In this article I try to characterize biopower and biopolitics and show how these conceps can be useful in descripction and analyse of selected socio-cultural phenomena of the contemporary. I start from the terminological confusion that can arise here because of previous functioning of biopower and biopolitics in the scientific and the political discours. Then I move on to present the ideas of Michel Foucault, who created, somehow misty and sketchy, but still inspiring theoretical background based on these two concepts. Neo-Foucauldian researches (Paul Rabinow, Nikolas Rose, Thomas Lemke, Majia Holmer Nadesan, Mitchell Dean) took the work on developing this heritage.

The article tackles the issue of cultural memory. I analyzed the example of Czermin village near a town of Mielec. In the village there was a German colony. The residents of the colony left the area with the end of the Second World War. Today the descendants of the former German colonists regularly visit the village. They decided to rearrange the cemetery and sponsored the monument, which was erected in that place. The research was conducted among the local population declaring their nationality as Polish. My goal was to reconstruct their notions and depictions about former German colonists. The interpretation I undertook is mainly based on the ideas of John and Aleida Assman, Paul Ricoeur and Harald Welzer.
 

The object of my study is to analyse the representations of former smugglers in the border forest area, which directly affected the nature of the work they performed. By the analysis of the empirical material through the theory of ecological anthropology, I will refer to the classification of the area indicating the nature of the relationship between man and environment. The classification of this area is the proof, that environment and human exist in mutual interaction and significantly influence one another, they cannot be perceived as separate or contradictory facts. The perception of this environment primarily depends on the actions former smugglers carried out in this area and it is also shaped by how the environment influenced the bearers of studied representations.

The paper discusses moral principles of the Torguud ethnic group and finds them closely related to the general Mongolian pattern. Their traditional model has not changed after the people have undergone the neoliberal transformation in recent decades along the process common for the whole country. The discussion is focused on the business oriented group of Torguuds, that has created the Torgon Nutag Club, a community devoted to development of the Torguud society. The Club represents ideals of traditional morality – yos, the term which has been translated into European languages ​​as a habit or custom, but it retains a much broader connotation in Mongolian cultural language. Such moral approach of the entrepreneurial strata acting for the general benefit has been laid as a basis for success achievement of the ethnic group as a totality. Concern for the common fate prevails over pressure of particular interests.

The article focuses on presenting the relations between the two largest cities of contemporary Israel – Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. These relations are depicted on three levels. The first is a cosmological level, the second level is known as historical, and the third one, which shows how the urban architectural space and its symbolic meanings is constructed. This presentation is a kind of sui generis introduction, that shows both possibilities and potential directions of further anthropological research in Israel, particularly in contemporary Jerusalem. The author critically refers to the concept of dichotomous division along the social line of Israelis lifestyle: on the one hand, stunning, focused on Western world, attractive – Tel Aviv, and on the other hand isolated, quite, religious, less attractive and more focused on Eastern world – Jerusalem. What is more, the author not only pays attention to internal ambiguity of Jerusalem but also to simultaneous affinity to various symbolic orders and to the resistance that is put up against those, who would like to hold it in demesne.

The article elaborates on the spectre of a 19th-century museum, that has haunted the Gallery of the 19th-century Polish Art in the Sukiennice in Krakow, Poland, for several dozens of years.
The first floor of the Sukiennice compasses of the collection of the National Museum in Krakow since 1883. Paradoxically, frequent changes of content and design of that exposition had erased the memory of its initial look and there has appeared a stereotype of a 19th-century source of its distinctive qualities.
It was Mieczysław Porębski who created a pastiche of 19th-century art museum in the Sukiennice gallery in 1975. Innovative at its time, Porębski’s concept accompanied similar solutions by Michael Jaffé and by Timothy Clifford. They all applied the Victorian rules of art display only partially and the result was a very particular visitor experience.