Biography

Jan Sowa (born 1976) is sociologist, writer and activist. He studied literature, philosophy and psychology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and University Paris 8 in Saint-Denis. He holds a Ph.D. degree in sociology and is currently assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Communication of Jagiellonian University. He worked as curator in the Center for Contemporary Art “Bunkier Sztuki” in Kraków and as journalist for Polish Public Radio. He is also co-founder of Korporacja Ha!art Publishing House, and a funding member (along with Jakub de Barbaro and Janek Simon) of Goldex Poldex Cooperative – an independent art-and-theory center in Podgórze, Kraków. In his writing and theoretical work Sowa explores the border of cultural studies, social anthropology, media theory, art and politics.

Official Website Domain: www.goldexpoldex.pl, www.ha.art.pl

Project: The coming community, the leaving community

What kind of community do we need for progressive social politics?

We have heard for a long time that the onset of globalization has been weakening state power and making national identity less and less important. This fading-out of state and nation could look like good news for radical progressive politics that has aimed for a long time at destroying the state structures and its power. 

However, what comes instead is no good news for any emancipatory project: on the one hand global corporate powers beyond any democratic control on the other – alienated and privatized neoliberal subjectivity incapable of any collective action. Faced with this unfavorable development, progressive politics does not seem to have any adequate and inspiring idea of community to offer: nation is too reactionary, local community too naive, humanity too abstract, class too far from direct experience. What’s even worse: national identity as well as nationalism and patriotism do not seem to completely leave the scene of our common, social consciousness. So what attitude should we adopt towards this problem? Is there a progressive interpretation of the idea of nation and patriotism? Or should we condemn all forms of nationalism and national identity as a primitive and primordial element to be destroyed by social progress and replaced by a universal solidarity of human race?

www.ha.art.pl