Dominika V Polanska
Biographic Data
| ID | 4895005 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dominika V Polanska |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dominika V |
| FAMILY NAME | Polanska |
| SIGNATURE | POLANSKA D V |
| AFFILIATIONS | Södertörn University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4304-5060 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 25 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Rethinking Conceptualizations of Civil Societies in and beyond Post-Socialist Contexts
Based on an integrative review of research on European post-socialist civil societies over the past three decades, we critically examine: (1) how civil society is conceptualized and from whose position; (2) the methodologies employed in this knowledge production, including any reflections on the usefulness and conditions of such knowledge; and (3) existing knowledge gaps and areas where further development is needed within this body of literature…
Reproduction of care in uncaring times
Social movement scholars have long focused on what makes social movements successful in terms of their structural impact or in attracting resources and support. What has gained less attention is how collective action is sustained over time, along with the generative and redistributive potential of care in sustaining action. This article aims to analyse how collective action is sustained among organized tenants, examining their care work, with par…
The Kitchen‐Work of Collaborative Research
Problems that collective actors struggle with require collaborative and transformative knowledge production to be solved. Despite the long tradition of participatory approaches in social science research, issues concerning collaborative methodologies are often located at the bottom of the knowledge hierarchy. We want to place them at the centre of social movement research, but also direct attention to the processes through which collaborative kno…
Responsibilizing renovation
This article contributes to the emerging body of literature in the field of urban studies that addresses the classical ‘division of labour’ between analyses of the workings of urban power at the macro- and micro-levels. Our theoretical framework aims to capture how processes of power are exercised in processes of urban restructuring. In the field of gentrification studies there have been calls for theoretical developments based on analyses of var…
Legal Geographies of Displacement through Renovation
How the legal is implicated in the production of space and how displacement is both a material and discursive process stands at the fore of this study. The aim is to examine how the law is interpreted in cases of approval of renovation of rental housing and how these interpretations are articulated, presented, and justified in the Swedish context. Questions on what definitions and justifications are used in the interpretative legal practice are l…
Predatory commodification and housing renovation
This study explores the renovation of housing governed by two tenure forms in Sweden, rental and cooperative housing. Based on a relational approach, we argue that despite requiring a similar need of maintenance at regular intervals, renovation in rental housing takes a substantially different form compared to cooperatives, regarding the extent of the work, the involvement of, and the outcome for, the residents. With the concept of predatory hous…
Resisting renovictions
While governing practices, as articulated in policies and other documents intended to shape tenants’ behavior, have been given considerable attention in research, less attention has been given to the self-regulation of tenants in practice or how these governance practices are challenged and resisted from below. The ambition of our work is to study governing practices deployed by housing companies in two Swedish cities to achieve tenants’ complian…
Contentious Politics and the Welfare State
Housing activism
Peter Marcuse famously argued that critical theorists should expose, propose and politicize the issues they study (Marcuse 2008; 2010, 2012). In his work from 2012, he instructed critical theorists
Narratives of a Fractured Trust in the Swedish Model
Research shows there is a current wave of housing renovation in Swedish cities, where private as well as public rental housing companies use “renoviction,” or displacement through renovation, as a profit-driven strategy. This article focuses on emotions and renoviction, in particular the emotions of tenants currently facing forced renovations, in Sweden. We discuss how power is reproduced and questioned, and illustrate methods used by housing com…
Going against institutionalization
The first decade after the fall of state socialism in Poland was characterized by moderate aspirations to reform or oppose the dominant (neoliberal) rhetoric by social movements in the country. In the last decade, a turn toward more informal grassroots activity has been observed by scholars, above all in the field of urban activism. This article looks into this recent development in urban activism and focuses especially on the hitherto neglected …
Bortträngning pågår
Displacement in the making. Renoviction as cultural traumaBased on interviews with tenants in an area facing eviction following forced renovation, this study presents an analysis of the reactions and forms of resistance that arise among residents in the early phase of a renovation process. The concepts of cultural trauma, resistance and action repertoires are used in the analysis to understand the processes that residents in renovation areas have…
Social Movements Seen as Radical Political Actors
This article casts new light on the processes of collective claims and identity formation in social movements, with the help of the radical political framework of Laclau and Mouffe (Hegemony and socialist strategy: towards a radical democratic politics, Verso, London, 2001). Polish tenants, classified as “losers” of transition and marginalized in the mainstream discourse, nevertheless act collectively, mobilizing alliances with other democratic s…
Years After the Communism in Europe
Organizing Social and Spatial Boundaries
The prerequisites for squatting are somewhat different from other social movements. Most squatters tend to live (literally reside) in their movement and risk being overwhelmed and burnt-out by the intensity and emotional involvement of this kind of activism. The fact that squatters’ struggles revolve around a physical place, which in itself is a form of protest, and that the most involved activists are expected to locate their everyday lives to t…
