Marcin Jewdokimow

The aim of this article is to present the results of a sociological study on everyday life within a female cloistered monastery. This is a radical form of religious life, highly routinised, distanced from the outside world and conducted in community yet in almost total silence. By elaborating upon the concepts of everyday and lived religion, the scope of our examination complements dominant sociological approaches to the study of this religious phenomenon. By addressing the following research question: ‘Do cloistered monasteries de-individualise and totally regulate the life of nuns?’, we discuss selected aspects of everyday life in the institution and its contemporary transformations related to, among other things, new communication technologies and new generations of nuns. We show that in this highly institutionalised place nuns remain reflexive individuals.

New Monasticism has been interpreted by its protagonists as an answer to the challenges of the future of Christian monasticism. New Monastic Communities can be defined as groups of people (at least some of whom have taken religious vows) living together permanently and possessing two main characteristics: (1) born in the wake of Vatican Council II, they are renewing monastic life by emphasising the most innovative and disruptive aspects they can find in the Council's theology; and (2) they do not belong to pre-existing orders or congregations-although they freely adapt their Rules of Life. New Monastic Communities developed and multiplied in the decades during which, in Western European countries and North America, there was a significant drop in the number of priests, brothers and sisters. Based on our empirical research in a new monastic community-the Fraternity of Jerusalem (a foundation in Poland)-we addressed the following: Why are New Monastic Communities thriving? Are they really counteracting the decline of monasticism? What characteristics distinguish them from traditional communities? We will show how they renew monastic life by emphasising and radicalising the most innovative and disruptive theological aspects identified in Vatican Council II.

A Visual Approach to the Study of Religious Orders applies visual methods to the exploration of various facets of religious life, such as everyday lived experience, contemporary monastic identity or monastic architecture. Presenting a series of visual essays, it treats images not as simple illustrations but as an autonomous form of expression, capable of unveiling vital and developmental layers of experience, while inviting readers to examine and interpret the data themselves. The first book of its kind, it brings together case studies from various locations across Europe to demonstrate what the use of visual methodologies can contribute to social scientific research on religious orders. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, religious studies and theology and anyone with interests in religious orders.

A brief description of the content of the book In the first and second chapters, I analyse the changes of monasticism in historical and statistical terms. The first chapter, based on historical sources, covers the history of monastic life from its dawn at the beginning of our era until the 1970s; it also presents the basic theological definitions of this phenomenon. Analyses point to a number of social factors that are associated with the transformation of monasticism, and thus constitute it as an object of sociological research. The second chapter, developed on the basis of analyses of church statistics, covers the period from the 1970s until 2015, when the edition of "Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae" (ASE) ends – ASE is the main source of data for analyses presented in this chapter. The author's analysis nuances the widespread hypothesis about the current "crisis" of religious life, showing that (1) the quantitative decline of nuns and religious priests and brothers does not affect all continents and all European countries (an important exception for religious priests is here in Poland), (2) the current situation can be seen as the next stage in the evolution of the idea of monasticism, not the "crisis" because from the second half of the twentieth century there is the development of institutions attempting to implement the idea of monasticism in a new way (for instance secular institutes or so-called new monastic communities). The third chapter presents the analysis of the sociological state of art in relation to the indicated issue and proposes the relational approach, expanding the area of monastic study from the analysis of internal institutional transformations, including the issues of vocations, onto relations in the social environment, including the discourse on monasteries. The fourth chapter presents the discussion of the results of author's research on Cistercian monasteries in the local context, to which the relational approach was implemented, which was the author's contribution to the development of research into this phenomenon. Research shows that despite the low number of vocations, monasteries function in a series of relationships (related to economics, tourism, collective memory), which are also initiated by local social actors other than monks, and for secular purposes. Thus, the change in the cognitive perspective allows us to see that the monasteries function in changed and not only religious relationships, being important institutions in the life of local communities, also outside the religious context. A detailed discussion The first chapter is devoted to the discussion of basic concepts and history of the phenomenon from its beginning at the beginning of our era until the 1970s. The discussion of concepts is necessary because this phenomenon is usually described by theological terms. The widest concept covering various forms of religious life, whose participants declare and practice separation from the world in order to reach God, is a consecrated life, a life dedicated to God. As defined by the Code of Canon Law of 1983, it is a form of life that takes place in

This is a revised version of the book - some minor errors found in the Polish edition have been corrected as well as one major mistake concerning the number of women religious in South America, which dropped by almost 20% (and not increased by almost 160%) between 1974 and 2015.

