Polish return migrants. Analysis of selected decision-making processes

The scale and size of post-accession migration of Poles, especially to the British Isles, was surprising not only for the Polish side. The countries that opened their labour markets for the citizens of the new member states also failed to predict such a massive inflow of Polish nationals. Returning to the home country, however, does not get as much media attention as emigrating. This type of migration was not the subject of such heated discussions and analyses as emigration. The objective of the article is to sociologically describe the re-emigrants and answer questions concerning the motives for emigrating and returning, as well as how the emigration decision is assessed in retrospect. The paper is based on in-depth interviews conducted with individuals who had emigrated from Poland following the enlargement of the European Union and decided to return to their home country after a few years. Importantly, in order to detect readaptation problems, the respondents were selected from amongst those remigrants who had already been living in Poland for one to three years. The article shall present the results of these studies and the classifications of emigration, returns and remigrants.

Czasowość i sprawczość w świetle koncepcji prekarności: Wnioski z badań nad migracjami pracowniczymi z Ukrainy do Polski

Temporality and agency in the light of precarity concept. Lessons from the studies of Ukraine to Poland labour migration. The article covers the issue of Polish-Ukrainian labour migration in the context of temporality of migration and segmentation and precarisation of labour. The conceptual framework for the presented argumentation is provided by the concepts of precarity, precarisation and agency. These concepts are relevant for describing temporality of work and stay and the changes observed on this ground. The article sets the following goals: (1) to operationalize the concepts of “precarity” and “precarisation” in the context of labour migration (Ukraine to Poland migration in particular); (2) to set Ukraine to Poland labour migration in the context of global migration processes; (3) to delimit possible trajectory for further research.

Support Online: Case of Russian-speaking Women’s Online Network in Warsaw

The purpose of this paper is to study the mechanisms of online networking and exchange of social support among members of a migrant virtual group of Russian-speaking women in Poland on Facebook. The research was based on content analysis and non-participant observation during two weeks in November and December 2019. I also had two online conversations with the moderator of the group based on a prepared list of questions. It appeared, that members of the group used networking to improve communication on a wide range of issues. Conversations available online provide insight on how migration determines daily issues and social life but also as a source of socially-reproducing precarity. Informality as a social model of inter-group relations prevails among members of the Russian-speaking community. Four main types of social support emerged from communication on the forum – informational, instrumental, emotional and community building. Russian-speaking women use Facebook group to share information, empower each other, boost self-esteem and find companionship. The findings allow to consider the role of the online group as a complementary mechanism for adaptation and improvement of well-being of migrants in Poland.

Immigrant Life in an Artistic District. Polish and Ukrainian Immigrant Community and the New York Bohemia of East Village

The paper is a case study and addresses the issue of intersection of the immigrant and artistic worlds, exemplified by functioning of Polish and Ukrainian communities in East Village in New York. The Author tries to show how ethnic can intersect with the world of alternative artistic and intellectual culture and what the consequences of such a phenomenon for the transformation of the ethnic neighborhood and its status among the diaspora can be. The analysis is embedded in the historical and humanist perspective, accentuating the “longue durée” process, emphasizing the importance of the area and the social relations going on there for their users. Such an approach allows to form a final question on the possibility of conceptualizing this particular ethnic neighborhood in terms of cultural heritage of the immigrant group.

Coercion, Compulsion, Forced Emigrations. Experiences of Polish Artists during the Martial Law in Poland

A sociological look at artists’ biographies makes one reflect on their increased mobility. Purposes and reasons of the artists’ migratory journeys are various, they have a different character and their effects also vary. The article based on the narratives of the Polish artists shows three variants of making decisions to emigrate from Poland following the imposition of the martial law in December of 1981. The purpose of the article is also an attempt to modify the dominant definitions of forced emigration by extending it to the aspect of internal coercion generating a strong push impulse. This internal factor seems to be very important in the cases analysed in the article. The biographical interview method allows to indicate that, apart from external coercion, various entanglements of circumstances and trajectories are revealed, which in some cases lead to the decision to leave the home country.

Migrant Female Musicians and their Fight for Social Rights

The aim of this essay is to examine the social action of women composers, often obliged to migrate, for long or short periods, in search of greater freedom and affirmation of their musical talent. The history of yesterday and today features numerous women musicians, composers and performers, active in the production of music, in social and political life, who often had and have to travel and migrate to assert themselves. Going on tour has always been part of the life of the artist – but for women it was not easy to travel freely and at will, on their own besides. Until the nineteenth century, such a thing was almost always strictly forbidden. Sometimes women composers and performers left the countries in which they resided for personal reasons, driven not only by the “compulsion” to change country because in their own it was impossible to choose the pathway they wished to follow.

Postrzeganie Polaków oraz dobrostan imigrantek w opiniach kobiet z dawnych krajów radzieckich: wybrane aspekty

Perception of Poles and immigrants’ well-being in the opinions of women from the former Soviet countries: selected aspects In our meetings with representatives of other cultures, we look at each other, compare our experiences, create some ideas about the culture of a given country. The research goal is to explore images of Poles in the experience of immigrant women from post-Soviet countries, as well as to understand the subjective sense of their well-being in the situation of migration. The basis of the analysis are data from long observation of social media, scientific publications, reports, blogs. I pay special attention to the view of Belarusian women living in Poland, also because of the small number of thematic scientific publications from the perspective of this social group. The characteristics of Poles that immigrants from Belarus, Ukraine and Russia consider to be typical are presented. My inspiration comes from cultural theories in the sociology of emotions, namely the category of emotional culture and gender ideology by Arlie Russel Hochschild are used.