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ISSN 2084–1418
The paper edition of the Anthropology of History Yearbook is the definitive version

2014, No. 2 (7), History and Gender

Keely Stauter-Halsted
Policing the borders of belonging: gender, sexuality and the Polish nation

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Keywords: gender, sexuality, nationalism, prostitution, Matka Polka, migration, bourgeois.

Abstract:
This article looks at the role of lower class urban women in defining Polish national identity at the turn of the twentieth century. Relying on the classic iconography of the Matka Polka, the essay considers how women at the margins of Polish society such as criminals, vagrants, sexual “deviants” and the poor helped reinforce patterns of prescribed behavior among national activists as the country drew closer to political independence. The piece focuses especially on the professional prostitute as a classic boundary violator, drawing from the author’s forthcoming book, The Devil’s Chain: Prostitution and Social Control in Partitioned Poland.

About Author:
STAUTER-HALSTED KELLY – historian, Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

References
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