Καιρός (Kairos)

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ISSN: 2534-8442

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 31

An Essay on Metaphysics: Ch. 4
(Plovdiv University Press, 2024-09-01) Collingwood, Robin George
Anthropological approach towards transformations at the Maritsa coal region in Bulgaria
(Plovdiv University Press, 2025-12-15) Mancheva, Svetoslava
The aim of the text is to outline a picture of life under the conditions of transformations in the Maritsa coal region of Bulgaria. The lifeworld of local people is shaped by prolonged states of crisis caused by various uses of the environment, which lead to social, cultural, and ecological insecurity. Observations reveal dynamics in how such conditions are managed, reflected in the livelihood strategies of families and communities in the region. The study focuses on human stories, practices, and environmental knowledge in the context of the Green Deal.
Aphoristih
(Plovdiv University Press, 2024-09-01) Nanev, Atanas
Beauty enhancement: boundaries and vulnerability
(Plovdiv University Press, 2024-09-01) Kolev, Ivan
The text reveals problematic perspectives related to the quest for the amplification of human beauty. Statistics are briefly presented showing the rise of cosmetic procedures, plastic and aesthetic surgery. The need to recognize and delineate healthy boundaries of appearance enhancement is emphasized. It is highlighted that the awareness of beauty service users about risks and vulnerabilities is not at a satisfactory level. The text includes studies and analyses by experts and researchers in various fields: medicine, ethics, sociology, psychology and philosophy. Vulnerabilities arising from the increased interest in beauty enhancement include risks to physical and mental health, a tendency towards low self-esteem and a lack of sufficient love for one's own body, the danger of becoming addicted to beauty enhancement through various methods and procedures, and susceptibility to external influences, including the socio-cultural environment and the digital world. The main contribution of the text is that it provides an accurate overview of the vulnerabilities associated with beauty enhancement, warns of the need to set healthy boundaries to beautification, and suggests directions for future research on the chosen issue.
Between inertia, stagnation, and transition. A multidisciplinary analysis of key social and environmental challenges and structural barriers in the “Maritsa East” complex
(Plovdiv University Press, 2026-08-02) Kolev, Ivan
This paper presents a multidisciplinary analysis of energy transformation, focusing on the structural dependence on coal in the Maritsa Iztok complex. Moving beyond narrow technical paradigms, the framework integrates key concepts from the social sciences and Science and Technology Studies, including “carbon lock-in” (Unruh, 2000), the “risk society” and “organized irresponsibility” (Beck, 1995, 2013), power dynamics in sustainability transitions (Avelino, 2017), the temporality of energy transitions (Sovacool, 2016), the energy justice framework (Jenkins et al., 2016), and the concept of technical democracy (Callon et al., 2009). Drawing on this theoretical synthesis, the paper argues that energy systems are deeply embedded within complex socio-political structures. Carbon lock-in is conceptualized as a co-evolutionary process that reinforces fossil fuel dependence, while institutional frameworks contribute to the diffusion of responsibility for environmental risks. Ultimately, the analysis emphasizes that the energy transition represents a structural conflict between institutional inertia, entrenched networks of influence, and increasingly urgent societal demands for environmental justice and accountability.
Climagogy and the “Dorothy” case: the aesthetics of the Emerald City and resistant climatic realism
(Plovdiv University Press, 2026-08-02) Stavru, Stoyan
The article explores the possibility of substantiating the concept of “climagogy” as a form of guidance and orientation for existing environmental policies within the context of a dynamically evolving relationship to the future of planet Earth. It analyzes specific ecological strategies implemented in the transformation of Sir Bani Yas Island near Abu Dhabi (architectural eschatology) and in the creation of the Dubai Miracle Garden (aesthetic ecology). The study demonstrates why, in the United Arab Emirates, architecture is conceived as part of an emotional economy of admiration, in which each attracted visitor and each photograph shared on social media functions as an act of legitimizing political authority. The central part of the research is devoted to the “literary” example of Dorothy from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, whose adventures can be the subject of a "climatic reading". The “Dorothy case” initiated by a sudden cyclone, provides an opportunity to examine the implications of adopting a stance of resistant climatic realism, in which the desire to return home is not an aesthetic gesture of reverence but an act of authentic care. Dorothy’s wish to return to Kansas, despite the magnificent and by definition green, Emerald City, is interpreted not as nostalgia but as an expression of attachment to a specific climatic environment. The main thesis of the article is that such attachment should be placed at the heart of climate policies.
