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Scientific initiatives

Establishment of the research group 'Local knowledges in theatre and performance of the last two decades in the face of epistemic injustice. Polish and Ukrainian perspectives". September 2022-October 2023 within the framework of the Jagiellonian University Excellence Initiative.

The research group is composed of: Prof. Ewa Bal, Ph.D., Jagiellonian University (Head of the Laboratory of Knowledge-Creative Research in Local Cultures) Prof. Agnieszka Matusiak, Ph.D. (University of Wrocław, Head of the Centre for Transcultural Posttotalitarian Studies at the Faculty of Philology, University of Wrocław), Prof. Maiia Harbuzyuk, Ph.D. (Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, Dean of the Faculty of Culture and Arts), Prof. Oleksandr Pronkevych, PhD (Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the Petro Mohyla National Black Sea University in Ukraine), Łucja Ivanczewska, PhD (Jagiellonian University, Faculty of Performance Studies) Iwona Woźniak (Director of the Zagłębie Theatre in Sosnowiec, manager of the Naumiony Theatre in Ornontowice, PhD candidate at University of Silesia)

The scientific aim of the research group is to reformulate, in the context of East-Central Europe, the challenges posed by the decolonial turn in the humanities and social sciences. They identify and describe those 21st-century local knowledge/creative practices in Poland and Ukraine that respond to 20th century forms of epistemic injustice that are typical of this region. The starting point for our reflection is the experience of epistemicide of communities subjected to imperialist and colonial matrix of power, described by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, which manifests itself, for example, in the loss or marginalisation of local languages and the associated spatio-temporal systems of cognitive reference, as well as the possibility of producing and distributing local knowledge within an academic system dominated by the so-called centres of knowledge production associated with North America and Western Europe. The team therefore aims to answer the question how effectively counteract the epistemicide in the context of Central and Eastern Europe. The examples of epictemicide may therefore be the post-war policies of polonisation, russification or sovietisation of local communities in both countries (in particular the Silesians, Lemkos, Boykos and Hutsuls) and, in extreme cases, examples of ethnic cleansing or forced displacement and resettlement, typical of the entire post-war period. More contemporarily, the epistemicide can be associated with  neo-imperial practices  of rapid capitalist development in the 21st century and the compulsion of civilisational progress (which results in the disappearance of local communities, minority languages and cultures) . This project therefore aims to define the cognitive benefits that the study of the knowledge-creative practices of local cultures can bring, i.e. the recovery of lost or marginalised but clearly locally situated ways of seeing and conceptualising the world in this part of the globe for the development of the humanities as well as the reorientation of the geopolitics of knowledge.

As a tool and, at the same time, as research material for this decolonial action, we take the performing arts and cultural performances of the 21st century, which we want to treat, in line with the latest trends of affirmative humanities, as examples of specific laboratories of cognition. This is because we believe that the possible micro-utopias (Jameson, 2007) of new or traditional collective cultural identifications and micro-communities, as well as speculative visions of the past or future of these communities, may fulfil compensatory, affirmative or apotropaic functions in the perspective of global transformations and challenges of the present and the future.

The result of our research work will be a joint monograph in English, which we plan to publish at the end of 2023 in an academic international publisher. Its preparation will be preceded by a year-long scientific research seminar, the partial results of which will be presented in online lectures by individual members of the group and at an international conference planned for May 2023. 

Other scientific initiatives

20-24 June 2022 - attendance of the Head of the Studio at the International conference organized by International Federation for Theatre Research with the paper "Apparently Innocent Games, or on Testing Old/New Epistemologies from Central and Eastern Europe".

The 12-month POB Heritage mini-research grant of the UJ Excellence Initiative entitled:  
 "Situated cognition on the Ruins of Eastern and Western Europe", Principal Investigator: Ewa Bal, grant amount: 15,000 PLN, April 2021-April 2022

Organisation of a scientific conference: 
KON/TAKT ZONES- KON/FLIKT ZONES as a tool for recognizing contemporary cultural reality.
Place: Zagłębie Mediateka, 11 Kościelna St., Sosnowiec, 8-10 IX 2021
Institutional organisers: Zagłębie Theatre, Zagłębie Mediateka, institutional co-organisers: Institute of Cultural Studies at the University of Silesia and Department of Performance Studies at the Faculty of Polish, Jagiellonian University
Organiser of the conference: Prof. Ewa Bal, PhD, Jagiellonian University, Collaboration: Iwona Woźniak, (Director of the Zagłębie Theatre), Agata Kędzia (Zagłębie Theatre in Sosnowiec)
Scientific Committee of the conference: Prof. Ewa Wąchocka, PhD (UŚ), Dorota Fox, PhD (UŚ), Ewa Bal, PhD (UJ)

The academic conference is one of the elements of the Zagłębie/Śląsk project, implemented in the 2021/2022 theatre season and based on the cooperation of two leading cultural institutions of the Zagłębie Dąbrowskie and Upper Silesian regions, i.e. the Zagłębie Theatre from Sosnowiec and the Silesian Theatre from Katowice.
https://teatrzaglebia.pl/strefy-kon-taktu-strefy-kon-fliktu-program-konferencji/