"Rozpatrywane w poszczególnych artykułach problemy z zakresu
socjologii zamieszkiwania nie są wyraźnie obecne w polskiej socjologii, co wydaje się, należałoby zmienić i redaktorzy tomu oraz osoby w nim piszące właśnie w tym kierunku zdążają. (…) Przedstawiona do recenzji książka jest jedną z nielicznych publikacji w polskiej socjologii, która porusza problem społecznych praktyk zamieszkiwania. Z tej perspektywy jest to praca potrzebna i winna znaleźć się na polskim rynku wydawniczym”.
(z recenzji prof. nadzw. dr hab. Anny Śliz)"

The book: Non-home. Asociologicalmonograph ofmigrant dwellings is devoted to the phenomenon of migrant dwelling, understood as an apartment usually lent and shared by several unrelated inhabitants. Its social, economic and interpersonal characteristics contrast this phenomenon not only with a typical family home but also with cohabitation, a commune, or a pension. Such a dwelling configuration gains recognition in different countries and perhaps has a chance to become an alternative for typical, omnipresent bourgeois-based standards housing also in Poland. In order to scrutinize a migrant dwelling we try consciously to go around the idea of home (private, familial, comfortable, etc.); the strategy of going-around differs from deconstruction used in art and feminist attempts. Our endeavor consists of seven chapters in which – consecutively – we reconstruct the idea of home, track its presence in sociological researches, and introduce a concept of an non-home which allows us to empirically study migration of social support, space formations, housing practices and self and new communication technologies within and in relation to a migrant dwelling.

The book Making Cultural Capital Work. A Study of Białowieża’s Social Worlds is both a theoretical and empirical monograph, and a contribution to studies on formatting of social structures and institutions in a local community from the perspective of cultural sociology. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts, we apprehend
culture in the broad sense and assume that studying culture implies scrutiny of meanings in social practices. The monograph is based on empirical findings discussed in a field rapport entitled Social Worlds of Białowieża: a Diagnosis of Cultural Capital (the field research was carried out in summer 2012 in Białowieża).
The rapport provided empirical data and analyses formed through investigating the culture in local communities and post-research considerations on the relevance of empirical findings for our theoretical assumptions. We use the specific term “making cultural capital work” in the title of the book for two reasons. Firstly, the movement connoted by the term „making work” refers to our theoretical attempts to adapt and further develop selected Bourdiean concepts, mainly “cultural capital”, to current sociological discussions on the role of culture in structuration processes (Alexander 2010). Secondly and empirically speaking, we apply the category of cultural capital to study a local community and to test its heuristic potential, as well as to depict the local social worlds of Białowieża, which are elusive
and intangible for conventional approaches to local communities.
Hence, the book is not just another study of a local community, neither a comprehensive monograph of Białowieża. Rather, we attempt to elaborate on a theoretical framework and analytic tools appropriate to study a local cultural field. At the same time, we scrutinize how these frameworks and tools can be applied to the selected case of Białowieża.
Here is the summary of our main conclusions.
The local cultural field of Białowieża is divided into different sub-fields which, figuratively and literally speaking, are social spaces where local games of domination and recognition take place. On the one hand, we distinguish between the different
logics of operations of culture in the local context, which stand for meanings ascribing and defining relations between contextualized social positions, and on the  hand between culturally constructed “objects” (such as things, events and situations).
Every and each sub-field relates to a specific capital representing a relevant resource, which is providing advantages within the sub-field and offering reward in a local (subfield)
contest. In other words, the study shows that culture is producing local distinctions, but at the same time providing a means of communications for representatives of diverse social worlds. The following sub-fields and corresponding capitals were distinguished: 1/ a sub-field of here-ness, meaning a space of multidimensional distinctions on “ours” and “strangers”, “we” and “them”, “people from here” and the newcomers.
Social domination within this sub-field is related to the respective (differently defined) length of living in the community. Ours/we/local decide who can be called “a person from here”. A length of living in the community is a relevant resource, which we call the habitation capital. Because it is a local value newcomers seek to be recognized as being from here;
2/ a sub-field of action, meaning a space of social participation in different types
of collective actions (cultural, social, political or economic) and bottom-up initiatives, and a corresponding willingness to participate. The role of collective actions is a controversial (or even antagonistic) subject within the local community,
because there is no shared definition of purposes. Within this sub-field any engagement in these actions would become a resource which is why we coin the term capital of engagement.
We emphasize that these two sub-fields with their specific capitals are the most powerful, and competing, assets in claiming to be a true citizen of Białowieża, which means: in the game on symbolic domination and, hence, on having the right to decide about community. Because the two sub-fields and their corresponding capitals are competing for symbolic domination, the local cultural field of Białowieża is in flux. In our view only by uncovering this local characteristic it is possible to analyze the most prominent local conflict concerning the primal forest. Other sub-fields, yet not so dominant in the local field, but identified as a result of the study, are: a sub-field of nature, a sub-field of the ethno-national, a sub-field of religion and a sub-field of
education. The study about the cultural capital clearly shows that culture generates distinctions related to symbolic domination and cultural interests which establish a framework for formal and informal local institutions. Thus the local cultural
participation and local culture are contributing to the production and reproduction of social distinctions. This finding has also a methodological implication: studying  cultural participation does not only mean collecting data on cultural practices (for
instance, participation in local events) but also investigating the local context which gives meaning to these practices and would allow a more adequate interpretation. In this perspective a local cultural field may be understood as a field of redistribution
and competition of above-mentioned capitals, beyond the simple distinction between activity and passivity. Local cultural events connect inhabitants by facilitating communication and symbolic interactions. But because these interactions are
meaningful, making distinctions and defining better/worse, they are always divisive. Thus the lack of participation in a local event may be interpreted not as passivity, but as an act of resistance towards a dominant culture. In other words, participating in
a local event means confirmation of one’s cultural and social capital, hence local cultural institution (formal and informal) may be regarded as vehicles of reproduction of symbolic domination or resistance against it. Yet, as we observed, there is not one
dominant culture in Białowieża but rather different cultures which compete for local dominance.
Studying cultural capital – defined as assets in the web of local meanings – would allow recognizing the cultural participation as being closely related to the work of distinction which divides and connects at the same time. Hence, the approach of cultural capital developed in this book could be used as a handy tool to scrutinize the local logics of the production of meanings (local sub-types of capitals in the frames of sub-fields) which constitute social reality.

