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Paper short abstract:

Drawing upon research on populism in the Polish city of Gdańsk, the paper discusses the significance of walking tours as practices of populist heritage-making, especially the ways they set out to present historical accounts from the perspective of the 'common people'.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines walking tours as practices of populist heritage-making in contemporary Poland, especially the ways they function as sources of 'alternative' histories that seek to challenge the legitimacy of dominant historical narratives. What unites many scholarly works on these practices is a focus on their institutional dimension, namely, on the attempts of right-wing governments or municipal councils to impose their own vision of history on sites of cultural heritage. Yet little is known about grassroots practices of populist heritage-making that set out to present accounts of historical events from the perspective of the 'common people'. Drawing upon research conducted in the Polish city of Gdańsk, the paper discusses the significance, in populist heritage-making, of walking tours through the grounds of the shipyard that had been the cradle of Solidarity, the social movement that contributed to the downfall of the Socialist state. It shows that even though the tours organizers actively support the right-wing populist party that was in office until recently, they refrain from propagating nationalist narratives, and seek instead to promote a vision of Polish history as something 'made' by the 'common people', which is meant to question the putative 'elitist' versions of local history upheld by the pro-EU municipal council. The paper pursues the argument that anthropologists can play a significant role in challenging populist heritage-making practices by taking as a point of departure the concepts that are at the core of these practices, of which that of the 'common people' is one of the most powerful.