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Center for Relational Analysis of Culture and Society

The Center for Relational Analyses of Culture and Society bases its activities on the team members’ scientific pursuits and their achievements in studies on various dimensions of relationality, conducted over the past several years. It was established in 2020 on the foundation of an existing body of research produced within the series of international seminars entitled “The Relational Turn in Sociology,” initiated at the University of Warsaw by Elżbieta Hałas in 2016. The Center’s goal is to contribute to the development of relational sociology in Poland and in the world.

The Center seeks to embed its activities in international relational research networks. It participated in building an international research network initiated under a project funded by the National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA), entitled “Social Space, Field and Relationality in Contemporary and Historical Social Research” (project leader: Tomasz Zarycki).

Through its activities, the Center makes a creative contribution to the international relational movement in social sciences, developing the paradigm of relational analyses in the study of contemporary social and cultural processes and mutual relations between culture and society. The topics of ongoing research include center-periphery relations, the social context of meanings and processes of semiosis, making history and collective memory, symbolic power and politics of symbolization. The Center also deals with non-instrumental, non-utilitarian dimensions of socialization, altruistic relations, inclusive solidarity, and humanitarianism. It develops the concept of relational identity under conditions of multiculturalism and globalization processes. To this end, the Center carries out research on various dimensions and aspects of relationality of social and cultural phenomena. Special attention is paid to creation of knowledge in social networks and circles of scholars, as well as to international circulation of knowledge.

The Center draws inspiration from contemporary relational approaches, including Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social space and fields of practice, Harrison C. White’s theory of social network and domains of meanings, and Pierpaolo Donati’s theory of social relations and relational goods, as well as symbolic interactionism, and refers to the classic relational sociology of Georg Simmel, George H. Mead and Florian Znaniecki.

RESEARCH AREAS

The Center undertakes reflection on relational theories of society and culture, and the methodology of relational analysis. Its work, pursued to further develop the relational perspective in the social sciences and cultural sciences, is focused on understanding and explicating the singularities of cultural and social change of our times in a long historical perspective.

Projects

Projects in progress
    • Cyclical seminar Perspectives of Relational Sociology
    • Individual studies on relationality
    • Research projects realized in 2021-2022 at the University of Bologna and at EHESS, Paris in the framework of the NAWA Grant: Social Space, Fields and Relationality in Contemporary and Historical Social Analysis. Research Network
    • International conference, June 9-10 2022, University of Strasbourg, New Challenges in Field Theory, organizers: Tomasz Zarycki, Vincent Dubois, Andreas Schmitz
    • International conference, March 14-15, 2022, University of Warsaw, Methodology of Relational Sociology: Approaches and Analyses, organizers: Elżbieta Hałas, Tomasz Zarycki
      https://ws.uw.edu.pl/badania/konferencje/methodology-of-relational-sociology/

    Conferences on the relational turn in social sciences:

    • June 7, 2019, Sieć społeczna a pole społeczne. Odmienne metody, metafory czy zbliżone relacyjne wizje świata społecznego? [Social networks and social fields. Different methods, metaphors, or similar relational visions of the social world?] (domestic seminar, organizer: Tomasz Zarycki, Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies UW)
    • April 4-5, 2019, Relational Reason, Morals and Sociality (international seminar, co-organizers: Elżbieta Hałas (UW), Aleksander Manterys (ISP PAN)
    • March 6, 2017, Humanism in an After-Modern Society. The Relational Perspective (international seminar, organizer: Elżbieta Hałas)
    • September 19-20, 2016, The Relational Turn in Sociology: Implications for the Study of Society, Culture and Persons (international seminar, organizer: Elżbieta Hałas)

Other informations

Selected publications

Elżbieta Hałas

  • Elżbieta Hałas (ed.), Methodology of Relational Sociology: Approaches and Analyses, Cham 2023: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Elżbieta Hałas, Relational Understanding: Beyond the Interpretative and Normative Divide, in: Elżbieta Hałas (ed.), Methodology of Relational Sociology: Approaches and Analyses, Cham 2023: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 59-85.
  • Elżbieta Hałas, Etos altruizmu i jego odmiany [The ethos of altruism and its varieties], Warszawa 2023: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.

REVIEW: Monika Oliwa-Ciesielska, Wobec innego. Refleksje na temat książki Elżbiety Hałas Etos altruizmu i jego odmiany, „Kultura Współczesna. Teoria, Interpretacje, Praktyka” 2023 nr 4(124), p. 168-177.

  • Elżbieta Hałas, Relational Care: Rethinking Altruism, in: Elżbieta Hałas, Aleksander Manterys (eds.), Relational Reason, Morals and Sociality, Berlin 2021: Peter Lang, p. 69-93.
  • Elżbieta Hałas, Aleksander Manterys (eds.), Relational Reason, Morals and Sociality, Berlin 2021: Peter Lang.
  • Elżbieta Hałas, Nicolas Maslowski (eds.), Politics of Symbolization Across Central and Eastern Europe, Berlin 2021: Peter Lang.

REVIEW 1: Markéta Minárová, “Historicka Sociologie” 1/2022, p. 174-177.

REVIEW 2: Dennis Smith, How Do Leading Scholars from Central-Eastern Europe Assess the State of Their Region Post-1989?, “Stan Rzeczy” 2022, 1(22), p. 485-487.

