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The blog post was written by Angelika Zanki, research facilitator and manager in Spectral Recycling grant.

What do fingerprints, migration and Jacques Derrida have in common?

Starting with the invention of fingerprint identification by Juan Vucetich’s, Sherlock Holmes from Hvar, Angelika moves into a haunting reflection on Croatian emigration to South America, inspired by Derrida’s concept of hauntology.

The homeland appears here as a specter – geographically absent, yet powerfully present through language, rituals, music, religion, and religion in the collective memory of a diaspora. How do diaspora communities sustain an imagined Croatia that shapes everyday life and can even mobilize political action, especially in moments of crisis like the war of the 1990s?

This is a story about how the past returns, not as something fully present, but as a force that still acts, insists, and shapes the present.

Link to the blog post you can find here.

Building on our interest in memory, materiality, and transformation, we decided to revisit two canonical texts of memory studies by reading and discussing Paul Connerton’s “Seven Types of Forgetting” alongside the opening chapter of Kenneth Foote’s “Shadowed Ground.” Both texts propose analytical typologies that proved productive for thinking through the dynamics of forgetting, reuse, and normalization that are central to our research.

A significant part of the discussion focused on the usefulness and limitations of typology as an analytical tool. Connerton’s attempt to systematize forms of forgetting is a classic contribution that invites critique as much as application. Foote’s work, grounded in empirical observation of sites of violence in the United States, offered us a more spatial and practice-oriented framework, prompting debate about the transferability of his categories beyond the American context. We wondered if typologies created to embrace sites of memory are useful for intimate objects that are at the center of our interest.

We also explored how both texts intersect with our ongoing interest in recycling, reuse, and transformation. Foote’s notions of obliteration and rectification prompted discussion about different ways of dealing with sites of violence, and about whether some of these modes we can understand as forms of recycling. This, in turn, led us to reflect on the kinds of effort, recognition, and indifference that such practices involve.

Finally, we connected the readings to our own fieldwork, testing Connerton’s and Foote’s categories against concrete examples from European contexts. These discussions reinforced our shared sense that typologies function less as closed systems than as points of departure. They are useful for thinking with, but always in need of revision when confronted with specific historical and spatial conditions.

In the early 19th century, some thinkers dreamed of uniting all Slavs… or at least federating them. Panslavism, as this intellectual and political current was called, was a bold attempt. However, along the way, it encountered many obstacles, both internal and external. In episode 104 of Czechostacja, a podcast hosted by Jakub Medek, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska talks about the history of panslavism and Czech entanglements with it, Russia’s role in these ideas, Polish and Slovak perspectives, and why many believers quickly lost their illusions. She also examines what remains of Slavic unity today—in a world shaped by war and modern nation-states.

Link to the podcast you can find here.

In early 2026, Karina visited the Sudetendeutsches Museum in Munich. She took the train ride across borders only to learn more about Bohemian history as the institution serves as an enclave of Czech heritage within Bavaria. During her visit, the museum featured an exhibition devoted to another notable native of Vratislavice/Maffersdorf, the renowned automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche, who grew up just some hundred years and a few hundred meters from Karina’s. She was particularly interested in comparing the Munich exhibition with the one at Porsche’s birthplace in Vratislavice, which is run by the Škoda car producing company (nowadays part of the VW concern). Whereas the Vratislavice exhibition focuses exclusively on Porsche’s technical achievements, the Sudetendeutsches Museum also addresses the political implications of his work for the Third Reich. Both exhibitions illustrate how technology and technical innovation can serve as a unifying and non-threatening narrative for interpreting the past.

Call for Submissions – EASA 2026 Conference, panel P053: Entangled Ruins: Polarised Temporalities and the Afterlives of Decay

We warmly invite scholars and researchers to submit proposals for Panel P053, convened by our PI, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska and Václav Sixta from the Charles University, at the EASA 2026 Conference.

The panel explores ruins as powerful materialisations of tension between decay and renewal, loss and endurance. Ruins reveal collisions between past and future and expose polarised temporalities shaping contemporary worlds, while also opening spaces for care, reflection, and re-imagined relations.

Focusing on the social, political, and material afterlives of decay, the panel will examine ruination as a dynamic and relational process: one that highlights contested values and unequal power, yet also gestures toward new possibilities beyond binary thinking.

Aligned with the conference theme “Anthropology: Possibilities in a Polarised World,” organizers welcome anthropological, ethnographic, geographical, theoretical, and creative contributions engaging with ruins, memory, heritage, materiality, and temporal entanglements.

Suggested keywords:
Ruins and Ruination · Temporalities · Memory and Heritage · Materiality and Decay · Anthropocene · Entanglement · Afterlives of Ruins

More information and submission details you can find here.

The popular conviction, popularized by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, is that vampires live primarily in Transylvania. However, as Josef Váchal, a Czech writer, visual artist, and book printer, sought to demonstrate, the main headquarters of these creatures lies elsewhere: in Slovakia.

