This article analyses the pre-mortem alternate-generation inheritance of fur clothing in Kraków: a practice that speaks to the conventions of grandmother-granddaughter relationships and also to the connection between inheritance and social class. The perception of fur as a symbolically loaded material enhances its suitability for being 'kept in the family'. Clothing inheritance fosters bourgeois belonging over multiple generations, encouraging the patronage of selected spaces and services (including furriers). In the shorter term, however, generational differences within amicable grandmother-granddaughter pairs are amplified in part through the way pre-mortem inheritance practices highlight granddaughters' non-reciprocable debt to their grandmothers. A focus on fur as a particular kind of object highlights the significance of certain inheritance practices and their links to the affective ties in the reproduction of class in Poland. The article also contributes to a broader understanding of the reproduction of class by analysing the interconnections between taste, the body, and memory.In the Polish city of Kraków, 1 the sight of second-hand goods triggers speculation about the lot of the family to whom they have previously belonged. Assemblages of goods at komis (selling second-hand things 'on commission') and flea markets can imply ill fortune; they often quite clearly come from different homes, from individuals and families who perhaps knew each other, but probably not. Such items are not undesirable: not only do local people buy them but friends joked while scanning 'old-style' kitchen scales and portraits of anonymous sitters, 'Foreigners are crazy for things from the twentieth century: fascism ... socialism' . According to one owner of a second-hand shop, 'Things with words on sell well with tourists and with some young people, like art students: metal signs written in Polish, or Russian sometimes, are popular' .Newer second-hand goods do not capture the imagination in this way, nor are they as likely to appear for sale. Used yet relatively recently produced homeware and furniture from IKEA, clothes from H&M, and broken yet conceivably salvageable electrical goods are deposited on pavements for others to scoop up: a convenient divestment practice and, fortunately, also a public-spirited one.That fur clothing, the topic of my study, features in the list of 'provocative' old goods for sale was palpable when, shortly before finishing fieldwork, I set down a bs_bs_banner
This article discusses the aspirations of young people in the Polish city of Kraków who wish to 'be their own bosses' -to become entrepreneurs. The article makes a rejoinder to portrayals of 'the fine salesperson' as a man or woman who 'can sell anything'. The forms of personhood and aesthetics favoured in Krakówian renderings of selling instead place emphasis on a good entrepreneur not as one who persuades, but as one who provides. Comprehension of these areas explains why the salient 'moment of sale' is when an aspirant businessperson comes up with their 'good idea' for a product. Drawing from the observation that the indiscriminate flogging of goods is widely disdained in Kraków, I argue that the topic of selling opens up discussions about the local constitution of difference and the ways in which successful entrepreneurs are able to match products to demographics.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.