Organizing without organizations
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine motivations of social activists in informal initiatives and to understand why they opt for this more spontaneous and self-organized activism while openly defying the hitherto established way of founding non-governmental organizations. Design/methodology/approach On the basis of a case study of Poland, which had one of the most vibrant civil societies in the socialist region, it is argued that the ch…
Ann Rodenstedt
The transformative power of cooperation between social movements
Squatting, or the use of property without the owners’ permission, and tenants’ activism are under-researched areas, in particular, in the post-socialist context. Poland is pointed out as extraordinary on the map of squatting in post-socialist Europe and a considerable number of tenants’ organizations are active in the country. What is most interesting is that squatters and tenants’ activists are forming alliances, despite obvious differences in t…
Urban policy and the rise of gated housing in post-socialist Poland
The aim of this article is to investigate regulations regarding housing and spatial planning to determine the extent to which these have influenced the development of gated housing in Poland since 1989. The focus is on how government policy with regard to spatial planning and housing, together with the law on property and ownership, influences the emergence and development of gated forms of housing in the country. Legal regulation documents conce…
Between state and market
Skiljelinjen mellan det offentliga och det privata
The aim of this article is to examine the reasons behind the growing popularity ofgated communities in Poland by applying cultural, institutional and economic explanationsin the Polish context. The
Iron Curtains
[Book Review:] Hirt, Sonja, A. Iron curtains: Gates, suburbs and privatization of space in the post-socialist city
The emergence of gated communities in post-communist urban context
Gated Communities and the Construction of Social Class Markers in Postsocialist Societies
The aim of this article is to analyze how social class markers are constructed in the discourse on gated communities in a postsocialist urban context. The case of Poland is used as an example of a post-Communist country where the number of gated communities is increasing rapidly in urban areas. The material of study consists of 50 articles published in the largest national newspaper. This article argues that the discourse on gated communities is …
Decline and revitalization in post-communist urban context
This paper examines how different social, economic, historical and physical conditions coincide in the formation of space and processes of decline in the period of transformation in Poland. The focus lies on a specific residential area in the centre of the Polish city of Gdansk and the question why no improvements have been done in this particular area to stop its successive decline. It is among other things argued that clear urban policy togethe…
Gated Communities and the Construction of Social Class Markers in Postsocialist Societies
The aim of this article is to analyze how social class markers are constructed in the discourse on gated communities in a postsocialist urban context. The case of Poland is used as an example of a post-Communist country where the number of gated communities is increasing rapidly in urban areas. The material of study consists of 50 articles published in the largest national newspaper. This article argues that the discourse on gated communities is …
The transformative power of cooperation between social movements
Squatting, or the use of property without the owners’ permission, and tenants’ activism are under-researched areas, in particular, in the post-socialist context. Poland is pointed out as extraordinary on the map of squatting in post-socialist Europe and a considerable number of tenants’ organizations are active in the country. What is most interesting is that squatters and tenants’ activists are forming alliances, despite obvious differences in t…
Between state and market
Social Movements Seen as Radical Political Actors
This article casts new light on the processes of collective claims and identity formation in social movements, with the help of the radical political framework of Laclau and Mouffe (Hegemony and socialist strategy: towards a radical democratic politics, Verso, London, 2001). Polish tenants, classified as “losers” of transition and marginalized in the mainstream discourse, nevertheless act collectively, mobilizing alliances with other democratic s…
Narratives of a Fractured Trust in the Swedish Model
Research shows there is a current wave of housing renovation in Swedish cities, where private as well as public rental housing companies use “renoviction,” or displacement through renovation, as a profit-driven strategy. This article focuses on emotions and renoviction, in particular the emotions of tenants currently facing forced renovations, in Sweden. We discuss how power is reproduced and questioned, and illustrate methods used by housing com…
The emergence of gated communities in post-communist urban context
Going against institutionalization
The first decade after the fall of state socialism in Poland was characterized by moderate aspirations to reform or oppose the dominant (neoliberal) rhetoric by social movements in the country. In the last decade, a turn toward more informal grassroots activity has been observed by scholars, above all in the field of urban activism. This article looks into this recent development in urban activism and focuses especially on the hitherto neglected …
Legal Geographies of Displacement through Renovation
How the legal is implicated in the production of space and how displacement is both a material and discursive process stands at the fore of this study. The aim is to examine how the law is interpreted in cases of approval of renovation of rental housing and how these interpretations are articulated, presented, and justified in the Swedish context. Questions on what definitions and justifications are used in the interpretative legal practice are l…
Predatory commodification and housing renovation
