Ina Alber, M.A.

Ina Alber, M.A.
Working title:
Civic engagement in Poland in times of transformation - an approach using biographical research and discourse analysis

Due to the transformations in Poland after 1989 the formerly well-known patterns of interpreting and acting are changing as well as the ideas and practices of civil society. Most research is done on the issue of a ”necessity” for a vivid civil society, but there is a lack of explanations of who the actors are and what leads to their activism. The central research question of my PhD project is: which constellations and factors can be found in the biographies of civil society activists in Poland that lead to their engagement? I therefore conduct biographical-narrative interviews with people engaged in different ways in either institutionalised organisations or informal networks dealing with issues like human rights, democracy, equality or freedom. Doing biographical research in the tradition of social constructivism always means that one takes into account the interdependency of individuals and societies, the context of the collective history, the presence and future. My results will thus be based on biographical case reconstructions as well as on discourse analysis on the concept of civil society. I will discuss different types of biographical narrations and experiences of engagement in a society under transformation, and ways of acting on it. I want to show that the biographers use the concept of civil society in various and fluid ways according to their biographical experiences and their established patterns of acting while at the same time shaping and transforming the discourses on civil society.


Temat po polsku:
Obywatelskie zaangażowanie w okresie transformacji w Polsce – ujęcie wykorzystujące metodę biograficzną oraz analiza dyskursu.