On a Certain Peasant Gesture: From the Galician Slaughter to the Shoah

The point of departure is the following research problem: who ought to analyse peasant heritage? Can narratives written from the position of an academic in the city represent the village? How can we find alternative perspectives, new methods and new descriptive tools? Dauksza focuses on two documentary films that represent Polish peasants, namely Claude Lanzmann's Shoah and Piotr Broiek's Niepamice [Oblivion]. She proposes to think about the gesture as a significant carrier of cultural memory as well as a transmitter of social energy. She also highlights the repeatable functions of gestures. Dauksza calls studies of this type 'gesture studies. Her main example is the gesture of throat-cutting represented in many narratives about peasants (e.g. the Galician Slaughter or the Shoah); this gesture also pervades other social contexts such as contemporary internet forums.