Hunters, Gatherers, and Practitioners of Powerlessness : : An Ethnography of the Degraded in Postsocialist Poland / / Tomasz Rakowski.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2016
• VerfasserIn: Rakowski, Tomasz,
• MitwirkendeR: Kubik, Jan,
• Place / Publishing House: New York ;, Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2016]; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: European Anthropology in Translation ; 6
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (332 p.)

The socio-economic transformations of the 1990s have forced many people in Poland into impoverishment. Hunters, Gatherers, and Practitioners of Powerlessness gives a dramatic account of life after this degradation, tracking the experiences of unemployed miners, scrap collectors, and poverty-stricken village residents. Contrary to the images of passivity, resignation, and helplessness that have become powerful tropes in Polish journalism and academic writing, Tomasz Rakowski traces the ways in which people actively reconfigure their lives. As it turns out, the initial sense of degradation and helplessness often gives way to images of resourcefulness that reveal unusual hunting-and-gathering skills.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Introduction: The Anthropologist as a Poverty Inspector -- Chapter 1 The Szydłowiec and Przysucha Environs— The Świętokrzyskie Foothills -- Chapter 2 Wałbrzych—Boguszów-Gorce -- Chapter 3 The Bełchatów Brown Coal Mine—The Shadowlands of the Exposed Mine -- Conclusion -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index