Climate disinformation. Narratives, agents, scale, and challenges to information integrity
(Plovdiv University Press, 2026-08-02) Panchev, Hristo
Climate disinformation is not a new phenomenon, but with the rise of digital platforms, its scale is now seriously undermining efforts to address the climate crisis and implement decarbonisation solutions. Energy modernisation in Bulgaria is lagging behind, and entire regions are losing the opportunity for a just transition, blocked by misleading narratives and widespread information with compromised integrity. This paper examines the key aspects and trends of the growing global problem of climate disinformation. Without claiming to be exhaustive, it outlines the main narratives, inductively synthesized through systematic analysis of public discourse, professional practice, and available literature. The analysis examines the role of corporate, political, and state actors in the spread of climate disinformation and attempts to map the scale of the phenomenon - one that has grown from a communicational and social issue into a matter of national security and an element of the hybrid war waged against the community to which Bulgaria belongs. The paper argues that effective countermeasures require simultaneous efforts at the regulatory, educational, and civic levels.
Consequences of coal mining and burning on the health and longevity of people in Bulgaria
(Plovdiv University Press, 2026-08-02) Nikolaeva, Vesela; Gavrailov, Gavrail
The paper presents an example of citizen science in the creation of a mathematical model showing the consequences for the health and lives of people in the so-called "coal regions". The model uses public data and can be applied universally to any area suspected of being affected by factors that increase disease and mortality, whether it is coal, waste burning, mining pollution or other industrial activities. In this particular case, the focus is on municipalities in coal regions, which are in the process of restructuring their economic model through a "just transition". A theoretical framework is presented that interprets this type of policy from the perspective of national priorities and commitments of Bulgaria's EU membership. A methodology for collecting, processing and classifying data on the health status of the population is presented. A critical analysis has been made of the defects in the provision of such data by the competent state authorities to civil activists and researchers.
Energy transition through industrial policy
(Plovdiv University Press, 2026-08-02) Sabev, Dimitar
The European Union's energy transition should be understood not merely as an environmental objective set apart from the economy, but as a complex industrial policy. Key motives for the EU's energy transition include promoting economic growth, introducing non-tariff trade barriers (such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism), and enhancing geopolitical competition. While ‘green’ policies act as instruments for technological renewal, they may also intensify inequality between the EU's center and periphery, with poorer and coal-dependent Eastern European countries facing the greatest burden of the energy transition. In managing the energy transition, Bulgaria must implement an active industrial policy for its coal regions, particularly the Maritsa East complex. Rather Καιρός, бр. 8/2026 245 than a disorderly phase-out or unjustified support for the coal sector, the state should promote the development of a new industrial ecosystem in its place. Ultimately, the energy transition demands targeted state intervention to transform declining ‘Malthusian’ sectors into innovative ‘Schumpeterian’ economic activities.
Entanglements and transformations on the axis of dependence and independence in the Maritsa coal region
(Plovdiv University Press, 2026-08-02) Kapusheva, Elitsa
The question of energy independence is central to the public debate surrounding the planned closure of Bulgaria’s coal-powered energy industry. However, (in)dependence manifests itself at different levels in the personal retellings of workers and dwellers from the Maritsa East region. This contribution examines images and narratives of dependence and independence against the backdrop of the initiated shutdown of the coal industry. Furthermore, it explores how the emerging “dependence-independence” axis interacts with the drive for decarbonisation, the dream of a just transition, and the ways in which shifting energopower shapes life in a coal region in transition.
How does the language of social media form a common being?
(Plovdiv University Press, 2025-12-15) Dafcheva, Maria
The question of how the language of social media forms a common being has turned out to be especially interesting in contemporary times. In the present article, I will focus on it. Social media gives us the opportunity for constant and continuous communication in real time, provides us with access to all types of information, and is an inseparable part of people’s lives. This happens through the mediation of language. We use language every day, but we do not think about how it forms and, at the same time, determines our being. Our idea of the world is directly reflected in the meaning that we put into words and the way in which we communicate. Language is conditioned by the rules that we follow, even if we do not always realize it. In this sense, the text is positioned on the boundary between philosophy of language, ontology, and epistemology.
