This article discusses heterogeneity of family and parental practices among Polish migrant fathers in Norway. The paper begins with a recollection of the contemporary approaches to masculinities, and addresses the emergence of "new fatherhood" in both family scholarship and migration studies. In the conclusion to the theoretical section, we reflect on transnational parenting in the context of male mobility. The empirical basis for the study stems from a combination of biographic and narrative interviews with members of Polish migrant families in Norway: ten Polish couples and two interviews conducted with fathers alone (the interviews were reviewed for this article from the broader research dedicated to the Polish families in Norway). In the analysis, we draw on the significance of the institutional support and social expectations for creating new patterns of being a father, yet we also underline the salient importance of individual, biographical elements that certainly influence the every-day practices of Polish migrant fathers. We put forward a general conclusion that there is not a singular fathering or fatherhood type among the Polish men in Norway, but rather a continuum of various family arrangements, often propelled by men, is observed. It is therefore crucial to look at the biographies which suggest social change and a shift towards a "new fatherhood".

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We use the concept of the ‘monster’ in this article as an analytical tool to grasp a variety of persons who – understood to be criminals in their countries of residence, and living with or thought to be particularly vulnerable to HIV – are perceived as threats from across the European region. Building on the field of monster studies, we focus here on strategies undertaken to shift the ‘monstrous’ towards the ‘human’ along what we describe as monster–human continuums. Relying on ethnographic fieldwork from Germany, Poland and Greece, four case studies examine processes of (re-)humanisation in the fields of migration, prisons, drug use and sex work that emerge at the intersections of humanitarianism, public health, human rights and citizenship. In particular, we propose that these strategies can entail the production of dissimilar forms of political subjectivity, the redistribution of responsibility or vulnerability and a reshuffling of blame within the moral economy of innocence and guilt – strategies that produce particular norms and forms of the human. These strategies, moreover, involve the normalisation or suppression of ‘abnormal’, ‘irrational’ or ‘guilty’ dimensions of criminalised subjects, thereby taming their capacity to confuse or confront societies’ worldviews, and ultimately foreclosing the possibility to imagine a being-in-the-world otherwise. We thus conclude by asking how embracing the monstrous might facilitate the navigation of cultural, social and moral anxieties that leave room for complex and conflicting practices and subjectivities.

In 2013 and 2019 harm reduction projects were at the centre of attacks and smear campaigns coming from both the media and authorities in Poland. These programs were criticized for their alleged promotion of activities that were perceived as socially controversial (for example, sex work, drug use, and sex between men) and that went beyond a normative vision of 'good citizenship'. Drawing on public discussions provoked by the attacks on harm reduction projects, and embedding them in the history of HIV/AIDS activism in post-transition Poland, the article explores the ways in which pleasure is, or might be, embraced within the notion of citizenship-a citizenship that is understood in terms of subjects' rights and responsibilities. Based on extended fieldwork, including qualitative interviews with activists, experts, and people living with HIV, this article examines different strategies of enacting and navigating harm reduction activism in Poland by various actors. The article demonstrates that punitive political environments produce three strategies for responding to, framing, and managing pleasure. Hyperbolization and silencing are the two dominant strategies pursued by public institutions, the media, and politicians. The third strategy, skillful maneuvering, appears as a way of overcoming this opposition on the part of harm reduction activists.

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