News

From 21 to 24 July 2026, members of our project team took part in the biennial conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), held in Poznań under the theme “Anthropology: Possibilities in a Polarised World”. The event brought together anthropologists from across Europe and beyond to discuss current challenges, methodological innovations, and new directions in anthropological research.

Researchers from the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences were strongly represented at the conference, presenting their work and co-organising panels and workshops. Our project team actively contributed to these activities.

Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska co-organised the panel “Entangled Ruins: Polarised Temporalities and the Afterlives of Decay” together with Václav Sixta (Charles University, Prague). The panel explored different ways in which ruins can be powerful actors of the polarised temporalities of our age, as they embody collisions between past and future, decay and renewal, endurance and disappearance. Thanks to the collaboration with colleagues from Charles University, Karolína Pauknerová and Eliška Fulinová, who served as discussants, the panel sparked inspiring discussions, creating new opportunities for future collaboration. We are happy that it was again an occasion to meet our colleagues from the project “The Land Gone Wild. Archaeological and Transdisciplinary Research on Resilience Strategies in the 20th Century”, affiliated with several Czech institutions and interested in tracing German traces.

Karina Hoření presented the paper “Ethnography to Make It to the Pre-School – New Vocabulary for Ethnographic Practice” as part of the panel on Patchwork Ethnography. Her presentation reflected on methodological adaptations in contemporary ethnographic research and contributed to ongoing conversations about flexible and sustainable fieldwork practices. She used her experience in Spectral Recycling, conducting fieldwork in Liberec.

Magdalena Bubík presented the paper “Can a Ghost Hinder Urban Development? The Site of the Former Town Church and Victory Square in Piła” in a panel dedicated to the agency of religious buildings. Her presentation examined how the memory of a demolished church continues to influence urban space and local perceptions, demonstrating the lasting social significance of places that have physically disappeared in post-displacement regions.

Participating in EASA 2026 provided an excellent opportunity to share our research with the international anthropological community, receive valuable feedback, strengthen existing collaborations, and establish new academic connections that will contribute to the further development of the project.

The swastika is widely recognized as the emblem of Nazism and the Second World War. Yet today it also appears in parks, cemeteries, on walls, and in other public spaces, where it often carries meanings that extend beyond its historical association.

Drawing on field research conducted in Central Europe, Michal Korhel examines how the swastika functions as a dynamic symbol whose significance is continually redefined in changing social and political contexts. While its connection to Nazism remains central, the symbol is increasingly employed to express anger, hostility, protest, or moral condemnation in contemporary public discourse.

Rather than treating the swastika as a symbol with a single, fixed meaning, the blog post demonstrates how its interpretation is shaped by the contexts in which it appears, the spaces it occupies, and the ways it is understood within collective memory.

Link to the blog post you can find here.

From 26 June to 1 July, Magdalena participated in the international summer school “Recording & Transformation,” organized by the Anthropos Doctoral School and the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of Polish Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the University of Liverpool, Leipzig University, and the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO). The summer school took place in the picturesque village of Pozorty in the Masuria region, right by a lake. After intensive days filled with lectures and workshops, participants enjoyed relaxing by the water – especially as the exceptionally hot weather made the lakeside setting particularly welcome. 

The program featured lectures, workshops, and practical sessions led by distinguished scholars from various academic institutions: Prof. Harald Braun (Liverpool), Prof. Megan Maruschke (Leipzig), Dr. Nuala Caomhanach (Graduate Institute, Geneva), Dr. Izabela Mrzygłód (DHI, IH PAN) & Dr. Zachary Mazur (POLIN, IH PAN). Together with an international group of doctoral researchers, participants discussed contemporary archival studies, transformations of archives, and the role of archives during periods of social and political change. 

Magdalena was part of the group that prepared a presentation and discussion on Michelle Caswell and Marika Cifor’s article From Human Rights to Feminist Ethics: Radical Empathy in the Archives (2016). The discussion focused on the concept of radical empathy in archival and research practice. Magdalena sees this approach as highly relevant to her own doctoral research, as her project explores the relationships between the researcher, archives, archivists, and interviewees, who not only contribute source material but also actively participate in the creation of historical narratives. Another important component of the program consisted of workshops designed to develop participants’ presentation skills, including Elevator Pitches and Public Speaking & Job Talks. For Magdalena, the summer school was not only an opportunity to acquire new skills but also to refine and further develop the key arguments of her doctoral dissertation. 

