Engage anthropology (?)
Essay is an attempt to indicate that problems with the engage (involve, public) anthropology; is in fact a question about the usefulness of science in general. Author resume Raymond Firth’s and Robert Borofsky’s vision of engage anthropology. He adds main philosophical problems with usefulness category and mark valid historical moments when this category was been change. He pointed usefulness infl uence at the way’s of anthropology perceptions. At the end, he ask about polish reception and needs in this case.

Instead of an introduction. Microhistory with engagement in the background
The essay describes the history and progress of a discussion concerning the issue of engaged anthropology in Poland. An overview of different opinions in this matter, allowed the author to distinguish two main orientations. The first one is connected with the debate among the anthropologists involved with the „(op.cit.,)” magazine. The second one revolves around the redefinition of the „field” category, as well as the fi eldwork method itself

Anthropologist as a researcher or activist?
There are a number of sub-disciplines of humanities and social sciences which represent a kind of „non-scientific”, engaged attitude to human being and culture, to name only a few: applied anthropology, action anthropology, public anthropology, cultural critique, cultural policy, cultural animation, socio-cultural animation. For the purpose of this presentation the relation between applied anthropology and action anthropology is of crucial importance. The previous one is rooted in the colonial ideology of using an expert knowledge in supporting colonial policies, although these days it is also used by business, the media, governments or other institutions. The purpose of the latter is ideologically and emotionally oriented as a tool of helping endangered native or ethnic cultures, supporting various kinds of minorities or implementing important educational policies. One might suggest that these two approaches represent respective attitudes: objectivity and solidarity, according to Kirsten Hastrup. However, it seems impossible to separate them, therefore one should agree with an epistemological conclusion that every anthropological thesis consists of a portion of an emotional, critical attitude which seems unavoidable. The crucial thing is to take this truth into account in order to avoid as much as possible misunderstandings and misuses of gained knowledge and to agree that every anthropology is in this or other way „engaged”.

Ethnology? What do they teach you there?
This paper analysis root causes of lack of engaged anthropology in Poland. The major ground of animosity to engage in work that is defined by the problems and not by the discipline author placed in history and „cognitive pessimism”. Author emphasized the need for generate/create new paradigm that will allow practicing of applied anthropology and engaged anthropology, at the same time underlying that anthropologists who block it’s progress also bear the responsibility for the future shape of the discipline.

About the humbugisation of anthropology
The authors of the article assume that anthropology is constantly engaged. They wish to see research work and ethnographic transcript somewhere between the truth and fictional creation. As an alternative to anthropological studies and the trivialization of texts, they point out to a program of the discipline’s open humbugisation and its traces in the media displays. Eventually, it would be an attempt to achieve a new reflection on the subject of research and narration.

Engaged anthropology – between pragmatic choice and methodological proposition
The article consists of two main parts. In first one, the author presents two causes that explain why the thought of „Anthropology engaged” emerged. The reasons refer to the structure of „postmodern reality”. Th e fi rst hypothesis, concerns the status of knowledge and refers to ideas of Jean François Lyotard. He assumed that knowledge is getting more and more useful at the expense of theoretical refl ection. The second one refers to Zygmunt Bauman and Urlich Beck. According to their opinion, contemporary world suff ers from lack of commitment. It can be seen in many examples, from international corporation to personal relationship. Th ese two thesis are used for better understanding of reasons why the invention of „Anthropology engaged” was possible. Moreover the author presents his own understanding of „Anthropology engaged”, which should be more practical and applicable to labour market. Proposal of „Anthropology engaged” is great opportunity to think up a new way of doing this discipline.

Different voices of engagement: from ethnological enunciation to application of anthropological knowledge
Since we now have many doubts about culture, especially because of its essentialization and reification, we have to rethink our position in speaking and writing about culture and our dealing with culture. Manifold responsibilities are important when we do engaged and applied ethnography in our own societies or social milieus. The aim of the text is to expose epistemological pitfalls generated from our positions of speaking. There is no neutrality, no neutral zone, no scientifi c objectivity, and no scholarly independent and neutral position.
There is a vast area of new spaces appearing for new anthropology. Ethnographer is in privileged position to enunciate cultural reality, to make it real, to manage its potentials and limitations. Ethnography may be done on many diff erent ways and aimed in different use. Ethnological enunciation is a specific social act that defines new symbolic/discursive field. It announces diff erent kinds of engagement in anthropology. Though, it seems there are not many jobs available for anthropologists in Europe, it may change – and should change.
(Przełożyła Marta Paszko)

