New Neighbours in Polish Cities and Rural Areas. Multi-ethnic Living Together

Migration processes in Poland have undergone significant changes in the last decade. According to demographic research (e.g. Okólski 2021), the second decade of the 21st century saw a so-called migration transition in Poland. After years of emigration outnumbering immigration, there are now more people entering the country than leaving it.

This phenomenon is not unique to Poland: the systemic position of the whole Central Europe undergoes a transformation, with an entire region experiencing a period of intensive growth and a marked improvement in quality of life indicators. Alongside the region’s systemic position shift, Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine and the (temporary) settlement in Poland of almost one million people with refugee experience is another crucial factor of migration transition. This gives the migration and refugee processes in our part of Europe a dynamic and unique character against the backdrop of the longer-term processes taking place in Western Europe. These processes are particularly visible in cities, specifically at the level of municipal public policies, at urban labour and property markets as well as at the level of social and interpersonal relations.

The presence of Ukrainian migrants is also changing the social landscape of rural areas. Migrants and refugees living in Polish towns and villages are becoming present in public and institutional spaces. They are an increasingly active and visible community, whose numbers and potential are becoming part of the debate on how to accommodate the risks of the present and the future. Moreover, Poland’s migratory landscape is becoming increasingly diversified: in addition to Ukrainians, we are dealing with foreigners from other non-EU countries, including Asian and African ones.

The proposed session aims to look at the processes of dealing with this new situation locally, through living together, working, sending children to schools, relaxing in parks in each others’ presence. Both migrants and local residents, who are also often mobile, adjust to each others’ presence. The focus will be on different ethnicities, nationalities and cultures partake in the processes of building this new social practice of living together.

Invited speakers will present their research pertaining to how new practices of living together are shaped by everyday routines; by migration, employment and residence policies; by different individual and collective actors, such as activists, NGOs and foundations, government agencies, local authorities, schools, housing communities and the media. The speakers’ contributions will reflect on the bottom-up and top-down ways of understanding the new situation, to how the new neighbours fit into or change existing urban-rural divides and boundaries, lines of separation and connection. This may include the processes of gentrification and degradation of districts in cities, ethnic and racial discrimination, the dying out and rebirth of life in whole towns (especially in rural areas), the impact of migrants on the functioning of institutions (crèches, schools) as well as on processes of migrant empowerment and integration.