Centre for Migration Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań gladly invites you to a migration webinar with professor Anne White who will be speaking on „Poland as a country of immigration and emigration: Ukrainian factory workers' perspectives on life and work in Kalisz and Płock”.

Date:
27th January 2022, 10:00 to 11:30 (CET), online (zoom)

Details about how to join the webinar will be sent automatically after registration.

Anne White is M. B. Grabowski Professor of Polish Studies, University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies. From January to June 2022 she is a NAWA Ulam Scholar based at the Centre for Migration Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań. Her research interests are migration to and from Poland as well as social change in Poland more broadly. Her books include Polish Families and Migration since EU Accession, Invisible Poles and The Impact of Migration on Poland, co-authored with I. Grabowska, P. Kaczmarczyk and K. Slany.

Abstract
Poland is becoming a ‘country of immigration’, while retaining its strong identity as a country which people leave to live, work and study abroad. My current research project explores interrelationships between its immigration and emigration identities in the cities of Płock, Kalisz and Piła. I interview foreigners, mostly Ukrainians, as well as Polish return migrants. This presentation is based on fieldwork in Płock (2019) and Kalisz (2021). 45 of my 52 Ukrainian interviewees were factory workers, and my presentation will discuss these research participants’ thoughts about settling and family reunification in Poland, based on their experiences of life and work in the two cities. These experiences include contacts with Polish return migrants, often their co-workers in local factories. I argue that the Ukrainians’ sense of living in a geographically mobile society, where migration is viewed by Ukrainians and Poles alike as an acceptable livelihood strategy, helps shape their thoughts about whether to make their futures in Poland.