The article entitled “The Bridge of Mostar”, which addresses the problem of armed conflicts in the Balkans and the attempts to establish peace in the region. Creating a harmonious coexistence between the groups of different cultures and religions requires taking into consideration the ethnic and cultural behavioural conditioning. The unity, but also the conflicts based on ethnic differences, are symbolised by the bridge in the town of Mostar, which connects two areas with different traditions and cultural backgrounds. The rebuilding of the bridge, which was destroyed in 1993 during the Bosnian War, went beyond the physical restoring of the bridge, and entailed the recreation of the uneasy harmony between the peoples of different backgrounds and aspirations who live in the neighbouring areas. The bridge symbolises the difficulty in defining the identity and creating harmonious coexistence, but also the need for this harmony. The article emphasis the necessity of involvement by international organisations in order to reconcile the belligerent parties, while enhancing the identity of each ethnic group and creating harmonious relations between the different groups.
The article familiarizes the reader with reasons and consequences of the actions undertaken by young Polish Jews, which contribute to the construction of the Jewish identity. The first part of the text deals with the struggle of the youngsters with identity problems built on the feeling of exclusion and inadequacy of individuals who discover their Jewish descent. The second part is devoted to the work on identity, which entails actions undertaken by the respondents to transform the subjective imagery concerning their marginal situation as well as work on further interactions. The Jewish identity is analyzed here in the postmodern context, which allows us to treat it as a project with many possible ways of its completion.
Lockean theories of personal identity maintain that we persist by virtue of psychological continuity, and most Lockeans say that we are material things coinciding with animals. Some animalists argue that if persons and animals coincide, they must have the same intrinsic properties, including thinking, and, as a result, there are ‘too many thinkers’ associated with each human being. Further, Lockeans have trouble explaining how animals and persons can be numerically different and have different persistence conditions. For these reasons, the idea of a person being numerically distinct but coincident with an animal is rejected and animalists conclude that we simply are animals. However, animalists face a similar problem when confronted with the vagueness of composition. Animals are entities with vague boundaries. According to the linguistic account of vagueness, the vagueness of a term consists in there being a number of candidates for the denotatum of the vague term. It seems to imply that where we see an animal, there are, in fact, a lot of distinct but overlapping entities with basically the same intrinsic properties, including thinking. As a result, the animalist must also posit ‘too many thinkers’ where we thought there was only one. This seems to imply that the animalist cannot accept the linguistic account of vagueness. In this paper the author argues that the animalist can accept the linguistic account of vagueness and retain her argument against Lockeanism.
The paper explores possible changes of personal identity due to deep brain stimulation (DBS) on the background of a universal problem of combining the persistence through time with the change of an object. It is argued, that in the conception of perdurantism the problem can be resolved without the elimination of identity. Here the identity is put under threat only when the psychological criterion is applied. The application of memory, corporeal or biological criteria means no threat to personal identity of a person undergoing DBS.
Discourse, understood in its broadest meaning determines the sense of political emigration. It explains the genesis of political emigration, defines its identity, sets objectives, defines its axiology. Polish political emigration after World War II has made debate an important attribute of its activity. Applying this instrument, it referred to the past and analyzed the present. The considerations of this article are not a review of the most important debates that were run outside the country in the postwar period, although many of them have been cited. The author's aim was rather to draw attention to the importance of the phenomenon. Discourse can be seen as having value in itself, that is, to reconstruct, explore, as well as being the subject of analysis. It can, however, be understood differently, as material that can be used for a far deeper description of the activities carried out outside the country than a study on political thought, collective behavior or the attitudes of an individual.
Popular convictions as to character of Japanese culture are dominated by the orientalist stereotypes that include self-contradicting images of a society that is traditional and at the same time modern and technology-based. The ambiguous portrait of Japan seems to a certain extent justied, if one takes into account the transformation that took place throughout the 20th century and which gave rise to a new model of culture that was shaped thanks to a unique combination of various elements, both native and foreign. I am planning to focus on the impact of the mass media on the awareness and an everyday life of the Japanese people. Besides, I am going to consider the extent as to which the new environment has been transformed by the information revolution. For my research I shall use the contemporary cinema which perfectly reflects cultural issues of the nation in the process of the vehement social change, and which shows the hopes and fears of the future.
