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Ola Gracjasz: “Follow your heart”

Ola Gracjasz, a PhD student, currently lives in Brussels, Belgium where she bludgeons her way through various casual jobs. She participates in social and artistic projects and occasionally attends scientific conferences. One such project is a socio-political association called “Yoga Communautaire,” where they offer affordable and inclusive yoga classes in Brussels. She is expanding her work as a photographer, offering photo shoots for artists and bands, and has organized an interactive exhibition in Leuven, Belgium (www.olagracjasz.com). She also devotes time to learning French. After her defense, she is going on a trip to Asia for several months.

How did your journey with science begin? What factors led you to decide to go abroad? What were the biggest challenges related to that decision?

My journey with academia began out of indecision and chance. After graduating from High School No. 1 in Wadowice, I applied to several acting schools, but I didn’t get in. In the meantime, I also applied to several programs at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, which weren’t particularly related to each other, nor did they correspond to the subjects I had chosen for my final exams. I applied to courses in Psychology, Cognitive Science, Journalism, and Interdisciplinary Humanities Studies (which were being offered for the first time at the time). During the summer before starting my studies, I went to London with a friend to work as an au-pair during the summer. After the summer, my friend returned to Kraków, while I, still in London, received the news that I didn’t get into any of the programs I had applied for. I had the choice to return and attend part-time studies or stay in London, think about what I wanted to study, and retake the final exams for a required subject. So, I decided to stay in London, focus on learning the language, and save some money, as working conditions there were very good.

Although I often felt lonely and invisible, my stay in London completely changed the course of my life. Very quickly, the idea of applying to English universities emerged, with significant support from a friend from Poland, who was doing a Ph.D. in Social Psychology at Cambridge at the time (he is now a well-known professor at Stanford University). He also encouraged me to choose Social Psychology as my field of study. I applied to several English universities and got into two, one in Liverpool and one in York. I chose York because it seemed like a more artistic environment. After spending a year in London and taking a three-month trip to Asia, I began a three-year degree program in Sociology with Social Psychology in the Department of Sociology at the University of York. During my studies, I quickly gave up on Social Psychology, realizing that the study of society was closer to my interests, although I often considered changing my major. In my third year of studies, I went on an Erasmus exchange program to Maastricht, the Netherlands, where I attended an Arts and Culture course at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences for one semester. My stay in Maastricht was a turning point for me and led to my later decision to continue my studies in the Netherlands. It was also the first time I was able to experience student life, as up until then, I had worked—often juggling several jobs at once—to support myself in England. I had taken out a student loan for my studies, which I still have to repay.

After finishing my bachelor’s degree and taking a year off, during which I mostly traveled and worked odd jobs, I decided to pursue a degree in Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. After three years of studying and traveling, I began to see the limitations of Sociology, and Anthropology seemed more interesting, fuller, less Eurocentric, and allowed for greater creative freedom. Utrecht University also offered several scholarships at the time, and I was awarded one, which influenced my decision to choose Utrecht over other Dutch universities, such as Amsterdam. During my two-year master’s program, I went to Cuba for six months for a field research, where I studied the socio-cultural significance of spirit possessions during Santería religious ceremonies (I talk about this in the podcast “Widok świata z lotu drozda” and wrote an article published in the ZNAK magazine; I am also awaiting the publication of a chapter in the new Handbook of Ecstatic Religions by Bloomsbury Publishing). The topic of alternative states of consciousness remains close to my heart and led me to a brief episode of research on the history of studies on psychedelic substances—I presented on this topic at several conferences in England and the Netherlands.

After completing my master’s degree, I received an offer to join, as a Ph.D. student, a research team that was starting work on a large project funded by the European Research Council (ERC): https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/foodcitizen. The ERC project “Food Citizens?” is a comparative analysis of the emerging phenomenon in Europe of collective food provisioning, involving the creation of networks of people organizing direct production, distribution, and consumption of food. Although this project was not directly related to my master’s work, it was closely tied to my bachelor’s thesis, which I wrote on students’ food choices. I was more interested in the activist dimension of the research and the prospect of returning to Poland, as that is where my fieldwork was to take place. The aspect of teamwork and the possibility of using visual methodologies were also convincing for me. In 2019, I moved to Gdańsk, where I conducted approximately 15 months of field research. I am currently awaiting the defense of my Ph.D. thesis (November 8). My dissertation will be available online as open access.

What benefits does your work in an international academic environment bring compared to working in Poland?
It’s hard for me to compare working in an international environment with working in Poland because I have never actually worked in Poland.

Do you maintain contact with Polish academic circles?
Yes, especially after my stay in Gdańsk, where I met great researchers from various Polish universities. We exchange information and sometimes meet at international academic events.

What are you currently working on, and what is the main subject of your research?
I am currently preparing to defend my doctoral dissertation. I am most interested in activist and feminist movements, self-organization, and post-capitalist actions.

What is your most important scientific achievement or discovery? Why is it significant?
In my doctoral work, I present an argument challenging the continued use of the category of ‘post-socialism’ as the primary and sole lens for analyzing contemporary Poland. I believe that Poland is a dynamically changing country, part of a globalized world, whose society is continuously rebuilding its identity, based on both its pre-communist cultural heritage and a contemporary, critical view of political and socio-cultural reality.

What are the biggest challenges you face in your academic work?
The academic environment is tough and demanding. I often feel “out of place”. I also believe that academic language is inaccessible and unnecessarily complicated. In social sciences, there is too much male ego, which many people are trying to combat.

Are there any practical implications or potential applications of your research? How do you see its impact on society or the economy?
I hope that challenging the Eurocentric view of the world will allow us all to live with greater awareness. I also hope that the part of Polish society that feels inferior to the so-called “Western world” will be able to view itself more fully, and also scrutinize the outdated categories that keep us in their rigid grip, regardless of the passage of time, exchange of inspiration, and the development of critical thinking and the civic actions that follow.

What advice would you give to young scientists at the beginning of their academic careers?
Follow your heart – there is no better motivation for academic work than finding a topic/perspective that is close to you. At the same time, cultivate self-discipline and don’t give in to pressure.

Fot. Unsplash

Aleksandra Gracjasz
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