In the previous editorial (EJCPS 9/1) we were talking about fear and uncertainty, primarily linked to the pandemic and its aftermath. We write in the year 2022, and since 24 February the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been unfolding as a new twenty-first-century war in the eastern part of Europe. Just as a reminder: The Yugoslav War lasting about ten years, between 1991 and 2001, had brought back violent military conflict, ethnic cleansing, systemic rape and trauma, for generations to come, in the heart of Europe. This being said, that war took place inside the territory of Yugoslavia and generated in its aftermath this country's break-up and the formation of national states instead; it was not an invasion by an armed enemy force operating from another country. The broader repercussions of the invasion of, and war in, Ukraine–international economic and cultural boycotts aside–include a drastic rise in energy prices and overall risks to the food supply. Food supply across the post-industrial societies is jeopardised; the shadow of this regional war is on us, day and night. We all struggle to keep pace with the rapid transformation of the geo-political order, the (re)emergence of militarisation and, to just name it briefly, one of the faces of toxic masculinity.

Apparently, the long list of events associated with Putin in the last few years, e.g. interferences in other nation-states’ political affairs, such as influencing the Brexit debate; the US election and the annexation of the Crimea in 2014, did not result in any serious engagement with the fragility and temporality of the current world order of power. Neither did we foresee the return of what historians have labelled ‘megalomania’. Core dimensions of the post-Second World War (Western) European order, such as an extensive human rights system and supranational integration of nation-states as a means of avoiding conflict, are currently shaken. Equally, the liberal institutions of the global order, including the UN and the International Criminal Court, appear unfit to address the challenge of global powers with imperialist tendencies and aggressive, anti-liberal political projects.

And in contrast to previous waves of immigration–people fleeing war and devastation in Africa or in the Middle East, or Syrians in 2015–coming to Europe, the Ukrainian refugees, mostly women and children, are seeking help and shelter in neighbouring EU countries. Thus, we must keep an eye on a highly gendered, not only racialised, dimension of this wave of Ukrainian citizens seeking refuge and help. And this and other aspects of what is happening right now will need new ways of thinking and approaching the urgency of international (cosmopolitan?) solidarity. Our journal welcomes any sociologically inspired reflections on the current predicament.

This issue of the European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology comprises papers written long before, and accepted before, February 2022. The themes span a range of timeless sociological inquiry, such as ‘expert knowledge and authority’, ‘housing crisis as public issue’, ‘the aesthetics of architecture and public libraries’ and ‘employment and the (Dutch) welfare state’ not touching on the dramatic and immediate developments.

As is our common practice, below we briefly summarise the content of the different papers, and end with a brief overview of what the book review section does offer to our readers.

In Only A Trade-off between the Employment of Older and Younger Workers? An historical approach to the political framing and reframing of labour market crowding out in the Dutch welfare state Mara Yerkes, Hanna Lenitz and Marloes de Graaf-Zijl discuss the challenges that aging societies face with regard to rising costs of healthcare and declining social contributions which may potentially lead to intergenerational conflict and perceptions of the ‘crowding out’ of younger workers on the labour market (for instance, due to the setting of a higher retirement age). The authors set out to analyse this conflict in terms of political beliefs held in society and by political actors, taking as a case study, the Netherlands. The article focuses, in particular, on an analysis of party manifestoes over an extensive time period, from 1997 to 2017, and drawing on discursive institutionalism and frame analysis. The authors find that the belief in crowding out – in itself an unsubstantiated idea – is rather a constant in political debates since the late 1970s, even if distinctive framings of core concerns change.

Dennis Mathysen and Ignace Glorieux offer an original analysis of obstacles to the social pedagogy of citizens in Architecture, aesthetics, class and library attendance: An overlooked threshold for visiting public libraries. Recent times have witnessed a drop in library attendance in particular of less-educated and lower-income groups. Hence, public libraries seem not to live up to their emancipatory public task. The analysis looks into the underrepresentation of such groups in libraries by means of a class-cultural perspective, counterposing lower classes to institutions (libraries) dominated by the middle classes. The focus, rather than on income or language, is on architectural style as an overlooked threshold for attendance and engagement. Mathysen and Glorieux find that architectural style and interior design play a prominent role in the perceived invitingness of public libraries. Differences in appreciation of distinctive architectural styles and aesthetics may play a role in the lower attendance of lower educated visitors, they suggest. Public participation is hence also about aesthetics and perceived openness and accessibility of public institutions.