Human resources management systemic deficiencies and propaganda. The miners of “Marbas”, Dimitrovgrad
(Plovdiv University Press, 2026-08-02) Kisikova, Maria
This study examines the management of the human factor in an industrial enterprise during the communist era – the state-owned “Marishki Basin” mines in Dimitrovgrad. The research is based on archival materials from the enterprise, held at the State Archives in Haskovo. The focus is on the process of selecting and recruiting workers, which was supported by the establishment of a number of services providing adequate living conditions and social services to the miners. Difficulties in delivering the promised social benefits and privileges led to constant employee turnover at the enterprise. The analysis examines the problems with personnel management as a consequence of the systemic shortcomings of the planned economy during the communist era. These shortcomings are insurmountable but manageable through the use of propaganda tools. The work of the propaganda organization at Marbas cannot stop worker turnover or ensure the optimal level and scope of social welfare, but it can conceal the problems and present an idealized picture of miners’ lives as reality. The case presented here is an example of the implementation of the communist state’s personnel policy in an industrial context, with the data interpreted within the conceptual framework defined by the specific characteristics of the historical period (communism) and the characteristics of the location (Dimitrovgrad).
Human vulnerability and socio-political contexts
(Plovdiv University Press, 2024-09-01) Simova, Olga
This article examines human vulnerability in relation to the changing socio-political context of the contemporary world, resulting from the undermining of the established international order in recent decades as a result of Russia's large-scale war against Ukraine, military actions in explosive areas such as the Middle East, and the hybrid warfare that dictatorial regimes and terrorist organizations are waging against the free world. The poles of confrontation are outlined, broadly labelled as the global ghetto versus the global city. The second part presents the two largely contradictory discourses - modern and postmodern - within which human vulnerability in the Western world is thematized. Several themes of the discourse critical of modernity are presented, such as 'structural violence'; the specific identity of minority groups and the demand for specific rights; and postcolonialism and anti-colonialism, which require policies that contradict those derived from the modern discourse and promote ghettoization both within individual societies and in the world. The hypothesis proposed in this article is that war, especially open war, clarifies dividing lines and challenges a rethinking of emphases in defining human vulnerability.
In search of energy citizens or how field research took place in "Maritsa-East"
(Plovdiv University Press, 2025-12-15) Gavrailov, Gavrail
The article describes some methodological features in the preparation and conduct of a field study in the Maritsa-East complex area in the winter of 2024. The emphasis is on the opportunities for structuring successful research strategies through the mobilization of social capital in local media networks, environmental and civic activists, and municipal and regional symbols. An analysis is made of the use of a research alibi by introducing semiotic sabotage in the preparation and conduct of interviews. The mass perception of the energy citizen is summarized, and the process of democratization of energy production is analyzed in the context of the green transition in the coal region.
Life and social transformations in the context of the green transition
(Plovdiv University Press, 2025-12-15) Kisikova, Maria
This study is an attempt to examine issues related to the challenges posed by climate change and the current policies that address them. These challenges provoke public unrest related to the social dimensions of transformation (loss of financial income, security, and social status). This text is based on field ethnological research conducted in several localities in the southeastern coal region. The case presented shows a life trajectory marked by a sense of constant change (uncertainty) in the context of ongoing social and industrial transformation. Through it, I will attempt to reveal the possibilities of the ethnological approach in the study of current issues related to the coal transition and the Green deal, the understanding and interpretation of life choices in the context of macro-processes and policies.
Microfascism of suffering
(Plovdiv University Press, 2026-08-02) Panayotov, Stanimir
What does it mean to suffer socially due to ideology? Can we understand the social and ideological suffering associated with contemporary forms of fascism? This text aims to answer these questions in the following ways. First, I introduce and question the current circulation of concepts of “fascism” in order to diagnose whether “fascism” is an operationally and reflectively adequate concept reflecting ideology. Second, I consider the so-called “ideological suffering” (Deyan Deyanov) and “suffering by society” (Svetlana Sabeva) as socioanalytic tools for thinking and investigating potentially fascist forms of ideological suffering. Third, to support the socioanalytic analysis of ideological suffering and the understanding of fascism-as-suffering, I turn retroactively to the concepts of “micropolitics” and “microfascism” (Félix Guattari), arguing that they lead to a substantial explanation of many everyday manifestations of “fascism.” My main thesis is that the ideological suffering of phenomena that we today think of as extremist is, in essence, microfascist practices of social suffering. Fascism as an “extremity”, however, cannot socioanalytically explain this suffering, but rather the socioanalysis of microfascism can do so.
