Research into the clothing worn by rural inhabitants in various regions of Poland has long been an important branch of national ethnography. Over the years, interviews have been used to collect numerous statements about how people dressed and when. This information was often treated as an objective description of the past. This article aims to propose an alternative method of analysis based on tools developed by folklorists. It should be remembered that stories about the past are a communal good constructed in the present, and are therefore adapted to the context and current needs. When we examine only what clothing looked like in the past, such statements may seem useless or even misleading. However, they are valuable from the perspective of folkloristic narrative analysis, as they testify to how our interlocutors perceived the world and how they categorised the phenomena they encountered. The presented analysis is based on many years of field research in Wilamowice and on the border between Silesia and Lesser Poland.

This study is located in the realm of Slavic emigrantology and memory studies. It addresses the fundamental question whether an émigré is doomeed to blur his/her original identity in a multiethnic/multicultural society, and in particular, whether the Tatra highlander who changed mountain pasture for shop floor is doomed to experience erasure of his/her original culture in the New World. This crucial question, posed mainly by scholars representing socio-historical orientation, has not received a satisfying answer, especially against the understanding of heritage as cultural capital for which ethnographic-folkloristic-anthropological analyses are poorly represented in studies of the culture of American Polonia. Ethnographic material for exploration of this problem is provided by the Tatra highlander ethnic subgroup in USA which has been present in the culture of this country for over a century. Its status has been always “betwixt and between”, and its collective identity – regional, ethnic and civic – encompassed multiple kinds of liminality inscribed in its institutionalized forms of artistic expression, verbal and non-verbal. An outline of the nature and determinants of this complex identity, viewed as both private and public “faces” of ethnicity, would precisely define some general tendencies characteristic of mosaic societies in the contemporary world where crossing territorial and mental boundaries by both immigrants and the host community does not imply total de-anchoring of the cultural experience from its traditional ports.

The article presents the results of research on contemporary transformations of the cultural heritage of Podhale. The analysis focuses on three key issues: processes of creation and self-creation of Podhale as an imagined space, transformations of regional performative forms, and the ongoing commercialization and commodification of tradition. The study examines social practices developing in the 21st century in the Podtatrze region, with particular emphasis on Podhale, understood as a set of activities related to the management of highlander (Górale) heritage in both its symbolic and material dimensions. These practices play a significant role in the process of constructing and negotiating the contemporary image of the region.

This article examines the issue of contemporary conflicts in the context of cultural anthropology and the importance of knowledge about local communities in the operations of the armed forces, as well as building the resilience of civilian structures in the event of a crisis or war. The author draws on the principles of NATO doctrine regarding civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) and resilience and resistance. He also refers to polemology, lessons learned from the war in Ukraine and the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as initiatives undertaken in the EU under the auspices of the CSDP. The case study of a location of particular geostrategic importance from Poland’s perspective is the so-called Moravian Gate, one of four entry points into the North European Plain from the south.

This article examines cultural identity among the inhabitants of the Polish-Ukrainian border region near Leżajsk prior to 1945. The analysis is based on field interviews conducted by staff of the Museum of Folk Culture in Kolbuszowa with individuals born in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s who, as children, experienced life in mixed Polish-Ukrainian villages as well as the events of World War II and the immediate postwar years. Analysis of these accounts indicates that before the war, national differences were often barely noticeable in everyday life, and the main determinants of identity were language and religion. Mixed families and bilingualism were common in the studied area, and residents participated in the feast days and religious practices of both communities. It was only the experiences of German occupation, violence, and postwar displacement that led to a clear polarization of identity and the emergence of strategies to conceal Ukrainian roots. The informants’ testimonies allows us to grasp the fluidity of national and religious categories and the complexity of social relations in the borderland, and consequently challenges simplified, binary interpretations of Polish-Ukrainian relations in the Nadsanie region.

The issue of women’s surnames after marriage is virtually absent from Polish academic research. This article attempts to analyse the phenomenon of women changing (or not changing) their surnames after marriage from an interdisciplinary perspective. Drawing on their own sociological research, the authors interpret the moment of surname change as an example of a rite of passage in accordance with Arnold van Gennep’s theory, understood as a symbolic crossing of a boundary (threshold). In the article, they reflect on a woman’s surname after marriage in the context of the power of tradition, transformations in social identity, and women’s perception of the boundaries of individuality.