This work is concerned with the complicated process of building young people's relations with the surrounding world. Analyzing this process, I tried to show possibly many factors influencing adolescents' assimilation and adaptation processes in relation to the living space. These include personality, identity, and orientation. I also present the constructed typology of people who are focused on themselves as well as those who are concentrated on and oriented towards others. During the process of constructing this typology, I took into account the type of personalities, interactions, relations to social norms, life orientation, and the feeling of identity.
In the most recent decade, the thematic field of frontiers and identity, especially the interconnection of both concepts, has belonged among the symptomatic phenomena of Czech historiography. As a result, coordinated and mutually coherent works have been developed, which, in addition to research, also involved activities in the areas of historical education, the transfer of knowledge and international cooperation. It is one of the fields in which Czech historiography has been actively involved in international scientific communication, and in addition in a partly coordinator role. With the emergence of the new theme of frontiers and identity, Czech historiography relatively quickly responded to the developments in international scientific reflections. This contribution deals with reasons for this newly arisen focus, albeit neither the theme of frontiers nor the issue of identity were entirely novel categories of historical thought in the 1990s and in later years. However, at this time they attained rather new connotations and relevant meanings and in connection with this the manner of treating the subject matter has also changed. Post-modernist challenges – in terms of post-modern perspectives and critical responses to them – have become decisive preconditions of this phenomenon from the last stages of the 20th century. This contribution follows the formation of new concepts of collective identities, frontiers and space, especially in their mutual interconnection. At the same time attention is paid to mutual connections between international and Czech reflections. At its conclusion, comments are devoted to the special section of the 10th Congress of Czech Historians in Ostrava, which dealt with these issues.
The contribution focuses on identification of Bulgarian living in the territory of Slovakia. It deals with the symbol of “being Bulgarian”, ethnicity, place of birth, and personal experiences. Basic ethno-cultural issues such as Bulgaria as a state or territory, Bulgarian language, material things, traditional cuisine, Bulgarian festivals are the target of our research. From realised interviews the author selected those opinions and impressions, which are connected with studied topic.
In the tabloid press a significant role is played by established and functioning celebrities’ images. The purpose of this analysis was to attempt to discover the mechanisms of the construction, processing and communication of these images by the tabloids existing in the Polish media. In the ideal situation the image should be the same as the identity. The confrontation between the celebrities’ image and identity was important as well. Based on the analysis of articles about Doda within a period of two months (from 1 March 2009 to 30 April 2009) a scheme of her image in tabloids was created, which consisted of myths created by the specific lexemes often repeated in the same contexts. Thus arose the myths: “Doda ― the queen,” “Doda ordinary and Polish,” “Doda ― the fashion designer,” “Doda quarrelsome” and “Doda ― the singer.” Doda has not appeared in tabloids beyond such broadly constructed categories. Doda’s image, which can be read on this basis, however, is not entirely coherent. Despite the fact that it slightly deviates from the celebrity’s identity. As a source of knowledge about the celebrity’s identity her official website (www.doda.net.pl) was used. Conclusions drawn on the basis of the analysis of articles about Doda can be extended to the whole area of the functioning of all celebrities in Polish tabloids. The most important mechanism is very simple ― it is based on the repetition of the same ordinary lexemes and phrases defining a celebrity. Celebrities’ images arise from taking into account the needs of customers whose demands are not clear. Tabloids’ readers at the same time expect rumors of rich, ideal life of stars and confirmation that celebrities are as ordinary as they are. Polish tabloid press acts as a stabilizer. It is conservative and uncontested to maintain society and bring it relief (emotional discharge). It is not a news medium, but entertaining. Therefore, in the tabloid press there may lawfully function even seemingly conflicting celebrities’ images.
