18. 6. 2009
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek & Jan Paleček: Příběh vizionářky a pravda zjevení: Posezení nad dokumentarním filmem [A visionary's life story and the truth of an apparition: Discussing a documentary film] (Praha)
Lecture within the series of CTS Thursday seminars (10-12am, seminar room, 3rd floor)
7. 8. 2005
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek: Exploring ordinary resources of an extraordinary power: Toward „ethnomethodological“ study of the communist regime
Understanding the communist past of Central and Eastern European countries is a persisting task even today, 15 years after the fall of the iron curtain. Dominant political discourses, media images and legal documents push through the following idea of communism: it was something, which originated in a few extra-ordinary, single and far-reaching events (such as violent turnovers, revolutions, military interventions, and colossal intellectual failures); which was based and dependent on a totally controlled and clearly located, centralized power (e.g., the power of a Central Committee of the Communist Party); and which is essentially incommensurable with other political/social regimes (i.e., with democracies in the West and with the new democratic regimes in the region). This tendency is particularly strong if the issue of communism is addressed explicitly and on a general level. At many other occasions, however, when we focus upon situated and practically oriented actions of different social actors, both in the present and in the past, the picture looks different and more complicated. A space for ethnomethodologically inspired study of the communist regime opens up and ordinary resources of the extraordinary power become visible. To show the charm and relevance of such an approach, very much neglected in this field of research, I will use an example of a study undertaken together with my colleague Zuzana Kusá from Bratislava: we have chosen the example of political screenings in former Czechoslovakia to demonstrate the local production of power relations that constituted the reality of the political regime. The analysis of detailed narrative accounts of events that happened in early 1970s suggests that an inverted, non-totalitarian theoretical interpretation of communism is feasible, which better corresponds to the lived, practical experience of involved actors: the power of communists was made real and durable not so much by means of total control, unconditional subsumption and clear-cut categorizations, but rather by means of flexible and subtle identity-work and of partial connections.
8. 12. 2003 :::: Zdeněk Konopásek: Jak se SUK stala reálnou? O vědě a politice ve sporech o dálniční obchvat Plzně [How the SUK variant became real? On science and politics in the controversy over the highway bypass of Plzen]
Presentation at seminar series of the Institute for interdisciplinary studies, Western-Bohemian University in Plzen (Husova 11)
26. 11. 2003 :::: Zdeněk Konopásek: Ekonomie participace: angažovanost veřejnosti ve sporech o spalovnu Malešice [Economy of participation: Public mobilization in the controversy over the household waste incinerator in Malešice]
Presentation at philosophical seminar at the Philosophical faculty, Charles University in Prague (Palackeho nam 2)
1. 6. 2003
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek, Tereza Stöckelová & Lenka Zamykalová: Expertíza ve sporu o dálniční obchvat Plzně [The role of expertise in the controversy over the highway bypass of Plzen]
Presentation at the 6th conference of Biograf, May 29-June 1 2003, Borek near Suchomasty
2. 7. 2002
:::: Simon Joss & Zdeněk Konopásek: Simon Joss & Zdeněk Konopásek: The function of accountability for governance concepts: The PubAcc project
Presentation at the European Commission seminar "Governance and citizenship in science and technology: Overlapping and cross-cutting issues in theoretical perspective and empirical research", July 2 2002, Brussel, Belgium
11. 5. 2002
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek: The logic of ethno-methods meets political theory: The concept of accountability
Presentation at the international conference "Philosophy and social sciences", May 10-14 2002, Vila Lanna, Praha
The notion of accountability represents an important concept of contemporary theory of democracy. As such, it has the following normative meaning: the public should be kept informed on "public issues" as completely as possible. Manipulations and hidden interests should be eliminated. Decision-making should be transparent. Those who represent should be under control of those who are represented. Only then politics become responsible and truly democratic. But there exists another usage of the term within the social sciences. Accountability is one of the key concepts in ethnomethodology, a micro-sociological interactionist sociological tradition. In my contribution I will discuss how the ethnomethodological understanding of the concept might help us to grasp some of the ambivalences involved in the "politics of accountability" in the public sphere. A revised theoretical framework of public accountability will be suggested.
23. 2. 2002
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek & Tereza Vajdová: A national profile of public accountability: The Czech republic
Presentation at the working meeting of the international research project "Analysing public accountability in contemporary European contexts", February 22-24 2002, Riga, Latvia
10. 6. 2001
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek: Co je "public accountability"? [What is public accountability?]
Presentation at the 19th bi-annual workshop of CTS in Kravsko near Znojmo
12. 2. 2001
:::: Public discussion on "Political films - 1.: Czech society from the dramatic perspective of political events
Archa Theatre, Praha - panel discussion related to the documentary film of Jan Růžička and Jan Gogola
7. 12. 2000
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek: Jak byl komunismus možný? O malých a obyčejných zdrojích velké a neobyčejné moci [How was communism possible? About small and ordinary sources of a strong and extraordinary power]
Lecture within the series of Thursday CTS seminars (10pm, seminar room, Husova 4, Praha 1)
15. 4. 1999
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek: Co má společného studium komunismu se sociologií vědy? [What the study of communism has in common with sociology of science?]
Presentation at the first Slovak-Czech sociological conference, April 15-16 1999, Bratislava, Slovakia
18. 2. 1999
:::: Zdeněk Konopásek: Making state socialism durable: Some preliminaries from a biographical research project
Presentation at the international conference "The division of Europe in biographical perspectives", February 17-21 1999, Technical University Berlin, Germany