  • Elżbieta Hałas, Gift and the Coefficient of Sociability. Relational Sociology and the Anti-Utilitarian Movement in the Social Sciences, “Polish Sociological Review” 2020, 4(212), p. 399-410.
  • Elżbieta Hałas, Znaniecki Florian, in: Paul Atkinson et al. (eds.) Sage Research Methods Foundations, Thousand Oaks, 2020: SAGE, DOI http://dx.doi.org./10.4135/9781526421036909821.
  • Elżbieta Hałas, Discovering the Relational Relevance of Reciprocity, in: Elisabetta Carrà and Paolo Terenzi (eds.), The Relational Gaze on a Changing Society, Berlin 2019: Peter Lang, p. 89-105.
  • Relational Turn in Sociology. Implications for the Study of Society, Culture, and Persons, “State of Affairs / Stan Rzeczy” 2017 (12) (special issue edited by Elżbieta Hałas and Pierpaolo Donati).
  • Elżbieta Hałas, The Place of Culture in Relational Sociology, “State of Affairs / Stan Rzeczy”, 2017, 12: p. 115-138.
  • Elżbieta Hałas, Dictionary of Relational Sociology, review: Paolo Terenzi, Lucia Boccacin, Riccardo Prandini (eds.), Lessico della sociologia relazionale, Bologna 2016: il Mulino, “State of Affairs / Stan Rzeczy”, 2017, 12: p. 421-431.

Michał Łuczewski

  • Michał Łuczewski, Florian Znaniecki’s Methodology for the Relational Paradigm: The Application of Analytic Induction to Nationalism Studies, in: Elżbieta Hałas (ed.), Methodology of Relational Sociology: Approaches and Analyses, Cham 2023: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 171-192.
  • Michał Łuczewski, Nation as a Primordializing Subject. Florian Znaniecki and the Foundations of Relational Sociology, in: Elżbieta Hałas, Aleksander Manterys (eds.), Relational Reason, Morals and Sociality, Berlin 2021: Peter Lang, p. 211-233.
  • Michał Łuczewski, Jak nie zostać globalnym intelektualistą? Przypadek Marii Ossowskiej [How not to become a global intellectual? The case of Maria Ossowska], in: Antoni Sułek (ed.), Spotkania z Ossowskim [Encounters with Ossowski], Warszawa 2020: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, p. 348-385.
  • Michał Łuczewski, Kapitał moralny. Polityki historyczne w późnej nowoczesności [Moral capital. Historical politics in late modernity], Kraków 2019: Ośrodek Myśli Politycznej.

Jakub Motrenko

  • Jakub Motrenko, The Scientific Community in the Perspective of Relational Sociology, in: Elżbieta Hałas (ed.), Methodology of Relational Sociology: Approaches and Analyses, Cham 2023: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 193-215.
  • Jakub Motrenko, Przełom antypozytywistyczny w polskiej socjologii. Studium teoretyczne kręgu myślowego Stefana Nowaka [The anti-positivist turn in Polish sociology. A theoretical study of the intellectual circle of Stefan Nowak], Warszawa 2021: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.
  • Jakub Motrenko, Wirtuozi nauk społecznych. Cnoty epistemiczne u Ossowskiego [The virtuosos of social sciences. Epistemic virtues in Ossowski’s work], in: Antoni Sułek (ed.), Spotkania z Ossowskim [Encounters with Ossowski], Warszawa 2020: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, p. 39-65.

Tomasz Zarycki

  • Tomasz Zarycki, Toward a Relational Pragmatics as a Bridge Between Sociology and Linguistics, in: Elżbieta Hałas (ed.), Methodology of Relational Sociology: Approaches and Analyses, Cham 2023: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 247-274.
  • Tomasz Zarycki, Maria Renata Mayenowa and the Forgotten Legacy of Polish Theory of Literature and Poetics, “Slavonic & East European Review” 2023, 3(101), p. 401-429.
  • Tomasz Zarycki, The Polish Elite and Language Sciences. A Perspective of Global Historical Sociology, Cham 2022: Palgrave Macmillan.

DISCUSSION: Hubert Knoblauch, The Re(con)figuration of Knowledge; Magdalena Nowicka-Franczak, Languages of the Peripheries; Agnieszka Kolasa-Nowak, Polish Social Sciences in Global Academia; Tomasz Zarycki, On the Different Criteria of Global and Local Success for Scholars in Peripheral Social Sciences. A Reply, “Stan Rzeczy” 2022, 2(23), p. 343-369.

  • Tomasz Zarycki, Polskie pole władzy w XX wieku jako generator znaczeń. Szkic ujęcia syntetycznego [The Polish field of power in the 20th century as a generator of meanings. An outline of a synthetic framing], in: Tomasz Zarycki (ed.), Polskie nauki społeczne w kontekście relacji władzy i zależności międzynarodowych [Polish social sciences in the context of relations of power and international relations], Warszawa 2022: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, p. 13-44.
  • Tomasz Warczok i Tomasz Zarycki, Polish Political Sciences in a Global Context, in: W. R. Thompson (ed.) Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. http://politics.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-872: Oxford University Press 2018.
  • Tomasz Zarycki, For a Relational Critical Discourse Analysis, “Stan Rzeczy / State of Affairs” 2017, 1(12): p. 303-328.
  • Tomasz Zarycki, Rafał Smoczyński and Tomasz Warczok, The Roots of Polish Culture-Centered Politics: Toward a Non–Purely Cultural Model of Cultural Domination in Central and Eastern Europe, “East European Politics and Societies” 2017, 31, p. 360-381.