Poza granicami. Płeć społeczno-kulturowa w katolickich organizacjach migracyjnych

Co się dzieje w polskich organizacjach Kościoła rzymskokatolickiego poza granicami kraju? Organizacje te muszą działać w społeczeństwach pluralistycznych i wielokulturowych, o znacznym stopniu sekularyzacji, w których o wiele bardziej powszechne niż w Polsce są idee równości płci i emancypacji. Czy otwierają się na nowe egalitarne wzory, czy też konserwatywnie okopują i zamykają?Książka „Ponad granicami...” to próba zrozumienia, w jaki sposób, kto i dlaczego zmienia wzory płciowe w organizacjach Polskich Misji Katolickich w Anglii, Belgii i Szwecji. Autorki analizują praktyki, które służą podtrzymywaniu, gruntowaniu tradycyjnych podziałów płciowych, jak i różne subwersywne akty oporu migrantek i migrantów, które modyfikują segregację płciową, a nawet ją podważają. Pokazują również, że w sytuacji migracji, kiedy różnica płciowa zostaje wyeksponowana i tym bardziej palące staje się jej ponowne zdefiniowanie, rosną w siłę męskie religijne mobilizacje. Książka podsumowuje badania terenowe z lat 2016–2018, w trakcie których Autorki rozmawiały z wieloma świeckimi i konsekrowanymi działaczkami i działaczami PMK w Anglii, Belgii i Szwecji.

The objective of this book is to analyse the (re)production of gender modelsin the Polish Catholic Mission (PCM) organisations in England, Belgium andSweden. We understand these models as the product of the social practices ofpeople involved in Church missions as well as the social rules in place in a complexand transnational community. On the one hand, the models are rootedin the gender rules (re)produced in the Roman Catholic Church (not only inPoland, but also as a whole). On the other hand, they are shaped by the processesof secularisation, migration, multiculturalism and religious pluralismin the countries in which the PCMs we examined operate. The transnationalperspective adopted in the book focuses on complex processes constructingties and networks of interdependence between the cultures of the countriesof origin and settlement. This, in turn, provides an insight into the multidimensionalnature of the context in which the gender models in question areformed.In the book we analyse how gender is (re)produced in several different, albeitclosely related domains of the operation of PCMs. Firstly, in the conceptualsphere of the mission (including its language), established by various topoi andimages of masculinity and femininity. We show how these ideas are modified inthe complex transnational context, and which new concepts of non-normativefemininity as well as various models of masculinity are (re)produced by oursubjects. Secondly, we examine the structures of work, that is the processesof horizontal and vertical segregation determined by gender taking place inthese organisations. We analyse both the practices that serve to underpin andconsolidate traditional gender divisions and the various subversive practicesthat modify, and even undermine, gender segregation. Thirdly, we are alsointerested in how gender is differentiated by new power structures formed inPCMs and constituting relations of domination and subordination, as well asthe resistance strategies employed in the organisations.Our research showed that various types of tensions between feminisationand masculinisation of Church structures, as well as between emancipationand (re)traditionalisation, can be discerned in the PCMs. These result on theone hand in separation from the equality models widespread in England, Belgiumand Sweden, i.e. criticism of the equality of gender and sexual minoritiesas well as ordination of women, which become something of a methodof dichotomisation and particularisation of one’s own community. On theother hand, the subjects also distance themselves from the Church in Poland,criticising the same aspects, including women’s domination of communities and religious alienation of secular men, as well as the lack of democraticmodels in the relations between Polish clergy and the faithful. Furthermore,in a migration situation, i.e. a context in which gender difference is exposedand must consequently be redefined, male mobilisations become significant.We succeeded in showing the solution of this male “gender dilemma” as somethingmore than a simple ambivalence emerging from the contradictions ofmigration and global issues. In the three countries that we studied, the patriarchalmodels of femininity and masculinity are tending to be reframed in quasi-progressive terms, becoming less rigid and adapting to the new conditions,rather than becoming more egalitarian. Yet, however strong the resistanceto change, the real influence of the remittances of religious elements of thegender orders in the various countries to the gender regimes characterisingthe PCMs is unquestioned.The empirical analyses that we present are preceded by a discussion of theconcept of gender as a social institution as well as gender regimes, which arean important category for understanding gender differentiation in religious organisations.We were inspired both by theories rooted in new institutionalismand various intersectional concepts of gender, especially the theory of RaewynConnell. We also discuss the state of research on the relations between gender,religion and migration, placing our analyses within the important categoriesof intersectionality and transnationality. We devote significant space to thecomplex contexts in which Polish Catholic Missions operate as well as thesocio-historical characteristics of their structures in the three countries analysed.We also examine various aspects of the methodology of such research.