Professor Tomasz Rakowski
Contact
Tomasz Rakowski (PhD, habilitated) is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw. He is especially interested in postsocialist transformations and vernacular forms of socio-economic developments. He also works on experimental and collaborative methodology in ethnography.
Area of interest
anthropology & social art, phenomenological anthropology, pre-textual ethnography, studies on poverty and social trauma, bottom-up development in Poland and Mongolia.
Biography
Tomasz Rakowski, PhD (habilitated), is an ethnologist and cultural anthropologist, an Associate Professor at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw, a Lecturer at the Institute of Polish Culture, and a Fellow of Polish Council for Scientific Excellence; he is also a medical doctor, a specialist in Accident & Emergency medicine. He conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Poland and Mongolia. The author of two ethnographic monographs, multiple edited volumes, and peer-reviewed articles. Recently he published Hunters, Gatherers, and Practitioners of Powerlessness: An Ethnography of the Degraded in Postsocialist Poland, Berghahn Books, 2016, and Przepływy, współdziałania, kręgi możliwego. Antropologia powodzenia [Flows, Cooperations, and the Circles of Possibilities. Anthropology of Fortune-Prosperity], słowo/obraz terytoria, 2019. He is also the editor, with Helena Patzer, of Pretextual Ethnographies: Challenging the Phenomenological Level of Anthropological Knowledge-Making, Sean Kingston Publishing, 2018. He is especially interested in postsocialist transformation and vernacular forms of socio-economic development, and he works also on experimental methodologies in ethnography.
Selected publications
- Inside a sense. Mayer Kirshenblatt’s Shtetl and the Economy of the Impossible. w: (post)Jewish. Shtetl Opatów Through the Eyes of Mayer Kirshenblatt. red. J. Koszarska-Szulc, N. Romik, B. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Warszawa, Wyd. Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich Polin, 2024, pp. 207-227.
- Escape, Survival, "The Jump": On African Refugee Routes - Ząbek, Bachelet, M’charek, Teksty Drugie: English Edition, 2024, 2, pp. 181-199.
- Social deeds, building, and cosmopolitan moment. An ethnographic view on affective labour in (late) socialist Poland, w: Cosmopolitan Method, Cosmopolitan Moment, red. N. Rapport, H. Wardle, Routledge, Londyn, 2023, pp. 138-1
- Generous Thrift. Post-Pastoral Cooperation and Fortune-Making Among the Torghuts of Mongolia, w: Thrift and i Paradoxes. From Domestic to Political Economy, red. C. Alexander, D. Sosna, Berghahn Books, Oxford, 2022, pp. 95-116.
- Przepływy, współdziałania, kręgi możliwego. Antropologia powodzenia [Flows, Cooperations, and the Circles of Possibilities. Anthropology of Fortune-Prosperity], słowo/obraz terytoria, Gdańsk, 2019, pp. 358.
- Elements of the Country and the Space of the City: Artistic Experiments, in: The Rural: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge/Massachusetts, London: MIT Press/Whitechapel Gallery, 2019, pp. 222-227.
- Hunters, Gatherers, and the Practicioners of Powerlessness. An Ethnography of the Degraded in Postsocialist Poland, New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2019 (Pb).
- Ethnography, Art and a Societal Road to Nowhere. The Tear Dealer Project’, Anthropology of East Europe Review, 2019, vol. 36 (1), pp. 76-91.
- A Cultural Cyclotron. Ethnography, Art Experiments and a Challenge of Move Toward the Collaborative in Rural Poland in: Experimental Collaborations. Ethnography Through Fieldwork Devices (eds.) T. Sanchez Criado, A. Estalella, New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2018.
- Ethnography and Art Experiments in Rural Poland. Beyond the Culture of Shaming: Coevalness, the Inward Turn, and Proto-sociology. Second Texts Journal, 2018, Special Issue: no. 1, pp. 91-110.
- Artisans, Alcoholics and Artists: In Search of Descriptions of Experimental Ethnographic Realities, “Visual Ethnography”, 1, 2018, p. 52-65 (co-authored with Ewa Rossal).
- Pre-textual Ethnographies. Challenging the Phenomenological Level of Anthropological Knowledge-Making, Tomasz Rakowski, Helena Patzer (eds.), Canon Pyon: Sean Kingston Publishing 2018.
- Hunters, Gatherers, and the Practicioners of Powerlessness. An Ethnography of the Degraded in Postsocialist Poland, New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2016 (Hb).
