Dobrochna Kałwa | legacies of communism

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Vita

PhD

Dobrochna

Kałwa

Senior Fellow

Institute of History
University of Warsaw
Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28
00-927 Warszawa, PL

Email:

d.kalwa [at] uw.edu.pl

Education
2000
PhD, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, dissertation: “Active women in interwar Poland. Women’s movement dilemmas”

1993
MA, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, MA thesis: “Discussion on abortion in the interwar Poland”

Professional Experiences and Achievements
Since 2016
Assistant Director for International Cooperation and Outreach, Institute of History, University of Warsaw

Since 2012
Associated professor, University of Warsaw, Institute of History

2001 - 2012
Associated professor, Jagiellonian University, Institute of History, Kraków

2000 - 2001
Assistant, Jagiellonian University, Institute of History, Kraków

Since 2014
Editor of „Aspasia. he International Yearbook of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European Women's and Gender History”

2010 – 2017
Member of editorial board of „Roczniki Antropologii Historii” (Anthropology of History Yearbook)

2018, 2014
Visiting professor, Alexander Brückner Zentrum, Halle/Jena

2015, 2016
Visiting professor, Konstanz Universität

2010
Visiting professor, Erfurt Universität (6-months)

Research Grants/Fellowships
2016 - 2018
Research grant of the National Centre of Science

2010
Alfred Toepfer Stiftug f.v.s. – Eurolecture. Gastdozentenprogramm zur Innovation in der Lehre

2009
Fulbright Scholarship – senior grant

2008
Research grant -- GWZO, Universität Leipzig

2007 - 2008
Research grant of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education

1999
Research grant, Foundation of Brzezie Lanckorońskie

Participation in international projects
2007 - 2010
CLIOHRES.net („Creating Links and Innovative Overviews for a New History Research Agenda for the Citizens of a Growing Europe” – 6th Framework Program Network of Excellence), Thematic Group: Frontiers and Identities, as a senior member (2007-2010)

2004 - 2007
The bi-national project “Borders-leeway: migration movements of Polish women to the Ruhr-area in Germany" financed by Volkswagenstiftung

Research Project

Diverged legacies — divided movement. History of women’s organizations in Poland 1980-2018

The main aim of the project is to analyze duality of women’s emancipatory movement in Poland in order to examine a hypothesis about communist legacy as a crucial factor for processes of creation and development of two juxtaposed trends of emancipatory women’s movements, in regard to their agendas and ideological foundations in the time of the transition. At the first stage of the research, I will focus on mapping out the Polish women’s organizations and identifying these with emancipatory/feminist agendas, which will be an object of further analysis concerning possible relations between ideological profile and legacy of communist emancipation, with two extreme position as border points. The first, working-called “state-socialist emancipation” underlines merits of the state policy, constructing new socio-political order, introducing legal and infrastructural instruments to maintain and control it with support and placing women’s organizations in a larger network of political order socio-political and supporting women’s organizations). The second one, working-called „a dissident feminism” claims, that despite official ideology, communist regime maintained traditional gender order and used emancipation was an instrument of social control. The analysis at this stage will focus on issues, such as concepts of emancipation, patterns of political activity (on local, and central levels), ideological framework (with special attention to the process of transformation of the attitude to the past in the course of last 20 years), in order to answer the question, how the communist legacy is problematized and then used as argument in the process of construction of emancipatory/feminist collective identities.

The analytical material will cover dispersed sources: documents of the organizations (programs, initiatives, annual reports) public and social media reporting on women’s movement activity (magazines, newspapers, blogs, websites, discussion lists etc.), interviews with women activists representing different options of women's movement (existed materials and new interviews conducted for comparative purposes. Theoretical framework for the analysis will provide ground theory with its potential to deconstruct initial assumptions of the analysis and to construct new configurations of communist legacy and contemporary feminism in Poland.

Selected Publications

Books
Y. Kleinmann, J. Heyde, D. Kałwa et. al. [eds.], 2016, Imaginations and Configurations of Polish Society. From the Middle Ages through the Twentieth Century. Series: Polen: Kultur - Geschichte - Gesellschaft (hg. von Yvonne Kleinmann), t. 3, Göttingen, Niedersachs Wallenstein.

D. Kałwa (ed.), 2014, Historia i płeć [History and Gender], „Roczniki Antropologii Historii”, vol. 2.

B. Klich-Kluczewska, D. Kałwa (eds.), 2012, From mentalities to anthropological history. Theory and methods, Kraków: Historia Iagellonica.

