From Homogenisation to 'Multiculturalism': Socialist and Postsocialist Nationality Policy and Practice in Poland (1944-2010)
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Abstract
This paper charts the shifts in Polish nationality policy in the period since 1944. The first part focuses on the ways the PPR (Polish Workers' Party) and later the PZPR (Polish United Workers' Party) pursued national homogeneity through population transfer, programmes of 'Polonisation' and assimilation, in the broader context of post-war and Cold War geopolitics, as well as recurring legitimacy crises. The second part of the paper discusses the limits to postsocialist 'multicultural' policy and practice by calling attention to the new logics of cultural homogenisation dominant under contemporary neo-liberalism. The paper discusses the relationship between changing values and the management of social anger in order to explain the contemporary cartographies of privileged / marginalised cultural communities and practices. Through an exploration of the logics of cultural homogenisation, the paper highlights: a. the particularities of the Polish case, b. the specificity of postsocialism and c. the manner in which the Polish experience relates to, and parallels, processes of cultural homogenisation elsewhere.
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cultural homogenisation, nationality, Poland, XXth century
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