- Interior Spectacles. The Art of the Informal among Bootleg Miners in Wałbrzych, Poland, in N. Makovicky and D. Henig (eds.). Economies of Favour after Socialism: A Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
- Creating Bottom-up Development. A Study of Self-Organization and the Buliding of Fortune-Prosperity among the Torghuts, Southwest Mongolia, „Český lid-The Czech Ethnological Journal”, 2016, v. 103, no. 1, pp. 119-134.
- Etnografia/animacja/sztuka. Nierozpoznane wymiary rozwoju kulturalnego (Ethnography/Art/Animation. Unmet Dimensions of Cultural Development) (ed.) T. Rakowski, Warszawa: Narodowe Centrum Kultury, 2013.
- The Unrelenting Ability to Act. Nigel Rapport’s Anthropology of Freedom, in A. Bentkowski and M. Buchowski (eds) Colloquia Anthropologica. Issues in Contemporary Social Anthropology. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Nauka i Innowacje, 2014.
- Local Craft, Theory from Abroad: Jacek Olędzki's Phenomenology, in K. Pobłocki (ed.) Worlding Europe – Anthropology at the Crossroads, Special Issue of “Lud” (vol. 96, 2012). WCAA “Dejalu” On-line Journal, available at: http://www.wcaanet.org/downloads/dejalu/feb_2014/rakowski.pdf
- Les Verges Figes. Arboriculteurs et Paysans dans L'impasse Économique, “Ethnologie Francaise”, 2010, 2.
- Łowcy, zbieracze, praktycy niemocy. Etnografia człowieka zdegradowanego (Hunters, Gatherers, and Practicioners of Powerlessness. An Ethnography of the Degraded in Postsocialist Poland) Gdańsk: słowo obraz/terytoria , 2009. The Józef Tischner Award (Award of the Znak Publishing House), the Jerzy Giedroyc Award (Marie-Curie University of Lublin), and the Award of the Poznań Review of Books. See a review in the Social Anthropology journal, vol. 19, May 2011, p. 230-231) The English-language translation will be published by Berhahn Books, in the series European Anthropology in Translation, 2016.
- The Voices of Collapse. Destructive and Self-Destructive Expressions among the Former Miners in Wałbrzych (Southwest Poland), in Luse, A. and I. Lazar (eds) Cosmologies of Suffering. Post-communist Transformation, Sacral Communication, and Healing, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007.
- Body and Fate. The Pension as a Practice of Social Remembering, “Anthropological Yearbook of European Cultures”, 2007, 1.
- Gatherers of Central Poland. A Field Study, “Anthropology Matters On-Line Journal” (2, 2006). available at: http://www.anthropologymatters.com/index.php/anth_matters/ar...
Research projects
Tomasz conducted fieldwork in Poland and Mongolia. Recently he has completed two Polish National Science Centre’s grants: 1. “Local Dimensions of Development. A Research on New Forms of Bottom-Up Development and Self-Organization among the Torghuts from Bulgan sum in Western Mongolia” 2. “The Challenges of Creative Ethnography – Working Out of the <<Action Research>> Methodology Able to Perceive Peripheral Creative Activities that Combines Perspectives of Dense Anthropological Research, Community Arts, and Contemporary Art Projects”
Awards and Scholarships
Awards:
Nomination for Jan Długosz Prize, 2020
Nomination for Jerzy Giedroyc Award (Award of Marie-Curie University of Lublin), 2019
for the book Przepływy, współdziałania, kręgi możliwego. Antropologia powodzenia [Flows, Cooperations, and the Circles of Possibilities. Anthropology of Fortune-Prosperity], 2019.
Rector’s Award for Outstanding Scholars, University of Warsaw, 2019.
Józef Tischner Award (Award of Znak Publishing House), 2010
Jerzy Giedroyc Award (Award of Marie-Curie University of Lublin), 2010
Award of the Poznań Review of Books, 2010
Nomination for Jan Długosz Prize, 2010
Clio Prize, University of Warsaw, 2010
for the book Hunters, Gatherers, and Practicioners of Powerlessness. An Ethnography of the Degraded [in Postsocialist Poland], 2009.
Fellowships:
Józef Tischner Senior Visiting Fellowship, Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen/ Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, October - December 2020.
Visiting Fellowship, Imre Kertesz Kolleg Jenia, October 2019 - January 2020.