http://hdl.handle.net/11089/38310 2026-04-17T21:27:45Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/38397 Revealing the Silenced Spots: The Influence of Thomas and Znaniecki on the Study of Marginalized Aspects of Social Life Kacperczyk, Anna This article aims to highlight the influence of the work of William I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki on the perception of social reality by sociologists. I focus on the social practice of creating personal documents (memoirs, autobiographies, and letters) as a form of enacting individual agency and speaking their voice in the social space. I show the contribution of various social classes in this memorializing practice in Poland, reaching back to the 17th and 18th centuries. While doing so, I emphasize that a big part of society was practically muted in literary discourses. The voices of peasants and working-class were silenced as they had no access to the means which would enable them to speak and be represented in the discourse. Against this background, we can see how the “memoir competitions”—a very popular research practice being introduced in Poland by Znaniecki in 1921—have changed the power relations in the field of generating knowledge about social reality. The institution of Polish Memoirism that systematically gathered a huge number of autobiographies, enabled the poor and voiceless to speak and be heard by social researchers. In this sense, the monumental work of Thomas and Znaniecki was a trigger to the gradual process of revealing “blind spots” on the map of social reality and giving voice to the muted. Throughout the article, I return again and again to the main methodological questions, that is, what does it mean to include the consciousness of the participants of social life in sociological research, how to represent them in sociological theorizing, and how they can regain their voice in the scientific narrations about them. 2020-10-31T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/38396 The Interactive Dimension of Creating Cultural Artifacts Using Agile Methodologies Wiśniewski, Rafał; Bukalska, Izabela The authors consider symbolic interactionism to be a suitable theoretical framework to analyze projects in creative sectors because it affords ample space for individual and collective creativity. Furthermore, teams working on different cultural artifacts establish a negotiated order (interactionist term coined by A. L. Strauss) among artists, managers, the audience, and sponsors, et cetera, by discussing and translating various meanings and perspectives. This is especially noticeable when projects are managed using an agile methodology. The application of agile methodologies in creative sectors is a relatively new idea, although it seems to be in harmony with the nature of artistic work. For instance, it implies the acceptance of unpredictability and flexibility while also recognizing the ability and individuality of project participants. There are also specific problems related to the personalities of the artists and the irregularities and discontinuities inherent in the process of creation. The first part of the article raises the topic of creativity in symbolic interactionism. This perspective is subsequently extended to teamwork in creative sectors employing the description of collective work in Howard Becker’s book entitled Art Worlds as an example. The authors reflect on other contemporary works explaining the cultural shift transpiring during the move from the analog age to the current digital age and its influence on the process of creation in the world of artists. This leads to a discussion of distributed agility, a concept stemming from agile management. The various agile methods are mentioned and shortly characterized; we also present a succinct depiction of historical perspective. The literature on the use of agile methods in creative sectors is referred to along with some of the challenges they face. The need to develop an agile management methodology specifically for creative industries is emphasized. This article utilizes the literature on symbolic interactionism to explain group dynamics by drawing analogies with agile management. 2020-10-31T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/38395 The Role of Sport in the Process of Negotiating Identity: Dealing with the Stigma of Disability by People with Acquired Bodily Dysfunctions Niedbalski, Jakub This paper is intended to present the role of sport in the lives of people with physical disabilities and to determine how practicing sports changes the way a person with a physical disability sees themselves. The paper reflects the experiences of people who started practicing sports, which allowed them to adopt an alternative perspective of their bodies and thus pushed them to negotiate their identities. Using the concept of Goffmanian stigma, I point to the sports activities’ usefulness in understanding the management of stigma by those dealing with a physical disability.Taking into account the above theoretical references, in the research, which constitutes a foundation of this paper, I refer to the subjective perspectives of the researched individuals, rendering their points of view, and, based on that, construct and offer theoretical generalizations. Therefore, the research materials employed in this study are constituted by the personal experiences of people with physical disabilities who practice sports. All data have been gathered by conducting unstructured interviews with such people. The research materials were analyzed and interpreted following the procedures of grounded theory methodology. 2020-10-31T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/38394 Body and Social Interaction—The Case of Dance. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective Byczkowska-Owczarek, Dominika The article aims at presenting the symbolic interactionism as a useful and flexible theoretical perspective in research on the human body. It shows the assumptions of symbolic interactionism in their relation to the human body, as well as explains how basic notions of this theoretical perspective are embodied—the self, social role, identity, acting, interacting. I depict the unobvious presence of the body in the classical works of George H. Mead, Anselm Strauss, Howard Becker, Erving Goffman, and in more recent ones, such as Bryan Turner, Ken Plummer, and Loïc Wacquant. I also describe the Polish contribution to the field, including research on disability, hand transplant, the identity of a disabled person, together with the influence of sport, prostitution as work, yoga, climbing, relationships between animals and humans based on gestures and bodily conduct, the socialization of young actors and actresses, non-heteronormative motherhood, and the socialization of children in sport and dance. In a case study based on the research on ballroom dancers, I show how to relate the theoretical requirements of symbolic interactionism with real human “flesh and bones.” I depict three ways of perceiving own bodies by dancers: a material, a tool, a partner; and, two processes their bodies are subjected to: sharpening and polishing a tool. I draw the link between the processual character of the body, of the symbolic interactionist theoretical perspective, and process-focused grounded theory methodology. 2020-10-31T00:00:00Z