In late modernity both religion and sexuality are being elaborated in terms of reflexivity. In this article, we present findings from our research on the topic of constructions of gender, intimacy and sexuality by sisters and brothers in Catholic monasteries in Poland. The findings are based on the mixed-method transformative connection between qualitative (n = 92) and representative sample quantitative research (n = 1543) conducted in 2020. We studied reflexivity on gender, intimacy and sexuality within Catholic religious communities in Poland in order to understand how gender, intimacy and sexuality are presented in the institutionalized framework of religious life. Our study demonstrates that reflexivity on gender, intimacy and sexuality is highly institutionalised and deeply privatized within Catholic religious communities. The article shows that reflexivity of consecrated persons in Poland on gender, intimacy and sexuality is strongly shaped by religious norms (chastity) and su...

stance, it is not clear how redesigning of educational institutions affects learning and social relations within these very institutions and how to study this influence. The article is divided into two parts: the part one focuses on theoretical issues related to the problem under scrutiny, the part two depicts and discusses methodological problems connected to studying impact of space on educational and learning processes, and its relevance for educational leadership in terms of influence, vision and values.

Artykuł podejmuje problematykę autoprezentacji mnichów i prezentacji klasztorów na stronach WWW prowadzonych przez cystersów. Analiza wizualna pokazuje, jakie narracje poza religijnymi wykorzystywane są do konstruowania przekazów o sobie. Główny wniosek z przeprowadzonych analiz brzmi: dyskurs o klasztorach ma zarazem wymiar religijny, jak i pozareligijny, co pokazuje skomplikowaną obecność religii w sferze publicznej. Nie jest więc tak, że klasztor jako instytucja religijna i mnisi jako wspólnota poddani są sekularyzacji jako procesowi wobec nich zewnętrznemu. Semantyczny wymiar sekularyzacji (sekularyzacja semantyczna) rozumiany jako dodawanie wymiaru sekularnego do wymiaru sakralnego staje się również ich sposobem wypowiadania się o sobie.

Consumption in modern, capitalist countries is studied through the lens of fashion. We claim that it is fruitful to apply the concept of fashion to an analysis of consumption in a modern socialist country. By using the example of the wall unit, we discuss the emergence of fashion through the mechanism of state policy in Poland under the Communist regime. The socialist state was responsible for the propagation and implementation of modernity. The idea of progress was internalized by citizens and enacted by social emulation. Additionally, our study reveals that social class was a means of determining different attitudes toward fashion: members of the working class saw value in imitation and exact copying (revealing a monocentric approach to fashion) while the middle class engaged in a polycentric approach, that is, they valued individual creativity, mixed various styles, and were inspired by trends from western countries.

