The anguish of repatriation : immigration to Poland and integration of Polish descendants from Kazakhstan

Repatriation remains an unsolved problem of Polish migration policy. To date, it has taken place on a small scale, mostly outside of the state’s repatriation system. Thousands of people with a promised repatriation visa are still waiting to be repatriated. The majority of the repatriates come from Kazakhstan, home to the largest population of descendants of Poles in the Asian part of the former USSR. They come to Poland not only for sentimental reasons, but also in search of better living conditions. However, repatriates - in particular older ones - experience a number of problems with adaptation in Poland, dominated by financial and housing-related issues. A further source of difficulties for repatriates, alongside their spatial dispersion, insufficient linguistic and cultural competencies, and identity problems, is finding a place on and adapting to the Polish labor market. Despite their difficult situation and special needs, the repatriates in Poland are not sufficiently supported due to the inefficiency of administration and non-governmental institutions dealing with the task of repatriates’ integration. This results in the anguish of repatriation

Procesy inkluzji migrantów a więzi i sieci społeczne wśród małżeństw mieszanych

Integracja imigrantów wiąże się nie tylko z takimi elementami, jak postawy i relacje migrantów z członkami społeczeństwa przyjmującego, ale także z ich wchodzeniem w strukturę społeczną, czyli osiąganiem określonego statusu społecznego. W procesie tym bardzo ważną rolę odgrywają nieformalne i formalne sieci powiązań tworzące kapitał społeczny migrantów. Szczególnie istotna w tym kontekście jest analiza znaczenia silnych i słabych więzi dla wytwarzania kapitału społecznego i inkluzji migrantów. Celem artykułu jest analiza związków między więziami i sieciami społecznymi a wielowymiarowymi procesami włączania jednostek i grup do społeczeństwa przyjmującego i jego instytucji. Główne zagadnienie badawcze podjęte w artykule stanowi proces wytwarzania pomostowego i wiążącego kapitału społecznego w małżeństwach mieszanych uwarunkowany różnymi typami posiadanych przez migrantów więzi oraz sieci, których są członkami. Postawione pytanie badawcze dotyczy wpływu kapitału społecznego na miejsce migrantów w strukturze społecznej kraju przyjmującego oraz inne wymiary integracji imigrantów. Przedmiotem rozważań są procesy zachodzące wśród małżeństw mieszanych, w których jeden ze współmałżonków jest imigrantem osiedlonym w Polsce. Zagadnienie te zostały przeanalizowane na przykładzie ukraińskich imigrantów będących współmałżonkami Polaków osiedlonych w województwie mazowieckim. Do analizy wykorzystane zostały dane z reprezentatywnego badania sondażowego wśród obywateli Ukrainy osiedlonych w Polsce

Migration and Socio-Demographic Processes in Central and Eastern Europe: Characteristics, Specificity and Internal Differences

Although Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is sometimes referred to as a buffer zone (Iglicka 2001) because of its location between the huge Asian continent and Western Europe, it is also an area of intense and diverse migration flows both internal and external. In a broader sense, the region of Central and Eastern Europe may include countries of the Visegrád Group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), the states of the former USSR, as well as southern post-communist states, Bulgaria and Romania, and even the states of the former Yugoslavia and Albania (Okólski 2004; Castles, Miller 2003). This extensive list includes both the countries whose accession to the European Union took place between 2004-2013 (the Visegrád Group countries, the Baltic states, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia), as well as countries which are not EU member states. The EU enlargements created a considerable difference between the status of the countries which became part of the EU and the other states of the region, and influenced intra- and extra-regional migration processes. Mobility in CEE should be analysed with reference to the interrelated fundamental social, economic, and political changes taking place in the region. First, notable is the shrinking and aging of the societies in CEE countries, brought about by fertility decline and family breakdown. Second, we must consider existing migration pressure and intensified post-accession emigration. Third, what is specific to the region are the processes of European integration and of the related profound modernisation. All of the above features create a unique combination of migration-related factors

ZARYS KONCEPCJI SPOŁECZNEGO ZAKOTWICZENIA INNE SPOJRZENIE NA TOŻSAMOŚĆ, ADAPTACJĘ I INTEGRACJĘ IMIGRANTÓW / AN OUTLINE OF THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL ANCHORING: A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO IMMIGRANT IDENTITY, ADAPTATION, AND INTEGRATION

The proposed concept of social anchoring contained in this article allows issues of immigrant identity, adaptation, and integration to be combined. It allows limitations to the idea of integration and the subjective defining of identity to be overcome, and it also includes the socio-psychological resources that an individual can use to adapt to a changed social reality. The author begins by considering the meaning of identity for the analysis of contemporary society and the reasons for the problematic nature of the idea; she presents the colloquial and metaphoric uses of the concept of anchoring. She then proposes that anchoring should provisionally be defined as an individual’s search for essential points of reference and support that will allow him or her to achieve a relative socio-psychological stability in the environment. She points out various types of anchors: from legal-institutional (for instance, citizenship) and economic (for instance, material resources), through ties to a specific place (for instance, the place where one was born), to personal anchors (such as physical characteristics, physical practices, individual traits, and values), cultural aspects (for instance, language), and-most importantly from the sociological viewpoint-social anchors (contained in relations with friends and family). Although the proposed concept of social anchoring has emerged mainly from studies concerning the adaptation and integration of migrants, it should have application to more general sociological analyses

