Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the uses the Polish neoliberal government makes of the slogan 'We are building Poland', the meanings attached to it in the context of the redevelopment of the Gdańsk shipyard, and particularly the ways it is understood by former shipyard workers who contest the neoliberal project.

Paper long abstract:

Slogans play a key role in conveying the values that inform neoliberal ideologies, yet the question of how the messages they encode are accommodated to local-level discourses still remains largely unanswered. Drawing upon research conducted in the Polish city of Gdańsk, the birthplace of the movement (Solidarity) that contested the legitimacy of the Socialist regime in the 1980s, the paper examines the uses that the neoliberal governing coalition makes of the slogan 'We are building Poland', and how it is understood by people of different social classes. It illustrates the complex ways in which the concept of 'building' is deployed to convey ideas of urban renewal and to champion the construction of a new society two decades after the demise of Socialism. More importantly, it explores the wide range of meanings attached to the slogan in the context of the redevelopment of the shipyard that was the cradle of the Solidarity movement. In showing how the concept of 'building' is reinterpreted by former shipyard workers for their own requirements, the paper points to a paradox: while the governing coalition deploys it to legitimate its neoliberal agenda, it is by appealing to different meanings of 'building' that former shipyard workers contest the narratives of national history that the government advocates. The paper argues that although slogans attempt to create a sense of participation in (national) history, it is their vagueness that enables those who are excluded from the new narratives of national history to contest the legitimacy of the neoliberal project.