The organizers also included a field excursion in the program. Participants took a boat trip along the Elbląg Canal, where they learned about one of Europe’s most remarkable achievements in hydraulic engineering. Particular attention was devoted to the canal’s unique inclined-plane system, which allows boats to travel over land on specially designed rail-mounted carriages. Invented in the nineteenth century by Prussian Georg Jacob Steenke, this engineering solution also serves as a reminder of the region’s multicultural past, when much of Masuria was inhabited by German-speaking communities. In this way, the summer school successfully combined theoretical reflection on archives and memory with the direct experience of a landscape that itself bears witness to historical transformations.

A new chapter titled “Historia poruszających się przedmiotów. O pojęciu poniemieckości” by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska has been published in a collective volume “Ziemie Odzyskane. Przestrzeń, przyroda, rzeczy”, edited by Małgorzata Praczyk and Emilia Kledzik, and issued by the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

In her chapter, Karolina addresses the problem of the category of being formerly German, which was incorporated into Polish law as early as 1946, and examines its consequences. To do so, she analyzes a specific case involving two clockmakers in the town of Koszalin, formerly the German city of Köslin, in Central Pomerania. She demonstrates that former Germanness (Polish poniemieckość) can be understood as a pragmatic category and that it was not necessarily preceded by an object’s having been German property. In this way, she contributes to one of the main objectives of our research.

A link to the full text you can find here.

Inspired by the border walk organized as part of the 33rd Researchers on the Border Seminar, our researcher Michal Korhel has published a commentary in the Slovak daily newspaper Denník N.  

The migration crisis of 2021 has largely disappeared from public attention but it continues to affect the lives of local people and those trying to cross the border. Based on his experience of the border walk in the Białowieża Forest, Michal explores the experience of ordinary visitors and that of migrants, for whom the same landscape means different things. While people usually talk about migration using statistics, national security, and politics, Michal points to the fact that when we do this, it is easy to forget about the real people involved. In the end, his article asks readers to stop looking at migrants as just a political group, and to start seeing them as human beings.

In mid-June, we were delighted to co-organize the 33rd seminar of the Badacze i Badaczki na Granicy [Researchers on the Border] group, dedicated to examining bordering practices across a variety of border contexts. We were particularly interested in how state borders are shaped in relation to one another, as well as in the boundaries that emerge between different communities and social groups. To explore these questions, we gathered in Gruszki, a small hamlet in Podlasie, where we discussed papers presented by scholars from Poland and abroad.

The first part of the meeting was devoted to research plans and works in progress. We heard and discussed excerpts from the work of Natalia Judzińska from the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, who is researching the Polish–Belarusian border. Our own Magdalena also presented a section of her PhD thesis, focusing on bordering practices among contemporary religious communities in two post-displacement regions. Jakub Bieniasz from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań discussed his plans for conducting research in Podlasie. We then moved to the Polish–Ukrainian–Slovak borderlands from both contemporary and historical perspectives. Tomasz Kosiek from the University of Rzeszów spoke about his documentation project along the Uzh River. Karolina Panz from the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, took us back in time to discuss the challenges of reconstructing the history of smuggling along the border. Finally, our team member Michal presented his research on the forests of Hauerland and reflected on the extent to which their haunted character can serve as a source for studying effect.

An important part of the seminar was the border walk, during which members of Badacze i Badaczki na Granicy showed us not only contemporary bordering practices relating to the infrastructure but also traces of both the distant and more recent past, particularly those connected to the humanitarian crisis at the border. Participants also had the opportunity to visit an exhibition by Iraqi artist Mustafa Fouad, who illustrated his experiences of crossing the border.

On the second day, we met with Joanna Zielińska-Öktem from the Contact Zone Association to discuss her films on borders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly in the post-1995 period. The seminar concluded with a presentation by our team member Karina, who shared her ethnographic research along the former German railway line that once connected areas that today form part of the Polish–Czech borderlands.

The remainder of the day was devoted to a workshop that we led using the ethnographic postcard method. We discussed in depth how we employ this method and how it shapes our practice as hauntologists. Participants were then invited to create their own postcards and discuss them with the rest of the group. This was the second workshop of this type, following smaller workshops we conducted in pairs or individually.