Bohemka and Veselinovka in Ukraine were founded at the beginning of the twentieth century by descendants of Czech religious emigrants of the eighteenth century. Nowadays, both villages are inhabited predominantly by Protestant Czechs who still constitute a majority, as well as by Ukraininas of Orthodox denomination and, partly, by individuals of other nationalities. In the article the ethnical and confessional identity of inhabitants of both villages is being presented through the analysis of funeral and postfuneral rites and their material manifestations. In both communities funerals and funeral feasts are celebrated; besides, rites commemorating the deceased are observed: 'pominky', that is, remembrances of the dead that take place in precisely determinated intervals, 'provody' or collective visits of cemeteries accompanied by feasting on the graves, and also remembrances of deceased soldiers at memorials. Most of these rituals stem from Orthodox tradition, but nowadays also Czech inhabitants of the communities participate in them. They struggle to belittle them, because they are not compatible with their tradition as well as with their religious ideology. Dissimilarities, but also coming together of both groups manifested itself on both cemeteries. Coming together had been realized thanks to more intense social bonds among members of both groups. The (post)funeral rites contain in themselves expressions of ethnic and confessional identity through symbols, such as cross and chalice. Such rituals not only make reference to tradition, but they introduce the participants into the system of reciprocal relations and corroborate the existing social bonds.
Te paper focuses on the identity of a contemporary Polish nationalist movement. It is based on biographical narrative interviews which were carried out among members of three Polish nationalist organizations: the All Youth Polish, the National Rebirth of Poland and the National Radical Camp. Participants of nationalist movements mobilize themselves and protest against increasing diversity. Te contemporary Polish nationalism can be understood as the particular kind of cultural resistance to globalization, cultural diversifcation, lef- -wing activities. Te homosexuals and feminists seem to be their main opponents. Nationalists defne themselves as the defenders of tradition, history and Polish values and hence they attempt to make the public sphere homogeneous. According to their statements, the public sphere should be reserved for Polish, Catholic values and norms. As I conclude, the nationalist resistance can be perceived as the result of anxiety for the status of national identity and longing for universal values or constant points of reference.
Te main area of the article refers to individual identity and identity of discriminated groups in terms of sociological perspective. Te author analyses this phenomenon in the context of self-consciousness, agency internalization of social roles and group self-consciousness. However, social interactions issue is the most crucial study of this article. Te whole area of the study based on the theory of Erving Gofman, Jacek Kochanowski and Manuel Castells.
The problem of collective memory has become a subject of discussion among representatives of humanities - especially sociologists and historians - over the past few decades. The article presents selected perspectives interpreting the phenomenon of collective memory in contemporary society whose characteristic is that it is inclined towards the future rather than the past. In this context the particular method of establishing ties with the past is defined as a practice serving to define the past in terms of the fluid present and the hard to define future. The collective memory is shown as both a factor shaping socially defined areas of amnesia and a factor which influences the biographical dimension of establishing identity, including a picture of the past.
The reconstruction of the migrants’ identity is an essential condition for the migrants’ adaptation in their new place of settlement. Such reconstruction in the case of incomplete, pendulum migration is more complicated. This type of migration is characterized by its relatively short term nature and multiple travels of migrants between their country of origin and the target country. The identity of the so-called pendulum migrants is composed of cultural elements belonging both to the receiving society and to the native one. As a result migrants confront components of their identity constructed during interactions in the host society with their group of origin whenever they come back to their home country. It is a special process of re-adaptation to their original society. One can distinguish different types of narrations used by pendulum migrants. Those diverse techniques of communication differ in their cognitive and emotional components. The narrations fulfill many functions. For instance, they sustain social relations and social ties, satisfy the need for social prestige and recognition, and facilitate the acceptance of the negative experiences of migration. The different types of narrations are applied contextually and situationally depending on the motive, goal and the partner of the interaction. The paper contains a detailed analysis of the features of the above-mentioned narrations and the circumstances of their formation and use.
