Zbynek Mucha

Charles University, Prague, Institute of Asian Studies, Doctoral Researcher

University of Alberta, Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies, Alumnus

University of Trento, Department of Sociology and Social Research, Research fellow

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I am a PhD Candidate in History and Asian Studies at the Institute of Asian Studies, Charles University in Prague, and a research fellow at the Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento. Broadly speaking, I am interested in the historical migration brokerage practices that emerged in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, along with their continuity in present-day migration governance. My dissertation focuses on the role of migration brokers in contemporary labour and student migration from Bangladesh to Czechia and Poland.

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Papers by Zbynek Mucha

Dichotomous rhetoric and purposeful silencing: Contradictions of Czech and Polish post-2015 migration policy vis-a`-vis immigration from South Asia

New Perspectives: Interdisciplinary Journal of Central & East European Politics and International Relations, 2024

Immigration became an especially thorny and publicly discussed issue with the so-called Refugee C... more Immigration became an especially thorny and publicly discussed issue with the so-called Refugee Crisis beginning in 2015. The stance of the Czech and Polish governments was dominated by strong anti-Muslim and anti-immigration rhetoric. Still, both countries have witnessed a steady increase in mainly short-term immigration from various Asian countries such as Bangladesh or Pakistan ever since. This paper analyses Czech and Polish migration policies against the backdrop of a historically constructed notion of anti-illegal immigration policy, and category of temporary migration, coupled with the problematic nature of debt-financed migration in Asia. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Czechia and Poland (2018-2021), in-depth and semi-structured interviews with migration experts, academic and grey literature, official documents, and the method of Accidental ethnography, this paper argues that silencing of actual labor immigration in political communication while employing anti-migration rhetoric represents a discursive gap typical for liberal democracies. It further concludes that rendering migrant labor as a temporary commodity and turning a blind eye on recruitment of international migrants represents a continuity practice of migrant labor sub-ordination within the nation-state, originating during colonialism and the advent of capitalism in the nineteenth century.

Conference Presentations by Zbynek Mucha

Atiśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna’s (982 - 1054 A.D.) Royal Origin in the Chandra Dynasty of Vaṇgalā

5th International Congress of Bengal Studies at Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh, January 2018, 2018

The paper thus aims to fill in this gap of our knowledge and focuses on Atiśa’s place of birth an... more The paper thus aims to fill in this gap of our knowledge and focuses on Atiśa’s place of birth and his family affiliation. It challenges the unanswered question of Atiśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna’s actual origin. It has been said in various Tibetan sources that Atiśa was born in a royal family of Eastern India in the land of Vaṇgala (Tib. Bhaṃ ga la), in the domain of the Chandra dynasty with its capital in Vikramapura (Tib. Bi kra ma ni pu ra). Unlike these specific local names provided, Atiśa’s family lineage is identified by the textual sources only by the Tibetan names of his father Śrīkalyāṇa (Tib. Dge ba’i dpal), mother Śrīprabhā (Tib. Dpal mo ’od zer) and his two brothers Chandragarbha (Tib. Lta ba’i nying po) and Śrīgarbha (Tib. Dpal gyi snying po). The venerable teacher Atiśa himself is referred to in texts as Padmagarbha (Tib. Pad ma’i nying po). The purpose of this paper is to answer the question whether in reality there was any kinship link between Atiśa and the Chandra royal dynasty.

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