European Studies

The aim of the article is to present the results of content analysis of depiction of middle- eastern protests often called the Arab Spring in Turkish daily newspapers published in English. Using agenda setting and framing theories supplemented by qualitative analysis, 225 articles from published from January to June 2011 in “Hürriyet Daily News” and “Today’s Zaman” were analyzed. The article begins with a short presentation of the Turkish press market, after which there is a description of methodology used in the research. Results of the analysis were divided into two parts devoted to quantitative and qualitative analysis.

The aim of the article is to present complex situation of Kurdish speakers in Turkey, while mentioning diversity of Kurdish language (or languages) and describing practices within the
dominating Turkish language which may be interpreted as means to protect ones cultural  identity. In the beginning an anthropological approach to language is stressed and Bourdieu's struggle for legitimate language taken as theoretical background. General information about: Kurds, lands inhabited by them and their modes of living is given in order to explain
the broad variety of Kurdish dialects. In the end, shown are examples of usage of Turkish language that can be perceived as maintaining distinctiveness of Kurdish cultural identity.

The paper proposes a new approach to the study of Kurds in Turkey, it focuses on the new wave of voluntary migration. The article begins with a general overview of theories on migration to provide scientific context, then, the history of forced Kurdish migration in Turkey is explained including its potential impact on new migration. The third part of the paper is devoted to the flow of voluntary migration in the Turkish Republic, their circumstances and significance. The fourth and final part defines the scheme of voluntary migration in Turkey and some characteristics of Kurdish migration in20th century.

Artykuł analizuje przemiany politycznej reprezentacji Kurdów w Republice Turcji. Zostały one przedstawione chronologicznie od czasów Imperium Osmańskiego po współczesne relacje Państwa Tureckiego z mniejszością kurdyjską. Dzieje aktywizmu kurdyjskiego w Turcji opisane są z perspektywy uznającej zmagania polityczne Kurdów za dążenie do obrony własnej tożsamości kulturowej i odpowiedź na politykę asymilacyjną państwa. Przedstawiono kontekst i przebieg najważniejszych wydarzeń związanych z: funkcjonowaniem księstw kurdyjskich w Imperium Osmańskim, powstaniamikurdyjskimi na początku istnienia Republiki, wyłonieniem się nowej kurdyjskiej klasy politycznej w latach sześćdziesiątych XX wieku, działalnością partyzancką Partii Pracujących Kurdystanu (PKK) oraz procesem pokojowym prowadzonym w XXI wieku. Uwzględniono współczesne oceny wydarzeń historycznych przez Kurdów i Turków, kładąc nacisk na różnice w ocenie traktatów z Sèvres i Lozanny. W końcowej części artykułu poruszono problematykę najnowszych wydarzeń związanych z relacjami pomiędzy rządem tureckim a mniejszością kurdyjską oraz przedstawiono prognozy przyszłości procesu pokojowego

Taking into consideration that emergency state was lifted in southeast of Turkey in-argued that these changes will result in the wave of forced migration in the country. These processes can strengthen the atmosphere of insecurity in Turkey which will-oration of security in Turkey, and that can lead to the rise in forced migration. It starts closes with an attempt to search for some indicators of the beginning of a new wave of forced migration in Turkey.

Protecting the health of mothers and children as a global public good in the example of  the United Nations’ actions.
GOAL:
The goal of this article is to answer the research question: Can the actions of the United Nations towards protection of the health of mothers and children be considered as a global public good?
METHODS:
The article uses mainly the non-reactive methods, such as official documents and statistical data analysis, content analysis and comparative methods. A case study was conducted in order to investigate the role of the United Nations in improving global health of mothers and children.
STRUCTURE:
The first part of the article presents the concept of global public goods and the place of global health among global public goods. The second part analyzes the current activities of the United Nations to improve the health of mothers and children. These activities are also evaluated for their effectiveness and further prospects of implementation.
RESULTS:
The United Nations provide global support in maternal and child health care and these actions are meeting the criteria of the global public goods.
RECOMENDATIONS:
The existing UN activities related to the protection of maternal and child health on a global scale (which so far took place mainly through the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals) proved to be effective. However, increasing scope of the planned UN activities related to sustainable development and growing costs of achieving these objectives, may result in a decrease of effectiveness in their implementation. To assess the situation correctly, it is necessary to wait for the first effects of the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Key words:
mothers and children health care, global public goods, the United Nations