The article investigates the process of the greening of Catholicism from a discursive perspective. Using semantic field analysis, we examined differences and similarities in the approach to ecology and “assessed” the impact of Laudato Si’—the encyclical letter by Pope Francis—on discourse in selected Polish and Italian weekly publications. The article demonstrates how ecology is being “absorbed” within the Catholic press and how it works in the discursive environment; it also reveals the process of legitimation of “ecological norms” in Catholic practical narratives which differ in Poland and Italy.

This monograph aims to discuss the state of sociological research on Catholic religious life by presenting its history, current form, and new research on the subject based on an original approach developed here. <br> The first chapter discusses the fundamental concepts and the history of the phenomenon in question, from its beginnings early in the Common Era until the 1970s. <br> The second chapter analyses the transformations of religious life in the period stretching from the 1970s to 2015. Basing primarily on church statistics (Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae), it demonstrates that what we have come to call a crisis is in fact a geographically-determined phenomenon. In fact, Catholic religious life has been developing in Africa and Asia. Reasons for the crisis in Europe and North America are usually diagnosed to consist in the growing divergence between this form of life and the changing attitudes and needs of young Catholics (Greeley 1972). Social transformations hav...

The aim of this article is to present the results of a sociological study on everyday life within a female cloistered monastery. This is a radical form of religious life, highly routinised, distanced from the outside world and conducted in community yet in almost total silence. By elaborating upon the concepts of everyday and lived religion, the scope of our examination complements dominant sociological approaches to the study of this religious phenomenon. By addressing the following research question: ‘Do cloistered monasteries de-individualise and totally regulate the life of nuns?’, we discuss selected aspects of everyday life in the institution and its contemporary transformations related to, among other things, new communication technologies and new generations of nuns. We show that in this highly institutionalised place nuns remain reflexive individuals.

In this article we introduce the notion of non-home as an attempt of meaningful insight into the migrants’ dwelling constructed from elements of diff erent provenance (family homes, social housing institutions, etc.), depending on tenants housing experiences, defi nitions (knowledge) and the very materiality of a living space. In developing the idea of a non-home we refer to the theoretical concepts of non-places and heterotopias.

The article is an attempt to describe the situation of moving out and being at home as an embodiment and habit according to the concept created by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Claude Kaufmann. The article has been divided into four parts which attempt to answer questions which explain the moving out experience. First, what happens to the home and in the home when one or several of its inhabitants leave? The answer to this question was based on the concept of the body and habits formulated by Maurice Merleau-Ponty which leads to the statement that such a situation leads to a sudden disruption of the habits associated with the home. Second, what is the process of returning to the situation in which the home feels one's own - i.e. where the inhabitant feels comfortable? At this point attention is drawn to the research into habits conducted by Jean-Claude Kaufmann which discusses the process of the creation of new habits. Third, what is the embodiment of a home? Here Peter King's work was very helpful. He states that the feeling of safety, intimacy and privacy in the home are closely related to the process of embodiment. Fourth, what are the consequences for the residents of a change in the domestic landscape? At this point the concept of embodiment will be associated with the problem of self-reference, which leads to the conclusion that a change in the domestic landscape (people and things) is associated with a change in the residents themselves.

W tomie znajdują sie artykuly Magdaleny Łukasiuk i Marcina Jewdokimowa (Wstep), Macieja Brosza, Marty Skowronskiej, Magdaleny Żadkowskiej i Jacka Gądeckiego, Anity Basinskiej i Agnieszki Jeran, Magdaleny Łukasiuk (cześc Interwencje i dyfuzje), Grazyny Woronieckiej, Filipa Schmidta i Wojciecha Wilka (cześc Koncepcje i narracje), a takze Aneks metodologiczny.

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Publikacja powstala w ramach Programu Wzmocnienia Efektywności Systemu Nadzoru Pedagogicznego i Oceny Jakości Pracy Szkoly, Etap II w ramach III Priorytetu Programu Operacyjnego Kapital Ludzki, Dzialanie 3.1 wspolfinansowanego z Europejskiego Funduszu Spolecznego

"This article attempts to compare “new” and “old” concepts of cultural participation in Polish social research. In the fi rst part of the text, the author unveils the judgmental language and functions structuring some social research concerning participation in culture. In the second part, so-called “new” concepts are depicted. Distancing from the “old” ones due to their inadequacy in taking into consideration new Polish cultural conditions and the consequences of their political ends, these “new” concepts underline the need for negotiation and a participatory approach in culture researches. Keywords: participation in culture, symbolic power.

