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Introduction

Introduction

[…] the limits set by civilization can dictate the conditions without which it could not exist. But it is enough for it to dictate them rather often. If the situation appears clear, it is as if the limits were there to be transgressed. (Bataille, 1991: 220)

Introduction*

Introduction

Since the 1990s, national legislation and international conventions have proliferated in the name of ‘anti-corruption’. Citizens and businesses are now part of and often the key drivers in corruption control efforts orchestrated by international organizations, non-governmental organizations and other organizational arrangements. Management consultancies, audit and accounting firms, law firms, investment banks and service providers of corruption control knowledge and technologies make up the commercial side of this transnational regime.

Thus every Part was full of Vice,

Yet the whole Mass a Paradice.

Bernard Mandeville, The fable of the bees

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction*

How are urban low-budget practices represented in Polish popular media – in a context where conditions of scarcity are living memories in times of relative, if unevenly distributed affluence? And most of all, what can an analysis of these representations tell us about the production of meanings with regard to contemporary urban consumption practices in Poland?