We are pleased that the final year of our project began in this way: by sharing the milestones we have achieved so far, participating in discussions that broadened our horizons, and gaining insights into a variety of other post-displacement regions. We hope that the methods we presented will find their way into the work of other researchers as well.

On Monday, 15 June, Karolina was invited to participate in a conference promoting knowledge about the history and post-1945 development of the formerly German territories incorporated into Poland. The conference, organized by Tygodnik Powszechny, one of Poland’s leading magazines, took place in the Polish Sejm, the seat of Parliament. The venue underscored the event’s character as a discussion about Poland’s past and present, viewed through a regional lens.

Karolina took part in the first panel alongside Eryk Krasucki from the University of Szczecin. Their discussion explored various trajectories of development, focusing on individual experiences and the ways local communities negotiated centrally imposed propaganda while attempting to settle and feel at home amid the remnants of German material culture. She illustrated her statements with examples drawn also from the research conducted within our project.

The subsequent panels examined contemporary sociological research on how these territories are perceived both by their inhabitants and by people elsewhere in Poland. They also addressed the extent to which artistic practices shape perceptions of life in the formerly German regions, as opposed to reflecting lived realities.

The heated debate continued until late afternoon, demonstrating that this remains a highly relevant and engaging topic. We are now looking forward to July, when the results of the sociological study conducted by the Instytut Zachodni in Poznań will be published. These findings will provide an excellent point of comparison for our own site-specific and qualitative research.

A new article titled “Departing from Krickerhau and Arriving in Handlová: Childhood Memories of Migration among German Expellees and Slovak Settlers” by Michal Korhel has been published in Forum Historiae.

Handlová (German Krickerhau) was one of the main centres of Hauerland, a region in central Slovakia inhabited predominantly by a German-speaking population until the end of the Second World War. As a consequence of wartime events and post-war population transfers, German, and later Czechoslovak, authorities forced Slovak Germans to leave their homes. After 1945, Slovak settlers from neighbouring regions as well as from Hungary, France, Belgium, Romania, and Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia arrived in Handlová to take the place of the ousted German population. Drawing on oral history interviews, this article examines the childhood experiences of both the original German inhabitants of Handlová and the Slovak settlers who were relocated there after the Second World War. For both groups, German expellees and Slovak newcomers, childhood was profoundly shaped by (forced) migration. Yet while the Germans departed for a devastated Germany leaving most of their possessions behind, the Slovak settlers often arrived in what they perceived as their “home country,” bringing with them not only material belongings, but also distinct expectations and identities. By comparing the two sets of childhood recollections, the article explores how displacement was experienced and remembered across ethnic and national divides, revealing the shared emotional and sensory dimensions of migration and also the contrasting interpretative frameworks through which loss and new beginnings were understood. Ultimately, the study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how memory, identity, and belonging were formed through post-war migration in Central Europe.

A link to the full text you can find here.

A new article titled “Sympathy for the Unfamiliar Ghosts: Why did Polish Settlers Care for Tombs of Ancestors of Expelled Germans?” by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska has been published in Memory Studies Review.

Although the scholarship to date has assumed that after the Second World War in central Europe, in regions where forced displacement took place, the new, mostly Slavic settlers neglected and destroyed German cemeteries left behind by the expellees, Karolina argues that this process did not start in the first years after the war because of the relationships that the settlers established with chosen German dead. She explains why this particular deceased individual was chosen, focusing on how the care of their tomb temporarily established a form of spectral kinship. To do so, she focuses on ethnographic materials, including interviews gathered in central Pomerania, contemporary Poland, to see how these stories have been conveyed after 1989 and what impact post-socialist conditions had on them.

A link to the full text you can find here. The publication is also available in open access via Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/records/20623766

In her latest blog post, Karina Hoření reports on the 2026 March of Reconciliation, an annual event commemorating the postwar expulsion of ethnic Germans from Brno. This year’s march coincided with a controversial meeting of the Sudeten German Association in the Czech Republic, sparking renewed debate. Karina examines the competing historical narratives: one focused on reconciliation and the memory of the expelled population, and the other highlighting the broader context of the Nazi occupation and the role of certain Sudeten Germans in the dissolution of Czechoslovakia.

Link to the blog post you can find here.