Identity is an awareness of being the same 'me' in the past, despite changes over time, as well as being clause to similar social categories in the present. One of the most important for self-identification categories of others are people of the same gender. Gender is a collection of roles recognised as being typical for representatives of a given sex, particular behaviour and personality traits. We describe them respectively as structural, symbolic and emotional dimensions of masculinity and femininity. The aim of the article is to provide an answer to the question of how gender affects the identity of singles - those who are neither parents or partners. Considered are independently: work, family, home and free time on the basis of information obtained from interviews and the European Social Survey. This leads to the conclusion that work and home are areas where sex has less impact on the life of a single than on that of other members of the society. Singles' femininity and masculinity manifest themselves mainly symbolically during their free time. Typical for people living alone is that they consciously shape their behaviour as feminine, masculine or neutral.
Polish accession to the European Union in 2004 saw migration to the UK increase exponentially. However, the recent climate in Britain has become one of a harsher anti-immigrant discourse. This paper is based on findings of my doctoral study exploring identity construction amongst Polish-born adolescents in the UK in the light of such negative discourses. Here, I see identity as contingent, (re) negotiated in different contexts; I also draw on the theory of positioning, whereby individuals adopt certain subject positions even as they are positioned differently by others. Fieldwork for the study took place in January-May 2016. A narrative inquiry approach was used; interviews were held with eleven participants aged 11–16, living in small Polish communities. Findings suggest that while the adolescents report having been subjected to anti-Polish bullying, they refuse to tell stories of victimhood. Rather, they present themselves as agentive individuals who respond to attacks by asserting their Polish identity and reinforcing their right to be in the UK. Thus, despite the antagonistic discourses surrounding Polish migration to the UK, these adolescents demonstrate the positive way that they are confronting their present difficulties and approaching their future.
Contemporary culture not only glorifies slimness among women, but also makes considerable demands of them. They are expected to perform contradictory duties ideally. They should be beautiful, slender and hard-working. They should be perfect mothers and foresighted wives. At the same time they should not be assertive or too intelligent. The article presents an approach according to which anorexia is the answer of an adolescent woman to the archetypes of negative womanhood which have existed for ages. This illness may be considered to be a highly symbolic reaction to these archetypes and, furthermore, their paradoxical fulfillment. For anorexic women the auto-destruction of their body is tantamount to the triumph of their mentality.
The present paper discusses the relation between the adolescent identity and the features of creative personality. The concept of identity comes from Berzonsky who, according to the participation of cognitive strategies in identity construction, distinguished three basic processually oriented identity styles: informational, normative, diffuse/avoidant. This author devotes special attention to the extent of that part of formed identity that he calls 'commitment'. The creativity of personality also takes part as a factor in identity formation. The developing creative personality may reach identity redefinition sooner and avoid role diffusion. Goal: To identify how the selected adolescent personality traits contribute to identity construction and to determine the interrelation among the variables. Materials and methods: Identity style questionnaire (Berzonsky), WKOPAY (Khatena, Torrance). Results and conclusions: There is a mutual relationship among the traits of creative personality and adolescent identity styles. The selected traits of creative personality influence identity construction. 'Authority' acceptance and disciplined imagination contribute to identity formation in the sense of obligation. A lower degree of authority acceptance as well as of other personality traits supports the active formation of autonomous adolescent identity. Adolescents with their autonomous formed identity, who rely on themselves to a higher degree in their autonomous identity formation, reject authorities. Vice versa, adolescents with unformed identity tend to uncritical acceptance of the opinions and attitudes of those in authority.
The present article focuses on the analysis of the role of pseudonyms in the life and works of the French artist Claude Cahun. The authorial and individual existence of this versatile representative of the surrealist movement seems to be characterized by the refuse of labels and definitions. Taking this rejection as a starting point, the article will explore the underlying reasons that led Cahun to refuse her birth name and use pseudonyms instead. In particular, it will propose a short analysis of Cahun's choice of the neutral name (Claude)/jewish surname (Cahun), and their implications as far as the struggle for individual definition is concerned, with a particular focus on the concepts of gender, class, family and religion.
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