Anthropology on a warpath. Wars and ethnic conflicts as a challenge for a modern ethnologist
Anthropology on a warpath is not easy and has nothing to do with the appealing and charming exoticism. Rather than that, it is the immersing into the heart of darkness, which is safely thousands of kilometers away from us. In the last two decades, during their „under fire” research, anthropologists (ethnologists) have exposed many social and cultural aspects of wars, waged for more or less noble causes. As one of few, they managed to focus the world’s attention on the drama of little known ethnic groups, civilians and children, that is being acted out in countries in Africa, Asia or Latin America. The results of this research confirms a thesis, that the actors of modern confl icts are a part of a „new caste”, where people are free from many prohibitions, commands and hierarchy, that used to matter in the past, among traditional societies. However, the research soon became an ethical challenge to the anthropologists. It was not just about the experience gained in field, but most of all the risk created by choosing sides in a conflict. After 9/11, in the world of institutionalized military interventions, the anthropologists had to choose: either participate in research programs sponsored by institutions such as the U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Army, or decline that off er. Two latest projects, prepared by the U.S. Government (Human Terrain System and Minerva) were particularly controversial. After they were made well-known by the media, the conflict escalated: the supporters of the academic independence of scientifi c research versus the environment that acknowledges the necessity to engage anthropology in the area of practical intervention, which serves the people wronged by armed conflicts.

Ethnography as a social activity/cultural animation
The authors ponder on the category of engaged ethnographic research, as well as possible areas of using such studies in cultural animation. A clash between the field worker’s social co-existence (field) and the effort of an analytic approach to the described reality (desk), seems to be the crucial issue. To illustrate the matter, the authors present activities undertaken by the lecturers and students, who participated in „Cultural Animation” workshops (in the Polish Culture Institute, UoW), as part of the project „Ostałówek. A common place”.

Engaged art versus engaged anthropology. Thoughts on the research in Gdańsk Shipyard
The article considers the role of engaged anthropology in the context of engaged art, as a critical comment on the changes in meaning of public space and the symbols connected with it. The studies are based on research, conducted among the participants of Artist  Colony, which was established on Gdańsk Shipyard’s territory in year 2001. The issues that need to be deliberated on are: the relevance of „Solidarność” birthplace to artistic expression, the researchers presence there, the relations between „engaged art” and „engaged anthropology”, as well as between the artist itself and a researcher.

„Ostałówek. A common place” – an animation project inspired by ethnographic experiences
The article is an overview of activities undertaken by means of cultural animation, based on previous deepened ethnographic research. It refers to the matter of using anthropology as an instrument to stimulate societies endangered with exclusion. Th e project „Ostałówek. A common place”, carried out in one of the villages in Radomszczyzna (near Szydłowiec), was introduced as an example.

The anthropologist on a myth. Thoughts on the research in Gdańsk Shipyard
The article deliberates on the role of engaged anthropology in the context of an artistic critique, that concerns socially constructed myths about the „Solidarność” social movement. The text also takes up a subject of how betrayed the employees of the liquidated Gdańsk Shipyard feel, especially by Lech Wałęsa, as a symbolic figure. And to this particular issue an artistic statement has been placed as a sort of a comment and social diagnosis.

Mud in Schools – Anthropology in Pedagogy
The following issues are analysed in the article: are children from religious minorities noticed and correctly recognised in state schools (which according to L. Althusser are Ideological State Apparatus)? Does the recognition or misrecognition have an influence on the effectiveness of the educational process? Why did an author of the article, not a member of analysed minorities (Protestants, Muslims, Jews), pose a question of their situation in public schools

Ethnographic museum as a way of speaking about other cultures. The case of Paris museums
The article focuses on the history of ethnographic museums in Paris. Since 19th century there have been certain signifi cant changes in the way ethnographic objects were treated. In 1937 Museum of Man replaced Museum Trocadero and recently, in 2006 Jacques Chirac opened new ethnographic museum: du Quai Branly. It provokes, however, controversies and discussions. In my analysis I try to illustrate the influence of most important questions in modern anthropology, such as heritage of colonialism, attitude towards cultures told „primitive” etc., on ethnographic exhibitions in Paris.