Persistence of everyday categorizations against renewal through induction
(Plovdiv University Press, 2025-12-15) Mineva, Martina
The text explores the issue of the persistence of everyday categorizations of citizens from the "Maritsa East" coal basin region during the period 2024–2025, based on interviews conducted within the project "Future Trapped in a Carbon Past", DUECOS, PU. Based on my conceptual connecting of Harvey Sacks’ concept of “protection against induction” and Lyotard’s interpretation of legitimation within language games as a method (a problematic inspired by late Wittgenstein), the argument is made that in a number of utterances stabilized social categories can be identified, which, as stable categorizations, are linked to legitimating strategies that block the potential for a praxeological inductive refutation, and, consequently, for the renewal of social experience. The study traces how specific linguistic constructions – especially quantifications through “everyone”, “no one”, “always” – operate analogously to Sacks’s anti-modifier modifiers which legitimize praxeological boundaries of categorical, and thereby social, immutability. Based on an analysis of fragments from the interviews, a typology of strategies is proposed: some oriented toward maintaining the persistence of categorical explanations, and others toward inductive practices, related to rethinking, specifying, personalizing, and proposing new life trajectories. In this context, “de-paralyzing possibilities” are conceived as discursive transitions that activate the potential for biographical transformation and the unfolding of alternative regimes of legitimation.
Practicological dimensions of persistence, renewal, legitimation: contradictions of the present (“Maritsa-Iztok”)
(Plovdiv University Press, 2026-08-02) Mineva, Martina
The text proposes a continuation of a practicological reading of transformation processes in the “Maritsa-Iztok” region in early 2026, focusing on an empirical verification of the hypothesis of the “move potential” of language games and practices. The analysis, which takes (Mineva, 2025) as its background, unfolds through a specific synthetic approach inspired by Sacks ("protection against induction"), Lyotard (agonistics of discourse), and Wittgenstein (the concept of language games), but leading to an interpretation that extends beyond their conceptual frameworks and focuses on the field of practical logic. It traces the clash between the legitimized carbon routine – viewed as a series of categorical explanations immune to induction – and emerging inductive practices of renewal. The empirical cases that fall within this theoretical framework are as follows: the conflict surrounding the plans for the construction of an incinerator in Galabovo, analyzed as a clash of legitimation regimes between administrative logic and civic activism; the transformation of community centers (chitalishta) into robotics hubs, viewed as a shift in the rules of the language game and the deparalyzing of the biographical horizon; and the strategic speech and ritual moves in the village of Beli briag, through which the community legitimizes its existence as a category despite the physical erasure of the settlement by the coal mine. The examined cases show how the future of the region can be understood as taking shape through a transition from passive belonging and self-marginalization to becoming an active subject.
Reformation of the image: religious utopia and aesthetics in 17th century art
(Plovdiv University Press, 2026-08-02) Valkanov, Dessislav
The article is a philosophical reflection on European art of the 16th–17th centuries in the context of a broader, recurring pattern in the development of human utopias. Its object of analysis is the failure of the utopia of faith in the last great movement within Christianity: the protestant Reformation. The great surge of enthusiasm for returning to the Word and moral renewal was followed by disappointment, disintegration, and a loss of spiritual force. The efforts to realize the religious ideal exposed hidden metaphysical constraints. Human weakness transformed the promise of infinite divine grace, accessible through a new type of worship, preaching, and action, into a torrent of words, disputes, and conflicts, without the expected transformation of life. This collapse is reflected in art, which gradually withdrew from the divine into the sphere of the material, individual experience, and everyday life, marked by the absence of the great ideas of faith and spirit.
Silence at last
(Plovdiv University Press, 2025-12-15) X.V.

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