After WW2 Poland became almost monoethnic country. Ukrainian national minority is constituted by at least 40K people. On the eve of the full-scale Russian invasion on Ukraine there were 1,35M Ukrainian migrants and recently additional 1,4-1,5M of refugees stay here.
I will present findings of multi-sited anthropological research conducted since 2021 among autochthonous Ukrainians and newcomers from Ukraine in order to understand Ukrainian-Ukrainian encounters in Poland through the lenses of diaspora-forming processes. These encounters take place between groups subjected to different types and scopes of exclusion, which can be mitigated or aggravated by various specific positionalities visible in intersectional perspective.
“Are Ukrainians in Poland welcomed or unwelcomed newcomers?”. The question should be put differently:“(Un)welcomed by whom and in which role/position?”. Acceptation of Christian Joppke’s concept of sites (internal/external) and modes (group/individual) of exclusions could be useful here, providing that it is supplemented by perspective, which helps reveal the significance of issues mentioned below for Ukrainian communities’ mutual relations in Poland (“diaspora-forming perspective”, which the project team I work with has been developing).
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 (external exclusion) and national minority rights (internal) in order to prevent political subjectivity of putative generalized Ukrainians and protect “ethnonational unity”. In turn, liberal and left-wing formations welcome migrants’ input in economy and culture and encourage their political inclusion.
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 Martin Sökefeld’s “politicized diasporic discourses” in pure form.
