Identity and Dignity in Narrative Biographical Episodes of Contemporary Polish ‘Non-migrants’

Abstract

The results presented in the paper comprise the outcome of five projects carried out in the years 2000-2012. The inspiration for the preparation of a comparative analysis and 'going across' the acquired data was the similarity between the semantic categories 'extracted' from each subsequent portion of the material collected in the selected projects. This led to the formation of a collective, qualitative case study in the sense coined by Robert Stake (2005), in which I set the goal of monitoring the process of redefining the meaning that the narrators (affected indirectly or directly by contemporary migration processes) attribute to identity and dignity. Both these categories are the result of the analyses and interpretation of the gathered empirical material, and not concepts imposed a priori. They are also hulled from the entire collection of meanings assigned by the interlocutors to the experiences of their life and their selected "biographical episodes." 1 1 'Biographical episode' is a term used by modern methodologists (N. Denzin, I. Helling, K. Konecki, F. Schütze and others). I use the definition of Piotr Jaksa Bykowski who applied this term in his Dwór Królewski w Grodnie: Epizod biograficzny 1795-1797 (The Royal Court in Grodno: Biographical episode 1795-1797), published in 1884, considering that it describes best the work that is an analysis and interpretation of the selected set of documents on the last visit of King Stanislaus Augustus and his court in Grodno. In the opinion of Bykowski, the term 'biographical episode' determines the publication content more accurately than usurping the right to call it 'history,' since the knowledge of the author was fragmentary

Retrieving Lost Knowledge: Researcher, “Native Researchers” and Shifts in Participatory Action Research

“…I see Clifford's description as very relevant in my research projects. Whenever I go to the field, i.e., among the local communities, local and emic knowledge of the "natives" clearly positions them as "those who know", while I, i.e., a researcher-outsider, am only a passing, fleeting presence, a guest (Ligus, 2009(Ligus, , 2013a(Ligus, , 2013b(Ligus, , 2019). An attempt to create knowledge through grass-root social practices, a practical kind of knowledge, one that is both applicable and theoretically grounded, while also being universal, was made by Tax (2010), who separated those who created knowledge from those who merely managed it (Foley, 2010).…”