Karolina discovered this book during one of her archival searches at the Museum of Czech Literature in Prague. She proposed discussing it among our team, particularly because the narrative is set not only in Slovakia in general but also in Hauerland, a region studied by both Michal and Karina.

Over the course of the seminar, the reading gradually shifted from a search for ghosts and supernatural beings to a critical conversation about Czech colonialism in Slovakia during the interwar period. How does a Czech visitor behave in Slovakia—as a tourist and as a keen observer of social life? And how did such encounters unfold during the First Czechoslovak Republic? Can we read Váchal’s text as an ethnographic source? These were the guiding questions of our discussion.

Although the text was not an easy read, we welcomed its depictions of the region and the opportunity to approach our case studies from yet another angle. This time, the discussion opened up perspectives drawn from tourism studies and postcolonial theory.

In his commentary, Michal analyzes the return of the Beneš Decrees to contemporary Slovak politics and law through the lens of hauntology. He argues that today the decrees function less as valid legal norms and more as a “specter” of the past that reappears in property disputes and political crises of identity. Although they are largely exhausted in legal terms, the Beneš Decrees remain symbolically powerful and are politically instrumentalized, particularly by the government, which presents them as an untouchable foundation of statehood. Michal also points to the difference between the Czech and Slovak contexts: while in the Czech Republic the decrees functioned mainly as a one-off political symbol, in Slovakia they return systematically and have tangible practical consequences. In conclusion, Michal emphasizes that instead of becoming a taboo, the “specter must be listened to” – that is, the historical and moral problematic nature of the decrees must be openly acknowledged and their legacy translated into the language of a twenty-first-century constitutional state, so that the past ceases to automatically determine the present.

Link to the text you can find here.

On January 5, Karolina was again a guest on Anna Dudzińska’s broadcast Klub Trójki. This time, the discussion was sparked by the radio documentary Węzełek [A Bundle] by Magda Skawińska. The documentary is built around particular objects, such as a small bundle and a set of keys carried by people forced to leave their homes. Referring to historical practices of packing essential belongings during displacement, the bundle evokes both loss and survival, while the key symbolizes the home left behind. By weaving personal testimonies of expulsion with broader reflections on memory and identity, the documentary connects historical displacement with contemporary experiences of migration and conflict, showing how people continue to carry their bundles, both literally and symbolically.

At the end of the broadcast, Karolina reflected on migration as a recurring feature of Central European history. She discussed the specific character of postwar migration in western Poland, the long-term effects of settlement policies in the so-called Recovered Territories, and how these histories shape present-day social realities locally and beyond. The discussion also touched on who the postwar settlers were, whether they can be considered refugees, and how the history of postwar settlement is—and is not—present in mainstream discourse in Poland.

You can hear documentary and braodcast here.

In the last seminar of 2025, we read and discussed a text by Elizabeth Benjamin from Coventry University, introducing the distinct category of nonuments. Drawing on her research in France, Benjamin constructs a typology of nonuments, that is, contested monuments that vary in the degree to which they are preserved.

We devoted a substantial amount of time to engaging with Benjamin’s proposal and to considering how her typology addresses questions of recycling, which are also central to our own research. This discussion formed part of our broader effort to refine a working definition of recycling.

During the seminar, we also reflected on the kinds of nonuments that might be found within our own fieldwork. Each of us selected and presented an example of a nonument encountered in their research, which we would now like to share with you.

The workshop “Popularizing Research Online” was held by Angelika Zanki, our manager and facilitator, who promotes the team’s activities and has completed numerous trainings in this field.

The workshop is a part of the NAWA’s STER Next Generation PhDs – Innovations program for doctoral students at the Anthropos Doctoral School. It provided participants with an opportunity to engage with key principles of effectively presenting and promoting academic work in digital spaces. In today’s digital age, communicating research clearly and professionally is increasingly important, and the session emphasized the growing significance of science communication for researchers.

Participants were introduced to the basics of science communication and explored how researchers can present themselves and their projects in ways that are accessible, accurate, and engaging. The workshop highlighted examples of good practice as well as common mistakes to avoid, stressing the importance of maintaining a professional online presence. It also covered strategies for managing websites and social media profiles related to research projects, including European-funded grants, and practical methods for promoting them effectively online.

The workshop was highly practical: participants actively contributed to discussions and prepared draft social media posts, applying the knowledge gained during the session.

Angelika’s experience helped create a well-structured and supportive environment, allowing participants to recognize the importance of science communication and to develop confidence in sharing their research with wider audiences.

The Anthropos Doctoral School, where the workshop was held, is located in the heart of Warsaw’s Old Town. On the day of the workshop, the area was especially magical, as the streets were beautifully illuminated and holiday decorations were lit up, creating a unique and festive atmosphere around the school.