczelnej, która w tym roku przechodzi na emeryturę. Pani Profesor przez szereg lat tworzyła wokół czasopisma inspirujący i przyjazny klimat przyciągający autorów i współpracowników. O jej pracy, badaniach i podejściu do życia przeczytacie w otwierającej tom rozmowie.

Zapraszamy do lektury tomu, a w nim:

12 recenzowanych artykułów autorstwa: Karoliny Dziubatej, Iwony Kabzińskiej, Aliny Kaczmarek-Subramanian; Marcjanny Nóżki, Łukasza Smyrskiego, Justyny Straczuk, Patryka Wasiaka, Huberta Wiercińskiego, Aleksandry Wieruckiej i Tomasza Lidzbarskiego;  

oraz blok tekstów o technologiach w domu pod redakcją gościnną dr hab. Joanny Zalewskiej i dr Marty Skowrońskiej, a w nim artykuły: Marka Krajewskiego, Marty Skowrońskiej i Joanny Zalewskiej.

W numerze publikujemy również wspomnienia o ważnych postaciach polskiej etnografii, które odeszły w tym roku: profesor Zofii Sokolewicz, Krystynie Małkowskiej, profesor Wandzie Paprockiej i profesorze Ludwiku Stommie.

Całość numeru dostępna jest w internecie pod adresem https://journals.iaepan.pl/ep/ oraz od Nowego Roku w księgarni IAE PAN.