Women Activists in Central and Eastern Europe Feminist Struggles, Resistance and Activism

Chapter 1: Introduction: Central and East European women activists as heroines and authors of alternative organizing

Anna M. Górska and Monika Kostera

Chapter 2: Ekaterina Duntsova: Jack-in-the-Box or Deus ex Machina of Russia?

Anna Zueva

Chapter 3: The Enthusiasts revisited: Women’s activist collaborative communities in contemporary Poland

Joanna Średnicka

Chapter 4: “I was born in the storm of a revolt!”

Diana Neaga

Chapter 5: Tetiana Isaieva from Kharkiv, “Let us create a Museum about ourselves!”: organization of the first Ukrainian and Eastern European interactive Museum of Women’s and Gender History

Tamara Martsenyuk

Chapter 6: What self-empowerment can achieve - the East Berlin “Women for Peace”

Almut Ilsen and Ruth Leiserowitz

Chapter 7: Coda: Organizing Through Creation: Albanian Women Activists and the Aesthetic Dimensions of Resistance

Vera Ivanaj

Biography

Anna M. Górska, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer at Kozminski University and Director of the Women and Diversity in Organizations Research Center. She is a member of the Young Academy of the Polish Academy of Sciences, member of General Council for Science and Higher Education and an Associate Member of the Centre for Work, Organization and Society at the University of Essex. She studies gender in organizations and higher education institutions.
Monika Kostera is Titular Professor in economics and humanities. She works as Professor in Management at Warsaw University. She is a visiting professor at Södertörn University, Sweden, Rennes Université, France, as well as L'Université Paris Nanterre, and Elected Member of the Sociology Committee of the Polish Academy of Science. She writes and publishes texts on organization theory as well as poetry.

"This book offers a rare perspective on organizing and leadership beyond the dominant canon of management. Giving voice to women as both protagonists and authors of these stories, the book moves away from narratives of individual success, presenting leadership as a process embedded in context, relationships, and constraints, where agency is negotiated, at times uncomfortable, and often collective.

The authors illuminate action where competing logics collide: mission and funding, community and efficiency, strength and vulnerability. Instead of optimization, values, resources, and relationships are continuously negotiated, often without clear structures and under conditions of unstable resources.

Central and Eastern Europe emerges not as a backdrop, but as a source of alternative organizing practices. This is an inspiring read for leaders, but also for those who seek to create change without identifying with traditional models of leadership. Particularly valuable for students of management and strategy, it offers a realistic account of how influence is created where conventional models fall short." Dr Agnieszka Brzozowska, University of Warsaw