Polish family policy has gone through some serious changes in the recent years. New instruments have been introduced and a large financial stream has been directed to families in order to facilitate work and childcare reconciliation. But does it really allow more activity for the mothers on the labor market? In order to answer this question this article examined the level of defamilialism in the Polish family policy, which allows parents (especially mothers) to stay active on the labor market, as well as the opportunities of staying active on the labor market by mothers in comparison to fathers. As a result it turns out that despite the equality and partnership objectives in the family policy strategic documents, there are no adequate family policy instruments. The main burden of childcare still remains on the shoulders of the mothers, who don't get enough support neither from the fathers nor from the state. To allow more activity of the mothers on the labor market, following things need to be done: strengthening gender equality measures in the labor market, promoting the partnership in childcare within the family, assuring flexibility of family policy instruments and supporting familialism and defamilialism of childcare of children age 1-3.

The common dichotomized classification of Islam in the Caucasus (“traditional” versus “fundamentalist”) does not take into account all major processes taking place in the region. The Sufi-Wahhabi discourse simplifies the social interactions between Muslims and suggests homogeneity of each of these categories. In this paper I would show how the term “Wahhabi” has been employed by the local community of Muslims who live in the Georgian Pankisi gorge  (Chechen Kists) to express their resistance towards new and radical ideas and practices. In this social conflict, Sufi brotherhoods assume the role of the defenders of traditional order, while the reformists attempt at changing not only religious but also social structures.

There has been a dramatic rise in cross-cultural social surveys on religion that aim at gathering comparable data from around the world. In order for quantitative studies to fulfill their role, closer attention must be paid to the measures employed in such research. In the field of religion the issue of generating data faces more challenges than in any other field in sociology. The problem is already acute in research on Christianity (Finke, Bader, Polson 2009), which has dominated the sociology of religion since the inception of the discipline. However, dealing with non-Christian religions raises additional questions. I will discuss measurement challenges in regard to two crucial concepts in the current scholarship on religion: religiosity and plurality. My focus will be on the quantitative research in Islam conducted in the last decade in Azerbaijan --- a secular, Muslim-majority country which has been experiencing religious revival for over a decade. I will address the following questions: (1) To what extent does the concept of religiosity used in these projects encompass the empirical sphere of religious expressions? (2) How is the concept of pluralism defined in studies on Islam? Do researchers pay attention to the issue of religious diversity? (3) In what ways can anthropological projects enhance the study of Islamic religion? In targeting these areas, I will refer to my own data from interviews and participant observation and I will point to weak points in the methodologies employed.

The paper reveals contemporary developments in post-Soviet Islam that challenge the predominant juxtaposition of Islam against secularization and modernization. I argue that the question Gellner has posed: why is Islam so secularization-resistant, is based on inappropriate assumptions. As the anthropological data from field research among Muslims in post-Soviet regions show, there are trends and processes in contemporary Islam that do not fit into "Islam as a secularization-opposed force" thesis. When the problem is approached from a perspective of diversity inside a religious field (Bourdieu) and competing "discursive traditions" then it's possible to identify religious groups that have positive attitudes towards secular institutions and modern solutions. Next, problems with Gellner's vision of contemporary Islam are discussed, particularly concerning the shift in power relations between "folk" and "pure" (or "fundamentalist") Islam. Finally, I argue that overcoming the notion of one homogeneous modernity enables us to understand the modernizing forces in Islam.