The purpose of this article is to present the problem of the monastic heritage in the view of Michel Foucault’s output. The monastic issue is most fully discussed by the afore mentioned author in his work Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, originally published in 1975 in France, and in Poland in 1993. In the Foucault’s point of view, the main legacy of the monasteries is the fact that they constitute the source, although far and transformed, of the disciplinary order, which has emerged at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, and according to Gilles Deleuze – remained roughly until the end of 20th century, when it was replaced by the life ordering logic of social control. In the first part of hereby article I will discuss selected threads of disciplinary society, which the author of Discipline and Punish considers as related to the organization of monastic life. Therefore, I will discuss the problem of the body and self, time and space, and power. In the second part o...

New Monasticism has been interpreted by its protagonists as an answer to the challenges of the future of Christian monasticism. New Monastic Communities can be defined as groups of people (at least some of whom have taken religious vows) living together permanently and possessing two main characteristics: (1) born in the wake of Vatican Council II, they are renewing monastic life by emphasising the most innovative and disruptive aspects they can find in the Council’s theology; and (2) they do not belong to pre-existing orders or congregations—although they freely adapt their Rules of Life. New Monastic Communities developed and multiplied in the decades during which, in Western European countries and North America, there was a significant drop in the number of priests, brothers and sisters. Based on our empirical research in a new monastic community—the Fraternity of Jerusalem (a foundation in Poland)—we addressed the following: Why are New Monastic Communities thriving? Are they re...

The aim of the article is to reflect on the changing position of religion in the public sphere in the Polish context taking as a point of reference not attitudes or church attendance but meanings and functions of monasteries today. Monasteries in Poland are specific religion institutions because most of them had been resolved in 19 th century, and only some of them were re-established in 19 th and 20 th century. In order to present and interpret one case (a Cistercian monastery in J?drzejow, Poland) I outline contemporary discussions on the place of religion in the public sphere referring mostly to Jurgen Habermas’ opinion shift and so called post-secular approaches. Then, I sketch characteristics of the Polish public sphere and refer shortly reasons and consequences of monasteries’ dissolution in Poland. In the final part of the text I zoom on a selected Cistercian monastery. Concluding, I do state that one may understand the monastery under scrutiny as a post-secular institution w...

In this chapter, we analyse a migration dwelling: a tenant’s lodgings inhabited by people who are unrelated and also not connected with any preferred lifestyle. Usually, such a dwelling is occupied by one, two or even three equal flatmates (equal from a social status perspective) inhabiting the rooms, each living a more or less shared (economical, social …) life and sharing household responsibilities. In contrast to many similar forms of habitation in other Western industrial societies, in Poland each room has its own occupant/occupants, but there is no commonly accessible living room designed for social or community activity. The rented apartments are usually mid-standard, or even lower, in blocks in older parts of a city and furnished with secondhand furniture.

This case study explores the strategies, processes and outcomes of an education reform in Poland which was introduced in 2009 and substantively changed the school inspection system. Its analysis looks in particular at the co-operation between the central and the local level throughout the implementation of the programme. In order to address the shortcomings of the prior inspection system, the reform combined internal and external evaluation in school supervision practice and put greater emphasis on collaboration among stakeholders. The results of the analysis show that the reform has had a great impact on the organisation of inspectorates, introducing modern principles such as teamwork and self-evaluation. Also, it affected the attitudes of important actors in the education system regarding the relevance of data to support internal and external school evaluation. The overall goals and aims of the reform gained the support of the various stakeholders. However, the implementation and communication processes were seen as deficient, especially in terms of a lack of capacity to roll out the reform as well as a lack of trust/disbelief that evaluation can be used for improvement, rather than the expected punitive purposes. Nevertheless, the reform achieved first structural steps towards building a culture of self-evaluation, which had thus far not been part of the Polish education system. L’etude de cas presentee ici examine l’amelioration des performances du systeme scolaire polonais au moyen d’un nouveau mecanisme d’evaluation introduit en 2009. Ce dernier s’appuie sur des structures concues pour se substituer au dispositif d’inspection existant, ce qui rend la mise en oeuvre de la reforme difficile a plusieurs egards : aspects logistiques et structurels, changements d’allegeance et problemes d’orgueil professionnel, ainsi que luttes de pouvoir entre les niveaux central/regional/local. Tandis que la majorite des enseignants et des directeurs touches par la reforme soutenaient les objectifs generaux du programme, des doutes s’elevaient quant a la procedure de mise en oeuvre elle-meme. Dans de telles configurations, un echange structure entre les acteurs clefs faciliterait l’alignement des strategies de mise en oeuvre avec les objectifs globaux de la reforme. La critique principale fustigeait un manque de capacites (moyens financiers ou connaissances) au niveau local pour la mise en oeuvre de la reforme, et un certain scepticisme quant a la possibilite d’utiliser l’evaluation pour susciter des ameliorations sans recourir aux sanctions habituellement prevues. Neanmoins, la reforme a effectue les premieres demarches vers le developpement d'une culture de l'auto-evaluation, jusqu'a present absente du systeme educatif polonais.

