"No Sex Pleas, We are Catholic". Reproduction and Partnership in the Area of Conflict Between (De-)Secularisation and (De-)Privatisation of Religion in Ireland and Poland
Final Report Abstract
The project analysed the discursive interrelationships between national and religious identity, (bio)politics, demography and reproductive rights in Ireland and Poland. In addition to similarities already known commonly before the project, it made clear differences visible, particularly with regard to the political instrumentalisation of religion: In the Irish case, for example, one can speak of an emancipation of political elites from the Catholic Church. This was due to liberalisation tendencies that emerged in this urbanising society from the 1960s on, something that can also be traced back to transnational trends. In Communist Poland, there was a rapprochement between the communist elites and the Church starting in the 1970s, when elements within the Communist Party came to regard attempts to force secularisation on society as futile. Instead, Party leadership attempted to use the Church to stabilise their rule in spite of its lacking legitimacy. An unintended consequence of this was that the Church’s authority among the population continued to grow, reaching its peak after the election of John Paul II. The year 1989 marked a turning point in this regard: While Catholic nationalist politicians sought to use the authority of the Church (even against its will) to implement their vision of a ‘new Catholic Poland’, parts of the dissident movement that had previously cooperated with the Church distanced themselves for fear of a religious takeover of the post-communist state. One of the striking points in the dispute over the future of ‘state’ and ‘nation’ in both countries was related to questions of sexual morality. This was linked to political discourses in which family concepts, contraceptives and abortions functioned as signifiers of belonging to the Catholic-defined nation (particularly on the political right). Besides that the discourses were dominated by anti-colonial othering (against former foreign powers) and dissident views were called ‘Un-Irish’ or ‘Un-Polish’, thus externalisied. This was closely related to each nation’s history and longstanding fears of being a ‘vanishing nation’: In Ireland, emigration owing to poor life prospects began after the Great Famine in the mid-19th century and led to a massive population loss. In Poland, political thought was influenced by the experience of foreign rule in the 19th century and genocide in the 20th century. However, a decisive difference developed in the 1980s: While political discourse in Poland was based on religious/ethno-nationalist concepts from the 19th century, the Irish nation ‘reinvented’ itself by redefining its relations with the UK and the EC/EU as well as by implementing reforms that stimulated the rise of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ and made Ireland a destination for migration for the first time. Sex scandals within the Irish Catholic Church, investigated partly due to the aforementioned emancipation from the Church, led to a massive loss of Church authority in the 1990s and to a further questioning of the (official) ‘Catholic’ character of the Irish people.
Publications
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Die Politisierung und rechtliche Einhegung von Sexualität und Reproduktion in Polen: Moral, Demografie, (weibliche) Selbstbestimmung, in: Nordost-Archiv XXIX (2020), S. 75-96
Michael Zok
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(K)Ein ‚Kompromiss‘? Der Konflikt um die Neuregulierung des Schwangerschaftsabbruchs in Polen in den 1980er/1990er Jahren, in: Ariadne Forum für Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte 77 (2021), S. 164-181. ISBN 978-3-926068-30-9
Michael Zok
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Reproduktionsrechte als Konfliktzonen zwischen »Säkularisierung« und »Tradition« anhand der Beispiele Irland und Polen. Feministische Studien, 39(1), 55-74.
Zok, Michael
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“To Maintain the Biological Substance of the Polish Nation” : Reproductive Rights as an Area of Conflict in Poland. Hungarian Historical Review, 10(2), 357-381.
Zok, Michael
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Gendered Social Policies in (Post-)Communist Countries: The Case of Poland. Ревија за социјална политика/Journal of Social Policy(18), 37-53.
Zok, Michael
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„The Family Is the Basic Cell of Society”: Family, Reproduction, and Demography in the Political Thought of Communists and Catholics in Post-War Poland, in: Jure Ramšak, Gašper Mithans, Mateja Režek (Hrsg.): Christian Modernity and Marxist Secularism in East Central Europe: Between Conflict and Cooperation. Zagreb: srednja europa, 2022, S. 233–55. ISBN 978-953-8281-77-8
Michael Zok
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#13: Individuelle Familienplanung und das Recht auf Abtreibung in Polen und Deutschland, Wissen entgrenzen - Der Podcast der Max Weber Stiftung
Michael Zok,Claudia Roesch & Janine Funke
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Interdependenzen zwischen Sozialpolitik und Demografie im (post-)kommunistischen Polen. Ökonomische Verflechtungen, geschlechterspezifische Entwicklungen, traditionelle Lösungen. Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2024, 249-262. Metropol Verlag.
Zok, Michael
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Introduction: Liminality and the Circle of Life in Modern Societies. The Circle of Life, 7-18. Rombach Wissenschaft – ein Verlag in der Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.
Greiner, Florian & Zok, Michael
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Neglecting Liminality? The Question of the Beginning of Life in Polish Post-war Discourses. The Circle of Life, 99-122. Rombach Wissenschaft – ein Verlag in der Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.
Zok, Michael