Anders Blok in Jurisdictional engagements: Rethinking change in professional authority via pragmatic sociology discusses the theoretical richness of Laurent Thévenot’s pragmatic sociology in helping to clarify what is called ‘professional authority’. Expert knowledge is mediated and channelled by global media, the Covid-19 pandemic was a point in case, and equally impacted by liberal market and public management regimes. Anchored in a Danish sociological context and referring to Abbott’s (1988) work, Blok argues that

as part of its contribution, Thévenot’s distinction of engagement regimes allows one to enrich Abbott’s depiction of the key professional arenas, in grasping the role of public justification work and embodied workplace practices, alongside organised profession-state relations, as all central to a situated view of change in professional authority.

Focusing on the negotiation competence – re-justifying, re-specifying and re-adjusting their expert knowledge – the fields of investigation are inter-professional, organisational and political coordination around challenges of urban climate adaptation, lifestyle disease prevention and innovation management.

Different countries in Europe, not least Ireland, have a massive housing crisis, and at the very moment, we write this, there are also increasing concerns as to how the welcoming culture towards Ukrainian refugees translates into the actual provision of housing and shelter, on the ground.

The final paper by Morgan Hamlin, From housing crisis initiative to public issue: Justifications analysis of land-use proposals in the public sphere, links marvellously to Blok’s contribution where justification patterns and expert knowledge were problematised. Hamlin’s paper refers to research conducted in New Zealand, more precisely Auckland. The paper addresses the political contestation about the use of public land, analysing the way, citizens form arguments and rely on ethical justifications. As Hamlin argues

The public responses challenged a powerful housing crisis justification in the mainstream media while making the proposal visible as a collective issue in the public sphere. By critiquing the civic-market justification for the proposal, the opponents highlighted how the proposal would not address the collective issues of affordability and homelessness.

Fiona Murphy reviews Siobhan Kattago’s book Encountering the past within the present: Modern experiences of time, published in 2020. Rooted in Trauma and Memory studies, the book focuses on core questions relevant to perceptions of good life and solidarity across generations. According to Murphy

This rich cartography of thinking on temporality, memory and trauma frames the book and equips the reader to walk through Kattago’s analysis of commemoration, nostalgia, silence and ghosts through the lens of the world altering events of World War II, the Holocaust and the fall of communism in Europe.

With the February invasion of the Ukraine 2022, we might add here another ‘altering event’ addressing trauma as well as the notions of atrocities whose impact we cannot fully grasp.

Leaving the European lens behind, the next book review creates challenges in different ways of writing and thinking. The original work is published in Arabic, and Fouad Mami introduces to non-Arabic reading sociologists and audience the book Al-Fadih wa Tamthiluhu: Mudawalet fi shakli souriyah al-mukharab wa tashakuliha al-assir. (The Atrocious and Its Representation: Deliberations on Syria’s Destroyed Form and Its Laborious Formation), by Yassin Haj-Saleh, published in 2021. Haj-Salah talks about the atrocities of the Syrian regime, after all the violent civil war lasting seven years, leading to mass murder and expulsion of millions of people fleeing war and devastation. What stands out in his work is the argument of

putting their experience of the atrocious in art. Haj-Saleh notes that the poison can be traced primarily in language. Over the centuries, Arabic usage has been emptied from its capacity for rendering experience translucent. Expressive failures (not occasional failures of expression) spill over all facets of life, ending in the industrial production of the Atrocious (Mami).

The final book review takes up another challenge to cross the boundary between creative arts (literature) and political- cultural symbolism. Adriana Muñoz Sánchez reviews Álvaro Santana-Acuña’s Ascent to Glory, How One Hundred Years of Solitude was written and became a global classic. Santana-Acuña traces the global success story of Latin American ‘Magical Realism’, embodied in Garcia Marquez’ novel. According to Muñoz Sánchez,

Álvaro Santana-Acuña explores the artistic influences instrumental in the conception of One Hundred Years of Solitude: García Márquez's trajectory as a journalist afforded him far greater access to world literature as well as invaluable close contact with influential authors from France, México, Colombia, Peru and Cuba, from whom he received valuable advice and support. But more than this, Santana-Acuña explores the ways in which these collaborations combining the ‘imaginations’ of several authors (which he describes as Networked Creativity) formed the core and conception of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

This book sheds an interesting light on collaborative elements in intellectual work, rather hidden in the individualised cultures of single celebrity writers.

Author notes

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Пауль Целан "Фуга смерті". Читає Вадим Василенко (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okIcslNQgoA)

Poem by Paul Celan, born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine

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