Paper Short Abstract:

The Chodzież ceramic industry operated on a factory basis in the years 1855-2020 and itself underwent many changes dependent on the political situation of the country or the state of the global economy. Its decline affected not only the socio-economic situation of the former porcelain factory employees, but also the production and commemoration of narratives about the industrial-ceramic heritage of the city. The aim of the presentation is to show the social and narrative complexities surrounding the collapse of the Chodzież porcelain factory from the perspective of post-industrial anthropology.

Paper Abstract:

In the presentation, I focus on the issue of the postindustrial heritage of the city of Chodzież and its ceramic past. Work in a porcelain factory appears in the context of local identity, both bottom-up (city residents) and institutional (local authorities). For many years, the porcelain factory in Chodzież provided the largest number of jobs, which affects the sense of identity and belonging to a specific social group - factory workers. The deindustrialization of Chodzież and the gradual phasing out of porcelain production since the early 90s have led to the invisibility of the factory workers, but not to their complete disappearance.

The bottom-up movements of the city's residents (often former factory workers), strive to commemorate the city's industrial heritage by organizing events celebrating industrial heritage, or creating private museum rooms with local ceramic collections. The microhistories of former workers regarding their industrial everyday life and work in the factory are extremely important in the context of commemorating and creating memory about the industrial heritage of Chodzież. Through their actions, these people commemorate both the tangible and intangible traces of the industrial revolution. The microhistories of former workers are associated with memory, non-memory, and nostalgia for the times of work in the factory that was closed in 2020. In addition to the memory of individuals, the memory of the city also consists of collective memory, expressed and built on the mnemotopos of Chodzież as a industrial and porcelain city.