Referring to the visual study, conducted on non-representative sample of Polish secondary schools, the paper discusses a problem of creativity in the school environment. The study allows to distinguish three types of creativity related to school environment (farmed and triggered by school agenda – most frequent in the set; against school agenda; beside school agenda) which points to the conclusion that one may move from a concept of creativity (singular) to a concept of creativities (plural). Almost a half of pupils claim that their school is a creative place. However, it is worth to think about the type of creativity they refer to, since the dominant number of images taken by pupils present creative activities as related to the school agenda.

The article presents an analysis of six websites of Polish Cistercian abbeys. Basing on content and visual analysis I seek to formulate more general theses on the role and functions of monasteries (religious institutions) today, and religion in general. The research shows that websites under scrutiny play two functions: autopresentation of an abbey and communication with parishioners. Autopresentation bases on two strategies: historical narratives and unveiling the life of community. Both strategies connect monasteries to the local culture. Monasteries are being presented as beauty and mysterious objects and monks as people performing daily activities. These meanings ascribed to the monasteries and to monks are related with three broader frames constituting contemporary meaning of a monastery: religious, heritage and tourism. The study shows that these three frames define representations of Cistercians monasteries in the websites under scrutiny. Intertwinement of these frames shows ...

Information on Preparatory Visit in Faculty of Theology (Oslo University) On April 8th and April 9th 2014 I participated in two working meetings in the Faculty of Theology (Oslo University) with prof. Tarald Rasmussen. Meetings concerned possible research and institutional cooperation. Following issues had been discussed: - national dimension of secularization process, - monastic heritage and secularization process, - concepts of the post-secular. Working meetings were funded by Norway Grants, Preparatory Visits Programme.

Summary The article discusses the problem of the place the Wąchock monastery occupies in the local collective memory, drawing on the field research carried out in Wąchock in July 2013. The research shows that the present-day place of the monastery’s heritage in the local collective memory is connected with the post-dissolution annexation and socialization of the monastery complex in its material and symbolic dimension, pursued by the local community (but also by institutions from outside). It is also partially the result of the interaction between the Cistercians (the abbey understood as a religious community) with the environment, or, to be more precise, their being open to the previously initiated process of socialization of the monastery space as an important place for the local community, as well their reinforcing this process by actively enriching the symbolic capital of the monastery with elements of the national memory and independence traditions.

The general aim of the project is to scrutinize an unexplored - within both sociology and cultural studies - issue of contemporary meanings and functions of monastic entities in selected local communities in West Pomeranian Viovodeship. I introduce a term 'monastic entity' to encapsulate very different roles that today perform both active and dissolved monasteries, and to transcend a definition - and, hence, a research scope - of a monastery as a house for persons under religious vows. Hence, a scrutiny of a monastic entity is to be framed in following concepts and referring to following problems: a field of a culture, cultural capital distribution and construction (Pierre Bourdieu 1985, 2008), a collective memory (Maurice Halbwachs 1950, 1969, Jan Assmann 2009, Aleida Assmann 2009, Andrzej Szpoński 1996, 1996a) and a local community (Joanna Kurczewska 2006).
Introductory research on a place of dissolved monasteries in local collective memories (Jewdokimow, Markowska 2012) and media inquiry shows that monastic entities perform locally very different functions. Hence, proposed research topic - meanings and functions of monastic entities in selected local communities - expects intensive scrutiny. Moreover, Michel Foucault (1993) and Max Weber (1984) treated a monastery as a relevant source of the modernity. Consequently, the study of monastic entities offers insights into the very 'nature' of the modernity (for instance, process of secularization) on Polish and broader levels.


The project was funded by National Science Centre (Poland) – UMO-2013/09/D/ HS6/03019.