Paweł Ładykowski
Prace Etnograficzne, Tom 48 Numer 3, 2020, s. 203 - 231
https://doi.org/10.4467/22999558.PE.20.017.13145Cultural Sources of Law and Conditions of Political Power. Internal Colonialism and the Case of Legal Acculturation of Silesians
The article addresses legal pluralism, namely the interaction of norms resulting from either custom or law, which takes place in the face of emancipation processes in Polish Silesia. It concerns legal conceptualizations of regional autonomy and the negotiations of the legal status of the regional group that aims at a higher level of sovereignty. Namely, investigating the relationship between cultural and legal norms, I analyse the judicial procedure regarding the way of adjudicating and defining Silesianness. Considering the existence of multiple parallel ethnic identities in Poland, I strive to illuminate the question of the legal definition of Polishness and the normative dimension of legal definition. I bring to light the making of the adjudication in the Polish justice system, and thus highlight the mechanisms present in the legislative process and rationalisations operating wherein. I am interested in the consequences of these processes for establishing the legal and the factual status of different groups. The conception of identity used by modern jurisdiction derives from the definition of the dominant group (of Poles) and works towards strengthening its status against the status of other, parallelly existing groups whose self-identities do not fall squarely within the hegemonic construction. My hypothesis is that the process of interpreting the law in force in Poland follows subjective ideas and is often drafted in programmatic terms.