This study explores the renovation of housing governed by two tenure forms in Sweden, rental and cooperative housing. Based on a relational approach, we argue that despite requiring a similar need of maintenance at regular intervals, renovation in rental housing takes a substantially different form compared to cooperatives, regarding the extent of the work, the involvement of, and the outcome for, the residents. With the concept of predatory hous…
Decline and revitalization in post-communist urban context
This paper examines how different social, economic, historical and physical conditions coincide in the formation of space and processes of decline in the period of transformation in Poland. The focus lies on a specific residential area in the centre of the Polish city of Gdansk and the question why no improvements have been done in this particular area to stop its successive decline. It is among other things argued that clear urban policy togethe…
Responsibilizing renovation
This article contributes to the emerging body of literature in the field of urban studies that addresses the classical ‘division of labour’ between analyses of the workings of urban power at the macro- and micro-levels. Our theoretical framework aims to capture how processes of power are exercised in processes of urban restructuring. In the field of gentrification studies there have been calls for theoretical developments based on analyses of var…
Organizing without organizations
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine motivations of social activists in informal initiatives and to understand why they opt for this more spontaneous and self-organized activism while openly defying the hitherto established way of founding non-governmental organizations. Design/methodology/approach On the basis of a case study of Poland, which had one of the most vibrant civil societies in the socialist region, it is argued that the ch…
Housing activism
Peter Marcuse famously argued that critical theorists should expose, propose and politicize the issues they study (Marcuse 2008; 2010, 2012). In his work from 2012, he instructed critical theorists
Bortträngning pågår
Displacement in the making. Renoviction as cultural traumaBased on interviews with tenants in an area facing eviction following forced renovation, this study presents an analysis of the reactions and forms of resistance that arise among residents in the early phase of a renovation process. The concepts of cultural trauma, resistance and action repertoires are used in the analysis to understand the processes that residents in renovation areas have…
Urban policy and the rise of gated housing in post-socialist Poland
The aim of this article is to investigate regulations regarding housing and spatial planning to determine the extent to which these have influenced the development of gated housing in Poland since 1989. The focus is on how government policy with regard to spatial planning and housing, together with the law on property and ownership, influences the emergence and development of gated forms of housing in the country. Legal regulation documents conce…
Iron Curtains
[Book Review:] Hirt, Sonja, A. Iron curtains: Gates, suburbs and privatization of space in the post-socialist city
Decline and revitalization in post-communist urban context
This paper examines how different social, economic, historical and physical conditions coincide in the formation of space and processes of decline in the period of transformation in Poland. The focus lies on a specific residential area in the centre of the Polish city of Gdansk and the question why no improvements have been done in this particular area to stop its successive decline. It is among other things argued that clear urban policy togethe…
The emergence of gated communities in post-communist urban context
Gated Communities and the Construction of Social Class Markers in Postsocialist Societies
The aim of this article is to analyze how social class markers are constructed in the discourse on gated communities in a postsocialist urban context. The case of Poland is used as an example of a post-Communist country where the number of gated communities is increasing rapidly in urban areas. The material of study consists of 50 articles published in the largest national newspaper. This article argues that the discourse on gated communities is …
Skiljelinjen mellan det offentliga och det privata
The aim of this article is to examine the reasons behind the growing popularity ofgated communities in Poland by applying cultural, institutional and economic explanationsin the Polish context. The
Iron Curtains
[Book Review:] Hirt, Sonja, A. Iron curtains: Gates, suburbs and privatization of space in the post-socialist city
Urban policy and the rise of gated housing in post-socialist Poland
The aim of this article is to investigate regulations regarding housing and spatial planning to determine the extent to which these have influenced the development of gated housing in Poland since 1989. The focus is on how government policy with regard to spatial planning and housing, together with the law on property and ownership, influences the emergence and development of gated forms of housing in the country. Legal regulation documents conce…
Between state and market
Ann Rodenstedt
The transformative power of cooperation between social movements
Squatting, or the use of property without the owners’ permission, and tenants’ activism are under-researched areas, in particular, in the post-socialist context. Poland is pointed out as extraordinary on the map of squatting in post-socialist Europe and a considerable number of tenants’ organizations are active in the country. What is most interesting is that squatters and tenants’ activists are forming alliances, despite obvious differences in t…
Years After the Communism in Europe
Organizing Social and Spatial Boundaries
The prerequisites for squatting are somewhat different from other social movements. Most squatters tend to live (literally reside) in their movement and risk being overwhelmed and burnt-out by the intensity and emotional involvement of this kind of activism. The fact that squatters’ struggles revolve around a physical place, which in itself is a form of protest, and that the most involved activists are expected to locate their everyday lives to t…
Organizing without organizations
