Marta Gospodarczyk

Am Planetarium 7 | 07743 Jena
Phone: +49 (0) 3641 9 44082
m.gospodarczyk@is.uw.edu.pl

Marta Gospodarczyk is a doctoral student at the Doctoral School of Social Sciences and Faculty of Sociology at the University of Warsaw. She has obtained a Master’s degree in sociology from the College of Inter-Area Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Warsaw in 2021. Marta was a visiting researcher at the Centre of European Research at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) and at the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Studies at the University of Newcastle (Australia). Her main areas of interest lie at the nexus of sociology of agriculture and gender studies, and her doctoral dissertation is concerned with the impact of drought on Polish farming households in the context of historical formation of contemporary Polish agriculture. She is currently a research assistant in an ERC research project “Abortion Figurations. Using Human Rights to Change Abortion Law” (PI: Marta Bucholc).

 

Research project at the Kolleg

Legacies of Feudalism, Legacies of Socialism. Historical Formation of Agriculture in Poland and its' Contemporary Consequences

As a vital part of my dissertation, my stay at the Kolleg will be devoted to the development of the chapter on the impact of the historical formation of agriculture in Poland on the contemporary farming household strategies. My field research is conducted in two sites: in Eastern and Western Poland, purposefully chosen to reflect on the different dynamics in the shaping of modern agriculture.
I will discuss the ways in which collectivization efforts in post-war Poland impacted the rural population in the two fieldsites, the impact of post-1989 transformation on farming households, as well as its modern consequences insofar as attitudes towards the European Union, environmental politics, and drought-related coping strategies. The longue durée approach to the study of agriculture allows for an in-depth explanation of the choices and strategies of farming household members in Poland. I aim to nuance the simplistic and prevalent discussions on the characteristics of Polish rural populations, by presenting the logic of farmer’s decision-making, as impacted by the historical formation of the space in which they operate.

Main areas of research

• sociology of agriculture 
• masculinity studies
• people's history of Poland
• agricultural history

Positions and memberships

• Polish Sociological Association (Rural Sociology, Sociology of Work, Sociology of Gender chapters)
• International Sociological Association
• European Sociological Association