Ukrainian national minority in Poland is constituted by at least 40K people. On the eve of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine there were 1,35M Ukrainian migrants and recently additional 1,4-1,5M refugees stay here.
I will present findings of anthropological research conducted since 2021 among autochthonous Ukrainians and newcomers from Ukraine in order to understand Ukrainian-Ukrainian encounters in Poland through the lens of diaspora-forming processes. Another source is analysis of public discourse in Poland.
The notions of “images” and “emotions” fall within a concept of “moral panic”. I argue that right-wing radicals in Poland are attempting to launch it around numerous presence of Ukrainians in Poland. In turn, Ukrainian immigrant and minority leaders in Poland develop a counter-narration. But there are also tensions within Ukrainian communities. The established position of the minority has been challenged by immigrants who outnumber them and dominate organizationally. Economic immigrants could express their dissatisfaction with better opportunities the refugees were granted. For Polish right-wing radicals arrivals of Ukrainians are an argument for restricting both immigration and national minority rights in order to prevent political subjectivity of putative generalized Ukrainians and protect “ethnonational unity”. Thus, various images of different Ukrainian communities overlap each other.
Does moral panic initiators’ discourse aggravate tension between various Ukrainian circles or rather encourage their cooperation? How and to what extent different scope of social and political inclusion/exclusion influence diaspora-forming processes? Are the discursive images of Ukrainian migrants, refugees and minority members promoted by various circles in Poland similar to their self-image? Do putative “generalized Ukrainians” really exist?
Poland has not adopted any long-term strategy of immigration and integration, thus debates of crucial importance in both symbolic and pragmatic dimension are still ahead. Ukrainian voice(s) in such debates, if are heard, will constitute outwardly directed Sökefeld’s “politicized diasporic discourses” in pure form.