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine motivations of social activists in informal initiatives and to understand why they opt for this more spontaneous and self-organized activism while openly defying the hitherto established way of founding non-governmental organizations. Design/methodology/approach On the basis of a case study of Poland, which had one of the most vibrant civil societies in the socialist region, it is argued that the ch…
Social Movements Seen as Radical Political Actors
This article casts new light on the processes of collective claims and identity formation in social movements, with the help of the radical political framework of Laclau and Mouffe (Hegemony and socialist strategy: towards a radical democratic politics, Verso, London, 2001). Polish tenants, classified as “losers” of transition and marginalized in the mainstream discourse, nevertheless act collectively, mobilizing alliances with other democratic s…
Going against institutionalization
The first decade after the fall of state socialism in Poland was characterized by moderate aspirations to reform or oppose the dominant (neoliberal) rhetoric by social movements in the country. In the last decade, a turn toward more informal grassroots activity has been observed by scholars, above all in the field of urban activism. This article looks into this recent development in urban activism and focuses especially on the hitherto neglected …
Bortträngning pågår
Displacement in the making. Renoviction as cultural traumaBased on interviews with tenants in an area facing eviction following forced renovation, this study presents an analysis of the reactions and forms of resistance that arise among residents in the early phase of a renovation process. The concepts of cultural trauma, resistance and action repertoires are used in the analysis to understand the processes that residents in renovation areas have…
Contentious Politics and the Welfare State
Housing activism
Peter Marcuse famously argued that critical theorists should expose, propose and politicize the issues they study (Marcuse 2008; 2010, 2012). In his work from 2012, he instructed critical theorists
Narratives of a Fractured Trust in the Swedish Model
Research shows there is a current wave of housing renovation in Swedish cities, where private as well as public rental housing companies use “renoviction,” or displacement through renovation, as a profit-driven strategy. This article focuses on emotions and renoviction, in particular the emotions of tenants currently facing forced renovations, in Sweden. We discuss how power is reproduced and questioned, and illustrate methods used by housing com…
Resisting renovictions
While governing practices, as articulated in policies and other documents intended to shape tenants’ behavior, have been given considerable attention in research, less attention has been given to the self-regulation of tenants in practice or how these governance practices are challenged and resisted from below. The ambition of our work is to study governing practices deployed by housing companies in two Swedish cities to achieve tenants’ complian…
Predatory commodification and housing renovation
This study explores the renovation of housing governed by two tenure forms in Sweden, rental and cooperative housing. Based on a relational approach, we argue that despite requiring a similar need of maintenance at regular intervals, renovation in rental housing takes a substantially different form compared to cooperatives, regarding the extent of the work, the involvement of, and the outcome for, the residents. With the concept of predatory hous…
Responsibilizing renovation
This article contributes to the emerging body of literature in the field of urban studies that addresses the classical ‘division of labour’ between analyses of the workings of urban power at the macro- and micro-levels. Our theoretical framework aims to capture how processes of power are exercised in processes of urban restructuring. In the field of gentrification studies there have been calls for theoretical developments based on analyses of var…
Legal Geographies of Displacement through Renovation
How the legal is implicated in the production of space and how displacement is both a material and discursive process stands at the fore of this study. The aim is to examine how the law is interpreted in cases of approval of renovation of rental housing and how these interpretations are articulated, presented, and justified in the Swedish context. Questions on what definitions and justifications are used in the interpretative legal practice are l…
Rethinking Conceptualizations of Civil Societies in and beyond Post-Socialist Contexts
Based on an integrative review of research on European post-socialist civil societies over the past three decades, we critically examine: (1) how civil society is conceptualized and from whose position; (2) the methodologies employed in this knowledge production, including any reflections on the usefulness and conditions of such knowledge; and (3) existing knowledge gaps and areas where further development is needed within this body of literature…
Reproduction of care in uncaring times
Social movement scholars have long focused on what makes social movements successful in terms of their structural impact or in attracting resources and support. What has gained less attention is how collective action is sustained over time, along with the generative and redistributive potential of care in sustaining action. This article aims to analyse how collective action is sustained among organized tenants, examining their care work, with par…
The Kitchen‐Work of Collaborative Research
Problems that collective actors struggle with require collaborative and transformative knowledge production to be solved. Despite the long tradition of participatory approaches in social science research, issues concerning collaborative methodologies are often located at the bottom of the knowledge hierarchy. We want to place them at the centre of social movement research, but also direct attention to the processes through which collaborative kno…
Political science (20 works) · Law (17 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Politics (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Urbanization and City Planning (13 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (10 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (10 works) · Economic geography (9 works) · Economics (9 works)