http://hdl.handle.net/11089/44077 Thu, 16 Apr 2026 16:28:05 GMT 2026-04-16T16:28:05Z https://dspace.uni.lodz.pl:443/xmlui/bitstream/id/6a9c4912-015f-4f5a-a091-f4f6172990fa/ http://hdl.handle.net/11089/44077 http://hdl.handle.net/11089/44108 To Be an Autoethnographer or Not to Be—That Is the Question Marciniak, Lukasz It is the most personal article I have ever written, revealing my fears, hesitations, reflections, and decisions. I am still striving to write a scientific and academic paper, still looking for that academic framework that would allow this article to be recognized as a scientific text, with the reflection on that internal pressure and need to make it scientific. This is an article about the process of becoming an autoethnographer, creating a tool, shaping identity and research strategy, and becoming one. Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/44108 2022-10-31T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/44107 Mapping Environmental Commitment: A Situational Analysis of Illegal Dumps in the City Kacperczyk, Anna; Żulicki, Remigiusz The paper refers to the research Trash in the Wild: A Pilot Project Mapping Citizenship Environmental Activism in the Collaborative Study in the Lodz Area. In the study, inhabitants of Lodz (Poland) were invited to participate in data gathering and create a map of unauthorized dumps in their city. The collaborative mapping was intended to localize problematic spots in the city of Lodz, but it also shows civic commitment and the inhabitants’ ecological consciousness level. The authors based on ethnographic data (observations, walk-alongs, interviews, and data obtained from institutions), attempting to develop a situational analysis of the phenomenon of illegal dumps in the city. The analysis reveals how different positions of the City Guard, Municipal Economy Department, waste disposal companies, journalists, environmental activists, researchers, and citizens participating in the project vary their standpoints and views on the studied problem. Presenting the context and first results of the research, the authors refer to the issue of building relationships with researched subjects during the investigation process. Trying to navigate between them, researchers strive to introduce their different, sometimes contradictory, viewpoints into the research, not losing their commitment and the valuable data they can submit. The analysis shows that the issue of illegal dumps lies at the intersection of many discourses and involves numerous social worlds, organizations, and entities. In this dynamic situation, many practices and conditions contribute to the persistence of the problem of illegal waste disposal. Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/44107 2022-10-31T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/44106 Popular Stoicism in the Face of Social Uncertainty Dopierała, Renata The article discusses popular Stoicism (a modern, simplified, and often commercialized version of ancient Stoicism), which is offered as an answer to the uncertainty of modernity. The financial, political, climate, and health crises have been detrimental to the sense of agency and control over one’s life, leading individuals to seek ways of (subjectively) regaining it. Popular Stoicism can be viewed as an expert system providing individuals with a specific vision of happiness and the good life, in addition to offering practical knowledge on how to define an area of individual agency by negotiating the boundaries between that which is within one’s power and that which is not. Reflections begin with a juxtaposition of ancient and contemporary Stoicism, focusing on their different socio-cultural origins, followed by a synthesis of the principles of ancient Stoicism on happiness and the good life and a detailed interpretation of the ‘offering’ of popular Stoicism in the relevant areas. In the latter context, two chosen Stoic exercises (necessary to achieve happiness and the good life) are discussed—the ability to recognize what things depend/do not depend on us and Stoic emotion work. The practices and techniques recommended as a part of constant work on oneself are also supposed to teach individuals to adapt to their unstable reality. As a result, the popular version of Stoicism perpetuates the mechanisms of the culture of individualism, which holds the individual fully responsible for their life, and the therapeutic and counseling culture (based on one’s readiness to constantly self-improve), which is a new form of disciplining in a neoliberal society. Both are important elements of the everyday life and lifestyle of the middle class. This class is interested in self-fulfillment and is the primary target audience of contemporary Stoic handbooks. The consideration is based on fragments of books on popular Stoicism, mainly written by Polish philosophers, subjected to qualitative content analysis. Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/44106 2022-10-31T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/44104 Is Homicide a Turning Point in the Life of Perpetrators? A Narrative Analysis of the Life Stories of Marginalized and Middle-Class Male Homicide Offenders in Metropolitan Buenos Aires, Argentina Di Marco, Martín Hernán This paper aims to analyze the relevance given to violent deaths and imprisonment by male homicide perpetrators in their biographical reconstructions. Drawing on narrative criminology, this study examines the offenders’ emic terms, rationalities, and stories. The analysis is based on seventy-three purposefully selected narrative-biographical interviews and field observations in prisons and homes of former convicts (2016-2020) in Metropolitan Buenos Aires, Argentina. The corpus was analyzed following an inductive thematic coding strategy using ATLAS.ti. Three central narratives about homicide and incarceration emerged: “opportunity,” “rock bottom,” and “disruptive.” For most, homicide was described as a biographical opportunity to rethink their lives, pursue new pathways, and “stabilize” a previously uncontrolled lifestyle. However, homicides perpetrated by respondents with higher socioeconomic status were disruptive events. Participants used stoic rationality—the positive appraisal of painful experiences—to structure their sense-making and stories of violence. This rationality permeated perpetrators’ presentations of themselves, their turning points and lived experiences, and the violence performed and suffered. This paper grapples with the widespread assumption that homicide is a radical change in the lives of offenders and questions the universal meaning of violent death. Performing violence is not only neutralized but is also seen as an expected and inaugural event in life stories, dependent on the worldviews of the social actors. Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11089/44104 2022-10-31T00:00:00Z