S. Metz-Göckel, S. Münst, D. Kałwa, 2009, Migration als Ressource. Zur Pendelmigration polnischer Frauen in Privathaushalte der Bundersrepublik, Openladen: Barbara Budrich Verlag.

D. Kałwa, T. Pudłocki (eds.), 2007, Historia zwyczajnych kobiet i zwyczajnych mężczyzn. Dzieje społeczne z perspektywy gender [History of ordinary women and ordinary men. Social history from gender perspective], Przemyśl-Kraków: PWSZ, UJ.

D. Kałwa, A. Walaszek, A. Żarnowska (eds.), 2005, Rodzina – prywatność – intymność. Dzieje rodziny polskiej w kontekście europejskim [Family – privacy – intimacy. History of Polish family with an European context], Warszawa: DiG.

D. Kałwa, 2001, Kobieta aktywna w Polsce międzywojennej. Dylematy środowisk kobiecych [Active Woman in the Interwar Poland. Dilemmas of women’s movement], Kraków: Historia Iagellonica.

Articles
D. Kałwa, 2015, Backlash Post-stalinien en Pologne, „ CLIO, Histoire, Femmes, Sociétés”, vol. 41, no 1, pp. 165–174. (English version online: Post-Stalinist backlash in Poland, „CLIO, Women, Gender, History”, vol. 41, no 1, pp. 151-160).

D. Kałwa, 2015, Przemoc i zapomnienie. Druga wojna światowa z perspektywy płci kulturowej [Violence and oblivion. World War II from gender perspective]. In: K. Bałżewska, A. Korczyńska-Partyka, A. Wódkowska (eds.), Kobieta i historia. Od niewidzialności do sprawczości [Woman and history From invisibility to agency], Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, pp. 27–43.

D. Kałwa, 2014, Historia kobiet − kilka uwag metodologicznych [Women’s history – some methodological remarks]. In: K. Makowski (ed.) Dzieje kobiet w Polsce [History of women in Poland], Wydawnictwo Nauka i Innowacje, Poznań, pp. 13–28.

D. Kałwa, 2014, Historia kobiet versus studia gender — o potrzebie interdyscyplinarnego dialogu [Women’s history versus gender studies – the need for interdisciplinary dialogue]. In: E. Domańska, R. Stobiecki, T. Wiślicz (eds.), Historia — dziś. Teoretyczne problemy wiedzy o przeszłości [History today. Theoretical questions of historical knowledge], Universitas, Kraków, pp. 115-126.

D. Kałwa, 2014, Towards gender history. In: D. Kałwa (ed.), History and Gender „Roczniki Antropologii Historii”, vol. 2, pp. 11-14

Kałwa, 2014, Emanzipatorische Dimension der Migrationserfahrung. Fallstudien von Polinnen im deutschen Haushaltssektor. In: D. Praszałowicz, A. Sosna-Schubert, Deutsche und polnische Migrationserfahrungen. Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang Edition, pp. 299–314.

D. Kałwa, 2010, Migration von Polinnen ins Ruhrgebiet, In: S. Metz-Göckel, S. Münst, D. Kałwa, Migration als Ressource. Zur Pendelmigration polnischer Frauen in Privathaushalte der Bundesrepublik, Opeladen: Barbara Budrich Verlag, pp. 61-176.

D. Kałwa, 2009, Between Emancipation and Traditionalism. The Situation of Women and the Gender Order in Poland after 1945, [w:] S. Hering (red.) Social Care under State Socialism (1945-1989). Ambitions, Ambiguities, and Mismanagement, Opladen, Farmington Hills: Barbara Budrich Publishers, s. 175-187.

D. Kałwa, 2008, Commuting between private lives, [w:] S. Metz-Göckel, M. Morokvasic-Müller, S.A. Münst (red.), Migration in enlarged Europe. A gender perspective, Openaden & Farmington Hills: Barbara Budrich Publishers, pp. 121-140.

D. Kałwa, 2007, Migracja wahadłowa Polek do Zagłębia Ruhry z binacjonalnej perspektywy [Commuting migration of Polish women to the Ruhr from a binary perspective]. Polish-German project "Grenzenräume − Zwischenräume: Migrationsbewegungen polnischer Frauen ins Ruhrgebiet, Przegląd Polonijny, no 2, pp. 167-173.

D. Kałwa, 2007, „So wie zuhause”. Die private Sphäre als Arbeitsplatz polnischer Migrantinnen. In: M. Nowicka (ed.), Von Polen nach Deutschland und zurück. Die Arbeitsmigration Und Ihre Herausforderungen für Europa, transcript Verlag, pp. 205-226.