CFP: ISSUE 65 (Submission deadline: September 30, 2026)

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE (GÓRALE) – INTERFUSION – SYMBIOSIS

As a journal focused on minority issues, we propose to look at mountain communities from a minority perspective – as groups peripheral to political and cultural centers, negotiating their own identity, language, heritage, social representation, and strategies for mobility and survival. We take into account Góral (mountain) issues not only regionally, but also culturally, socially, and sometimes politically.

Mountain people (Górale), as a borderland community, participate in processes of cultural interfusion and symbiosis in the contemporary world. This thematic issue focuses on the multidimensional image of mountain (highland) communities (not only Polish) operating on cultural, linguistic, and ethnic borderlands. As a space of contact, transfer, and identity negotiation, the mountains have fostered intense processes of interpretation of traditions, languages, artistic forms, and social models. This issue aims to capture these processes from an interdisciplinary perspective, incorporating both historical and contemporary approaches.

We invite you to reflect on the phenomenon of non-obvious mountain culture, understood not as a homogeneous entity but as a dynamic form of borderland culture, in constant dialogue with other traditions from the Carpathian, Alpine, and Sudeten regions, the Balkans (including Vlach communities), the Pyrenees, and the Caucasus, as well as with national and supranational cultures.

Suggested thematic areas:

1. Regional Identity on the Cultural and Ethnic Border and Its Relationships with Other (Non-)Góral Groups (mountain groups)

2. Górale as a National Minority: A Case Study of Slovakia

3. Language Codes and Dialects as a Space of Language Contact

4. Mountain Toponomastics and Onomastics on Selected Examples of Villages, Towns, or Cities

5. Dialect and Culture in Diasporic Communities

6. Migration, Mobility, and Transculturalism in Góral (Mountain) Communities

7. Ethnoliterature and Borderland Narratives

8. Góral Studies at the University Level

9. Leaders, Pioneers of Góral Studies, and the Young Generation of Górale

10. People with Disabilities in Mountainous Areas – Conditions, Adaptations

11. The Image of Górale in Art, Media, and Popular Culture

12. Cultural Symbiosis in Góral and Non-Góral Communities

13. Góral Tangible and Intangible Heritage

Please submit your articles in English or Polish by September 30, 2026, via the Zeszyty Łużyckie online platform.

The guest editor of this issue is Dr Marek Liszka, Head of the Góral Studies Center (Ignatianum University in Cracow). Please direct any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this issue to: marek.liszka@ignatianum.edu.pl.

Past Calls for Papers

CFP: ISSUE 64 (Submission deadline: April 30, 2026)

THE UNEMPLOYED, THE HOMELESS AND OTHER SOCIO-ECONOMIC MINORITIES IN CAPITALIST AND COMMUNIST SOCIETIES

People who are unemployed, homeless, poor, or otherwise experiencing prolonged economic hardship do not conform to widely accepted expectations surrounding work, productivity, property, and lifestyle. Therefore, they pose a challenge to society. Taking a humanistic and social approach to this issue provides a better understanding of how mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion influence community organisation in both market-oriented and egalitarian societies.

This issue explores the portrayal of socio-economic minorities and their experiences of life on the margins, as well as political, cultural and aesthetic responses to poverty, unemployment, labour migration and homelessness. We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions, including case studies focusing on specific historical periods, regions or social contexts.

Suggested thematic areas include:

1. Welfare and exclusionary ideologies in capitalist and communist systems

2. Discourses of poverty and exclusion in public, political and media language

3. Language and communication within marginalised communities

4. Biographical and documentary narratives of life on the economic margins

5. Representations of unemployment, homelessness and poverty in art and popular culture

6. Architecture and topography of deprivation in urban and rural environments

7. Historical and contemporary forms of solidarity and resistance among marginalised groups

8. Everyday economies and survival strategies of people living on the socio-economic and cultural margins

We invite the submission of scholarly articles in English or Polish by 30 April 2026 via the "Zeszyty Łużyckie" platform, following the instructions provided there. The managing editor of the issue is Dr hab. Patrycjusz Pająk, Univ. Prof. Any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this issue should be directed to his email address: p.p.pajak@uw.edu.pl.

CFP: ISSUE 63 (Submission deadline: March 31, 2025)

CULTURAL HERITAGE OF MINORITIES IN CENTRAL AND SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

Heritage has become one of the key categories of contemporary cultural discourse and practices in relation to both scholarly research and local or state policies. Our object of reflection is the heritage of minorities in Central and Southern Europe after 1945. At the same time, we realize that the minority itself can be defined in different ways. Regardless of whether it is a national, ethnic or religious minority, the concern is always the relationship of the given group to the majority group and the question of defining the community. We therefore propose to seek answers to the question: 

1. How minorities themselves view their past and seek to protect and promote its artifacts?

2. What positions do groups dominant in number take with regard to the heritage of those less numerous?

3. To what extent do contemporary accentuated values, such as multiculturalism, localism or participation, affect its reception, evaluation and protection?

4. Can we speak of excluded heritage and the heritage of the excluded;

5. How minorities – and which minorities – use the heritage to position themselves in the social and political field? 

At the same time, we view heritage as materialized objects, not as a metaphor. The elements of heritage will therefore be elements of the landscape, monuments, objects considered historically valuable, memorials or cemeteries, i.e. physical objects occupying a place in space - but also artifacts and museum initiatives. The interest of the contemporary humanities in this topic testifies to the importance of the phenomenon; we can mention here, for example, the analyses published by the International Cultural Centre in the book series edited by Jacek Purchla, the research on the German-Polish frontier by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, or the growing popularity of the reflection on the heritage of Anthropocene. It is therefore worth examining the processes of defining minority heritage and negotiating its meaning in the context of post-Habsburg and Balkan Europe.  

The thematic issue will be published at the end of 2025 on the open journal platform. Please submit a short abstract (up to 200 words excluding bibliography) with a working title no later than  March 31st, 2025  via e-mail: mfalski@uw.edu.pl, angelika.kosieradzka@uw.edu.pl. You will receive a notification of acceptance by April 15th, 2025. The authors of accepted proposals are expected to submit their papers written in English via the open journals platform. 

Guest editors of the issue: Maciej Falski, Angelika Niewiadomska