The transformation of migration in Polish cities
Posted on 18th November, 2024
For her new book, Polish Cities of Migration: The migration transition in Kalisz, Piła and Płock, Anne White carried out extensive in-depth interviews with Polish return migrants, Ukrainians and people from other countries living in the Polish cities of Kalisz, Płock and Piła. This extract from Chapter 1 explores how the basis of Poland’s migration identity is changing from emigration to immigration.
‘For me it’s no different whether I live in Nottingham or Płock. I spend most of my time in the recording studio.’
(Jan, Polish return migrant, interviewed by Anne White)
‘At last, after waiting so long, I’ve been able to buy a house … I want my grandchildren to be born here … There’s a lake and a forest. I want to take my grandsons fishing.’
(Sergei, Ukrainian interviewed by Anne White in Piła, mid-February 2022)
Polish Cities of Migration analyses how Poland, with its strong and continuing ‘country of emigration’ identity, is transitioning to a new identity as a ‘country of immigration’. In the past few years, millions of migrants have been arriving to work, study and join family members in Poland. The book explores two interconnected puzzles. The first is whether the nature of Poland’s migration transition is influenced by the fact that it is simultaneously a country of emigration. In Poland, immigrants encounter Polish circular and return migrants, as well as Polish neighbours and workmates who have not migrated, but have family and friends living abroad. The book discusses how these mobile and transnationally connected Poles respond to the newcomers in their midst. What parallels do they perceive, and do they behave in a more welcoming way because of their shared experiences? The second puzzle concerns the decision-making of the non-Polish migrants. Why are they beginning to spread out beyond the metropolises, often settling with their families in smaller cities, such as Kalisz, Piła and Płock, with limited economic opportunities? I argue that their feeling of comfort in such locations links to lifestyle considerations, and is partly connected to their impression that local Poles have a pragmatic and accepting attitude towards migration. The early twenty-first century context is significant for Poland’s migration transition. Polish Cities aims to shed light on some typical aspects of twenty-first century mobility, and it compares the experiences of Polish and other migrants. Drawing on my in-depth interviews with 70 Ukrainians, 37 Poles and 17 people from different countries around the globe, I illustrate some actual – not just perceived – parallels between (ex)migrants, irrespective of their nationality. These include, for example, how parents quite soon after their arrival abroad decide to bring over their partners and children. Parallels between Ukrainian and Polish migration are often particularly striking, as also found, for example, by Brzozowska (2018). The book investigates why.
This chapter begins by introducing the main themes and arguments of the book. It outlines the story of the Polish migration transition and the particular role played by Ukrainians. It also looks at the phenomenon from the Ukrainian perspective. For Ukrainians, this is not a migration transition, but a story of mobility and emigration connected directly and indirectly to Putin’s 2014 invasion. The chapter then discusses central concepts of the book: migration transitions and migration (or mobility) cultures. It relates these to the Polish experience and explains how the concepts shed light on local-level experiences of becoming a country of immigration. Because of space limitations, the chapter does not discuss other concepts used in Polish Cities, such as livelihood strategies, place attachment, intersectionality, integration, anchoring, contact hypothesis, ethnic hierarchies and social networks. These are introduced in later chapters.
Countries are often considered to be either ‘countries of immigration’ or ‘countries of emigration’. For example, Australia is seen as a ‘country of immigration’, unlike Ireland, which until the 1990s was a ‘country of emigration’. These reputations are not just linked to statistics about net migration flows, but are also based in culture and historical tradition. Moreover, ‘emigration’ and ‘immigration’ in English (although not in other languages, such as Polish) imply migration for settlement, suggesting significant, sustained losses or gains of population. Given these connotations of migration for settlement, the phrase ‘country of immigration’ captures the idea of a country which is acquiring a more permanent identity as a place where foreigners come to settle. The book argues that becoming a new receiving country on a major scale is not just a matter of statistics but also implies acquiring a ‘country of immigration’ self-identity. In this connection, one could study the top-down process of adopting legislation, institutions and policies. My focus instead is on grassroots self-identification, the bottom-up process of ordinary people adjusting to the new identity as a receiving society. However, as discussed later, migrants have to become somewhat visible within local society for the majority population to acknowledge that this change has occurred. The book shows that on the eve of the 2022 refugee influx, Ukrainians, whom I label the ‘majority minority’, were already more visible and acknowledged to be part of composition of the local population in the fieldwork cities than were the ‘minority minorities’. These other migrants were individuals or tiny groups, not communities of co-nationals. They hailed from countries across the globe, from Uruguay to Nigeria and Taiwan.
Chapter 2 discusses the book’s intersectional approach. However, it seems important here in Chapter 1 to highlight that ‘migrants’ is a category as diverse as ‘humankind’. Any person could become a migrant. One type of differentiation which is particularly salient for this book is that different migrants have different expectations about whether their migration may result in settlement. Sergei and Jan, quoted at the head of the chapter, were Ukrainian and Polish respectively, but their ages and overall outlooks on life were at least as important as nationality in explaining their different degrees of place attachment and attitudes towards mobility. Sergei, having transplanted himself and his family to Piła, and achieved his life’s ambition of buying a house, dreamed on the eve of war of being settled in idyllic surroundings for the rest of his life. He was one of a group of interviewees for whom migration appeared to represent a ‘happy ending’. Jan, a younger person and a musician, was highly mobile and transnational, and typified another group: people of different nationalities whose occupations meant they could have lived almost anywhere, but nonetheless chose to be based – sometimes part-time and temporarily – in the smaller city or its environs.
About the Author
This is an excerpt from Polish Cities of Migration: The migration transition in Kalisz, Piła and Płock by Anne White.
Anne White is Professor of Polish Studies and Social and Political Science at UCL, author of Polish Cities of Migration: The migration transition in Kalisz, Piła and Płock and co-author of The Impact of Migration on Poland.