The issue of social exclusion in the context of European Union funds
The article is based on Polish strategic governmental documents pointing at the main social problems needed to be solved immediately, which is considered as a crucial issue to economic growth and development supported by European Found. The presented anthropological perspective puts pressure on bureaucratic language used for description of the groups regarded as „threatened by social exclusion”. According to the authoress, who refers to assumptions founded by theorists such as Bourdieu, Berger and Luckman, mentioned documents do not describe but rather construct the representation of exclusion and that mechanism based on symbolic violence refl ects values of the dominant group. Indeed, it creates the difference between two positions: the experts who have power to define reality and the people reduced to failure, inadequacy, disability and defect. These circumstances consolidate the division which allows us to conclude that social exclusion is a complex process – an interaction involving as well the „excluded” as the authority who excludes.

Inequalities and discrimination connected with gender. Woman at the job market
The aim of this article is to put attention on a problem of women’s discrimination at the job market. The are different dimensions of unequal treatment of women at the work field. We can mention stereotypes of so called men and women occupations, or having lower salary for the same type of work. Gender determines also the social assessment of the values of different proff esions. A special impact is put on the situation at the polish market. In this paper it is also considered if the unequalities has only bad consequences and if they are good for women.

On losing my closests. A contribution to personal ethnography
The article – written in a form of a layered account – is an ethnographic document describing a particular existential situation of struggling with loss experienced by Marcin Kafar. Two liminal instants are taken into consideration, namely dying of the beloved Grandmother (suffering from cancer) and a sudden death of author’s Father. The author treats those unexceptional moments of his biography as a kind of The Life Trial that needs to be worked out in various psycho-spiritual dimensions. By bringing back a set of memories of care giving to his confi ned to bed Grandmother, Marcin Kafar shows a particular process of coming to enlightenment on what has a real value in his life and what has not. A literary device of speaking directly to the author’s Grandmother is used on this level of the text to feed and strengthen emotional bond that did not cease to exist in the time of physical death but is still continuing after it.
While Grondmother’s dying was able to be „tamed”, Father’s unexpected death caused in the author total emotional shock, challenging his previous seemed-to-be-sacred moral base and putting a question mark on his faith.
Another layer of the article includes some confessions made by well known artists and humanists e.g. Arthur P. Bochner, Józef Szajna and Paul Auster, all telling their own stories of losing the closest family members. Sharing stories of living through grief can, in Marcin Kafar’s opinion, heal ourselves as well as others, giving a human being a ground for understanding what is usually hard to conceive.

Engaging anthropology. Lessons in the asylum field
This article describes a personal encounter of practices of the state with asylum applicants. The author raises twofold questions: firstly, how is the preparation of ill-treatment of migrants maintained; and secondly, what kinds of policy-oriented work may anthropology offer. She concludes that there is need for a long-term ethnographic research conducted by anthropologists on the institutional practices. However, this kind of the most professional involvement may not happen without implementation of policy research as part of our graduate training.
(Przełożyła Marta Paszko)

Engaged anthropologist. About the need of boundaries
In this article, the author analyses the ethical and psychological consequences of connecting research with a social activity. Her analysis is based on her own studies. The first example is the research she conducted as a streetworker in the environment of street prostitutes. The second example is the research from the Centre for Crisis Intervention, where she played the role of: the Centre’s ward, an informer (who gave out information to nuns and the tutor about the girl’s disobedience of regulations) and a mediator between the Centre’s employees and their wards. The mentioned experiences are a pretext to consider the responsibilities, that an engaged anthropologist bears, being both a researcher and activist. In this context the author tries to persuade, that there is a need to determine boundaries for our involvement.

Anthropology and human resources. Ethnologist in corporation
Engaged Anthropology helps to redefi ne the entire discourse on the subject. It gives a possibility to go into a dialogue with the surrounding reality. The job market can be a right place for an Ethnologist. Institutions as well as employees need us to solve problems connected with cultural diff erences. It goes without saying that the knowledge we possess can explain beyond stereotypical traces the „cultural” man’s personality in personal policy and cultural organization.
Just like in other cultures, the organizational culture in a company consists of many different components: symbols, languages, rituals and myths. One of the elements a human needs is to symbolize. This point of view seems to be taking lead in this article. If it continues in this vein, doing research in an organization, one cannot deny that symbols constitute an inseparable part of its culture. All of them teach new workers proper attitudes and build the bond between them and the organization. It also applies to induction programme – the first phase to be a rightful and valuable employee. The article includes analytical descriptions of getting into a corporation and tackles the issue of the being in a cultural organization in terms of symbols, language, rituals and myths.