Public against our will? The caring gaze of Leviathan, “pink files” from the 1980s Poland and the issue of privacy

• Authors: Majewska Ewa

Title variants

PL

Upublicznianie wbrew naszej woli? Opiekuńczy wzrok Lewiatana, polskie „różowe teczki” z lat 80. XX w. i kwestia prywatności

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In my article I attempt to decipher the logic of a large police and secret services operation conducted by means of surveillance and direct control of the gay men in the late 1980s in Poland. LGBTQ+ activists claim that some 11000 men were involved in it, and yet, this action has never been properly researched, summarized and no justice procedures have been undertaken after 1989. This article combines the „archive activism” of Howard Zinn and his followers in the queer activism and theory, certain elements of theories of the public sphere and counterpublics (Kluge and Negt, Warner etc) and the critical deconstructive and feminist research on the archive and the private (Derrida, Berlant, Gatens) in order to build a discussion of how to queer the scattered state archives of the state police and services without petrification, nostalgia or resignation. It investigates the large spectrum of implications of “being public against our will”, depicting forms of resistance and insubordination as well, as “archivizing against their will” in the institutional context avoiding responsibility.

Keywords

EN

archives; Operation “Hiacynt”; surveillance; homosexual men; police

PL

archiwa; Akcja „Hiacynt”; inwigilacja homoseksualnych mężczyzn; milicja obywatelska

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Warszawski. Ośrodek Studiów Amerykańskich
• Journal: InterAlia: Pismo poświęcone studiom queer
• Year: 2018
• Issue: 13
• Pages: 54-77

Contributors

author

Majewska Ewa

• University of Warsaw

References

• Benhabib, S. (1986). The Generalized and the Concrete Other: The Kohlberg-Gilligan Controversy and Feminist Theory. Praxis International, 5: 402-424.
• Benjamin, W. (1968). The Task of Translator. In: Benjamin, W. Illuminations. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
• Berlant, L. (1999). The Subject of true Feeling. Pain, Privacy, Politics. In: Sarat, A., Kearns, T. (eds.) Cultural Pluralism, Identity Politics and the Law. Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press, pp. 49-84.
• Boym, S. (2001). The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books.
• Deleuze, G. (1992). Postscript to the societies of control. October, 59: 3-7.
• Derrida, J. (1991). Plato’s Pharmacy. In: Derrida, J. Dissemination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Derrida, J. (1995). Archive Fever. A Freudian Impression. Diacritics, 25 (2): 9-63.
• Duggan, L. (1994). Queering the State. Social Text, 39: 1-14.
• Eribon, D. (1991). Michel Foucault. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Fantone, L. (2007). Precarious Changes: Gender and Generational Politics in Contemporary Italy. Feminist Review, 87: 5-20.
• Federici, S. (2008). Precarious Labor: A Feminist Viewpoint. Retrieved from https://inthemiddleofthewhirlwind.wordpress.com/precarious-labor-a-feminist-viewpoint/.
• Fiedotow, A. (2012). Początki ruchu gejowskiego w Polsce (1981–1990). In: Kula, M. et al (eds.) Kłopoty z seksem w PRL. Rodzenie nie całkiem po ludzku, aborcja, choroby, odmienności. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, pp. 241-359.
• Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish. New York: Pantheon Books.
• Foucault, M. (2003). “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collѐge de France, 1975-1976. New York: Picador.
• Francis, Ch. & Felts, P. (2017). Archive Activism: Vergangenheitsbewaltigung!. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 4.1: 28-41.
• Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. Social Text, 25/26: 56-80.
• Gatens, M. (2004). Privacy and the Body. The Privacy of the Affect. In: Rossler, B. (ed.) Privacies: Philosophical Evaluations. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 113-132.
• Greene, M. A. (2013). A Critique of Social Justice as an Archival Imperative: What Is It We’re Doing That’s All That Important? The American Archivist, 76 (2): 302–334.
• Habermas, J. (1989). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. An Inquiry into a Category of. Bourgeois Society. Massachussetts: MIT Press.
• Halberstam, J. (2005). In a Queer Time and Place. Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: NYU Press.
• Hansen, H. K., Christensen L. T. & Flyverbom, M. (2015). Introduction: Logics of transparency in late modernity: Paradoxes, mediation and governance. European Journal of Social Theory, 18 (2): 117-131.
• Haraway, D. (1991). Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routlege.
• Hennessy, R. (2000). Profit and Pleasure. Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism. New York: Routlege.
• Hochschild, A. (1983). The Managed Heart. Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• hooks, b. (1984). Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. New York: South End Press.
• Jimerson, R, C. (2010). From the Pacifc Northwest to the Global Information Society: the Changing Nature of Archival Education. Journal of Western Archives, 1 (1). Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/westernarchives/vol1/iss1/2/.
• Kitliński, T. & Leszkowicz, P. (2005). Miłość i demokracja. Rozważania o kwestii homoseksualnej w Polsce. Kraków: Aureus.
• Kluge, A. & and Negt, O. (1993). Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Kozakiewicz, M. (1988). List poparcia dla środowisk homoseksualnych [Letter of support for the homosexual community]. IPN document.
• Kurpios, P. (2001). Poszukiwani, poszukiwane. Geje i lesbijki a rzeczywistość PRL. In: Parus-Jaskulowska, M., Stabrowska, A. (eds.) Kultura i społeczeństwo PRL. Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, pp. 35-40.
• LaCapra, D. (2001). Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Lorey, I. (2015). State of Insecurity. Government of the Precarious. London: Verso.
• Montag, W. & Hill, M. (2005). Masses, Classes and the Public Sphere. London: Verso.
• Negri, A. & Hardt, M. (2009). Commonwealth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Panayotov, S. (2016). Straight Separatism: Ten Theses on the Queer Archive. Interalia: A Journal of Queer Studies, 11a: 122-124.
• Pasquinelli, M. (forthcoming). Metadata Society. In: Braidotti, R., Hlavajova, M. (eds.) Posthuman Glossary. London: Bloomsbury.
• Pietkiewicz, B. (2014). Gorzki fiolet. In: Szczygieł, M. (ed.) Antologia polskiego reportażu z XX wieku. Tom 2. Wołowiec: Wydawnictwo Czarne.
• Quinn, P. M. (1977). The Archivist as Activist. Georgia Archive, 5 (1). Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1077&context=georgia_archive.
• Rawson, K.J. (2015). Archival Justice. An Interview with Ben Power Alwin. Radical History Review, 122: 177-187.
• Ryziński, R. (2016). Foucault w Warszawie. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo “Dowody na istnienie”.
• Selerowicz, A. (2015). Kryptonim “Hiacynt”. Warszawa: queermedia.
• Spivak, G. Ch. (1985). Scattered Speculations on the Question of Value. Diacritics, 15 (4): 73-93.
• Spivak, G. Ch. (1999). A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Tomasik, K. (2012). Gejerel. Mniejszości seksualne w PRL-u. Warszawa: Krytyka Polityczna.
• Warkocki, B. (2015). Różowy Język. Literatura i polityka kultury na początku wieku. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej.
• Witkowski, M. (2011). Lovetown. London: Portobello Books.
• Zboralski, W. (19.11.1985). A letter available in the National Library in Warsaw.
• Zinn, H. (1977). Secrecy, Archives, and the Public Interest. Midwestern Archivist, 2: 14-17.