Opole Power Station as a Catalyst for Socio-political Relations – Introduction

The energy security, which in Poland is based on coal, is in apparent contradiction with the EU policy of decarbonisation and the global movement in favour of renewable energy resources… continuing to burn coal may cost Poland too much: it threatens to marginalise this great country and throw it into a neo-nationalist impasse. The expansion of Opole Power Station by two brand new giant blocks is seen locally as a victory for the Opole Silesia. At the same time, it can symbolise the end of the coal epoch in the modern history of Poland. The paper discusses various aspects of the socio-political ramifi cation of the expansion of the Opole Power Station. It is an introduction chapter to the collective monographs which deals with various aspects of mutual impact between the commune of Dobrzeń Wielki and the power station.

Local Economy versus Major Industrial Investment.The Case of the Opole Power Station and the  Dobrzeń Wielki Commune

The article, based on the so called basic research, concerns the relations between the expansion of the Opole power station and particular actions taken by the residents of the Dobrzeń Wielki commune. The text discusses local, bottom-up strategies designed with the use of the potential economic situation resulting from a major industrial investment located in the region. They take the form of various cultural activities, among which bottom-up economic strategies are crucial. The impulses for these activities are supplied by specifi cally targeted social changes taking place under the infl uence of supra-local political and economic transformations.

Operation and Development of the Opole Power Plant in the Opinions of the Residents of the Dobrzeń Wielki Commune

The article discusses the social reception of various phenomena occurring in the Dobrzeń Wielki commune accompanying the operation and development of a major industrial investment: the Opole powerstation. The subject matter concerns the course of fi eldwork aimed at identifying socioeconomic processes and the attitudes of people living in the area aff ected by those processes. The author’s main focus is the question of interactions between the powerstation and the local community, as well as the social reception of related phenomena.

 Affective Attunements and Agency in Late Industrialism

The article explores the context of the expansion of Opole Power Plant, which has fuelled new migration patterns in the region of Dobrzeń Wielki. By drawing on the ethnographic fieldwork among construction workers working at the expansion site and living temporarily in the region, it aims to problematise the relationship between their mobile livelihood, agency and affective attunements. It argues that the emergence of late industrialism, which coincided with the neoliberal reconfi gurations of global political economy, has produced different modes of uncertainties, forced flexibilities and rather bleak futures. Consequently, for many construction workers, whose livelihood chiefl y depends on mobility between different industrial sites in Poland, the contemporary global entanglements create a “charged atmosphere”, which has to be negotiated and acted upon in different ways.

Inter-group Relations and Large Industrial Project. The Case of Opole Power Plant Development

The article presents the analysis of dynamics of ethnic relations in a small commune near Opole. At the background of the relations are social processes launched by the expansion of the Opole Power Plant. In line with previous studies on the impact of large industrial investments on the local communities and the work on inter-ethnical relations in the studied municipality, I presumed that the current expansion may affect mutual intergroup relations, because they remain tense from at least the end of the Second World War. Although for more than ten years there has been a significant progress in building a sense of local community. This process has now been disturbed not only by the expansion of the power plant, but also by the imposed change of the municipality’s borders, as a result of which the power plant is no longer within the limits of the municipality. The battle to maintain the existing borders revealed that “ethnicity” can still be a living differentiating element, but also a building community factor. 

The (Re)constructions of Femininity in the Context of the Expansion of the Opole Power Plant

The purpose of this article is to reject the static approach to the categories of gender and femininity and to recognize its dynamic, contextually conditioned character showing the processes of launching specific (re)constructions of femininity as a response to the interactions and phenomena experienced in the workplace by women employed on the expansion of Opole Power Plant. The researched women negotiate their position in the employee hierarchy and “do” and “undo” their femininity depending on their particular goals which is a function of the experienced intersectionality. 

“It Was our Live.” The Division of the Dobrzeń Wielki Commune in Narratives of Its Inhabitants

In this paper I analyze the dynamics of narratives related to a planned takeover of a couple of villages of the Dobrzeń Wielki commune together with the Opole Power Station by the city of Opole (PL). In this context I focus on politics and ethics of emotions, feelings and affects which marked the discursive space and brought varied types of affective togetherness in the field of “political.” Because discursive practices of commune’s inhabitants were shaped by anticipations of uncertain  future, they evoked the “ethics of probability” and the “ethics of possibility.” While the former embodied fears connected to the planned division, the latter expressed hope for “good life.” They both inspired various forms of social protest. However, because concepts of “good life” usually relate to discernable ends and strategies, changing circumstances result in different politics and ethics of emotions, feelings and affects. Consequently, when the anticipated takeover became the daily present, the discourses of “authorities” and of “ordinary people” started to diverge. Th is, in turn, brought reconfi gurations of affective togetherness, shift ed poles of the field of “political,” and redefined the local scene of “politics.” The leaders who stuck on ideas defining the pre-partition period lost the latest municipal election to a faction who did not dwell on the past, but promised to work collectively for the better future.