Participating in “The Fight Continues”: Workshop Reflections from Jurata

At the end of April (28–29 April 2026), researchers from the Sustain Action project participated in the interdisciplinary workshop “The Fight Continues: Emancipatory Past and Present-Day Struggles in Central Europe and the Balkans,” held at the Polish Academy of Sciences’ creative work house (Dom Pracy Twórczej) in Jurata, Poland. The event, which was financed by the Visegrad Fund, brought together scholars from Serbia, Poland, and Czechia working across political theory, history, cultural studies, gender studies, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, pedagogy, and other social sciences and humanities. The shared aim of the workshop was to rethink emancipatory traditions and the less conventional aspects of the socialist legacy in the region, and to assess their relevance for contemporary struggles—particularly in the context of democratic backsliding in post-socialist countries.

"Interstitial subjectivities" panel outdoor organisation.

The workshop was organised around short, discussion-oriented presentations (“micropapers”), a thematic panel, and a collective brainstorming session. The latter was meant to focus on the possibility of developing a theoretical model to articulate the still unrealised potential of progressive movements in Central and Eastern Europe—not only for regional social change but also for inspiring contemporary global struggles. While ambitious, this aim provided a productive framework for dialogue and exchange.

A central thread throughout the two days was the effort to move beyond purely historiographical engagements with socialism and post-socialism. Instead, participants sought to politically reactualise past emancipatory practices in order to better understand present-day forms of resistance and their limitations. Jan Sowa, for example, discussed Solidarity as a form of autonomous workers’ self-organisation between 1956 and 1980 in Polands; Sára Bagdi examined representations of Chinese workers in the Hungarian interwar periodical 100% and their relevance for workers’ culture; and Srđan Đurović focused on Gajo Petrović’s revolutionary thought and the spectre of emancipation on Europe’s semi-periphery. Diverse historical and theoretical dimensions of emancipation were also explored by other contributions, from Walter Benjamin’s concept of internationalism and world-events, through critiques of East European intellectual traditions and Yugoslav institutional struggles, to reflections on the uneven trajectories and “missing” forms of emancipation in the region.

From the Sustain Action research team, Michaela Pixová contributed to the panel “Resistance, Subjectivity, Care and Affect in the Past and Present-Day Struggles” with a presentation titled “Care as an Interstitial Political Grammar: Reintroducing Collectivism and Welfare Imaginaries in Post-Socialist Czechia,” where she largely drew on the upcoming paper co-authored with Luca Sára Bródy  and Elżbieta Korolczuk on mobilizing care in eco-social activism in Hungary, Czechia, and Poland. Her contribution at the workshop explored the role of care, emancipation, and post-socialist legacies in emerging civic collectives dealing with a variety of issues, ranging from tenant mobilisation to new trade unions and feminist collectives, in Czechia. The panel, which was chaired by Magdalena Grabowska, brought together diverse yet interconnected perspectives, ranging from feminist protest movements and contemporary literature to pedagogical practices. It was unified by a shared concern with how subjectivities are shaped under post-socialist capitalism and how resistance emerges within fragmented and precarious conditions.

Consequent discussion centred on the notion of “interstitial subjectivities”—forms of subjectivity that emerge in the gaps and in-between spaces of contemporary social life. As noted by discussant Tiana Matijević (Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade), the contributions did not focus on large-scale, clearly articulated movements. Rather, they examined subtle and often fragile practices such as informal organising, alternative pedagogies, ethics of care, and cultural production. These practices raise a key question: are they forms of resistance, or primarily strategies of survival?

This ambivalence emerged as a central takeaway. Several contributions pointed to an “ideological vacuum” in the post-socialist context, where collective political horizons are less clearly defined and may even trigger negative associations with the socialist past. As a result, contemporary emancipatory practices are often described as fragmented, informal, or weak. Yet the discussion suggested a more nuanced perspective: rather than dismissing these forms, resistance today may be embedded in everyday practices of care, knowledge-sharing, and community-building, where new forms of collectivity and affect take shape.

Another key theme of the discussion was the relationship between past and present. Drawing on Karolina Jesień’s contribution on Walter Benjamin’s approach to internationalism during World War I, Matijević argued that the past should not be treated as a closed chapter, but as a resource that can be reactivated in “times of danger.” From this perspective, the workshop’s title—The Fight Continues—signals not merely a metaphor, but a methodological and political stance: historical emancipatory experiments remain unfinished and potentially operative in the present.

Matijević also connected this insight to her own research on Yugoslav cultural and intellectual history, emphasising the role of affect in what Raymond Williams termed “structures of feeling.” These refer to diffuse, not fully articulated collective sensibilities that shape how social change is experienced before it becomes politically codified. This lens is particularly useful for analysing contemporary civic initiatives, where practices of care and solidarity often precede explicit political articulation.

Given its short duration and the fact that many participants were meeting for the first time, the workshop did not fully realise its ambitious goal of developing a shared theoretical model. Nevertheless, it created a valuable space for intellectual exchange and international networking among researchers working on related themes across the region. Its primary contribution lay in initiating what may develop into an ongoing collective project, including a planned thematic special issue.

Beyond its intellectual outcomes, the workshop’s small and intensive format fostered new connections and laid the groundwork for future collaborations. It highlighted the importance of looking beyond institutionalised politics and attending to more subtle, dispersed, and affective dimensions of social change, while remaining attentive to the historical legacies that continue to shape contemporary struggles.