AN OUTLINE OF THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL ANCHORING: A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO IMMIGRANT IDENTITY, ADAPTATION, AND INTEGRATION

The proposed concept of social anchoring contained in this article allows issues of immigrant identity, adaptation, and integration to be combined. It allows limitations to the idea of integration and the subjective defining of identity to be overcome, and it also includes the socio-psychological resources that an individual can use to adapt to a changed social reality. The author begins by considering the meaning of identity for the analysis of contemporary society and the reasons for the problematic nature of the idea; she presents the colloquial and metaphoric uses of the concept of anchoring. She then proposes that anchoring should provisionally be defined as an individual’s search for essential points of reference and support that will allow him or her to achieve a relative socio-psychological stability in the environment. She points out various types of anchors: from legal-institutional (for instance, citizenship) and economic (for instance, material resources), through ties to a specific place (for instance, the place where one was born), to personal anchors (such as physical characteristics, physical practices, individual traits, and values), cultural aspects (for instance, language), and-most importantly from the sociological viewpoint-social anchors (contained in relations with friends and family). Although the proposed concept of social anchoring has emerged mainly from studies concerning the adaptation and integration of migrants, it should have application to more general sociological analyses

TOWARDS THE SOCIOLOGY OF MOBILE SOCIETY? THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW CONCEPTS OF MIGRATION AND INTEGRATION AND SOCIOLOGY

This article presents a review and analysis of the new sociological theories of migration and integration that have developed since the 1990s, including transnationalism, liquid migration and incomplete migration, as well as new concepts of multiculturalism, assimilation, integration and adaptation to transnational spaces. The paper postulates and justifies the need for better integration of migration studies with more general sociological theory. On the one hand, migration studies should be more embedded in general sociological theory. On the other hand, the achievements of migration studies should be employed by sociologists to a greater degree. This seems to be particularly advisable in the context of the emergence of the new metaparadigm of mobility, as opposed to settlement. As a result, the role of migration as a key research problem and theories pertaining to an emerging mobile society is increasing

Little Ukraine’ or Polish Viettown? Social or Spatial Patterns of Immigrant Settlement in Warsaw Agglomeration

Celem niniejszego tekstu jest analiza wzorów osiedlania się imigrantów w aglomeracji warszawskiej, a zwłaszcza na terenie samego miasta Warszawy. Przedmiotem analizy jest: wyłanianie się potencjalnych skupisk miejsc zamieszkiwania imigrantów i ich związek z innymi typami koncentracji imigrantów; czynniki determinujące miejsce zamieszkania i funkcjonowanie migrantów w miejskim środowisku; a także związek między miejscem zamieszkania migrantów a ich aktywnością ekonomiczną i lokalizacją miejsc pracy, charakterystykami kulturowymi i przyjętymi strategiami akulturacyjnymi. Problemy te badane są na przykładzie populacji Wietnamczyków i Ukraińców posiadających zezwolenie na osiedlenie się w województwie mazowieckim. Artykuł omawia różnice we wzorcach zamieszkiwania w Polsce obu grup oraz ukazuje wyłanianie się zalążków skupisk w przypadku Wietnamczyków.The text aims to analyse the patterns of immigrants’ settlement in Warsaw agglomeration, especially their settlement in the area of the city of Warsaw. The subject of the study is: the emergence of places where immigrants concentrate and a relation between their places of residence with other types of concentration; factors that determine the places of immigrants’ residence and how migrants operate in the urban environment, as well as a relation between the places of immigrants’ settlement and their economic activity and its localization, cultural characteristics and the adapted acculturation strategies. To study these problems the authors use the example of the population of the Vietnamese and Ukrainians possessing a permission for settlement in the Mazowieckie Province. The article discuses differences in the patterns of settlements of both groups and shows the emergence of small clusters in the case of the Vietnamese

From Drifting to Anchoring. Capturing the Experience of Ukrainian Migrants in Poland

The article applies the concept of anchoring, defined as the process of searching for footholds and points of reference which allows individuals to acquire socio-psychological stability and security and function effectively in a new environment, to explore complex, multidimensional and flexible adaptation and settlement processes among migrants from Ukraine in Poland. Based on 40 in-depth interviews and questionnaires with migrants resident in Warsaw and its vicinity, we argue that the traditional categories employed for analysing migrants’ adaptation and settlement such as 'integration' or 'assimilation' are not always adequate to capture the way of functioning and experience of contemporary Ukrainian migrants. Rather than traditional categories, we propose to apply the concept of anchoring which enables us to capture Ukrainians’ 'fluid' migration, drifting lives and complex identities as well as mechanisms of settling down in terms of searching for relative stability rather than putting down roots. The paper discusses the ambiguous position of Ukrainian migrants in Poland constructed as neither the strangers nor the same, gives insight into their drifting lives and illuminates ways of coping with temporariness and establishing anchors providing migrants with a sense of stability and security. This approach, linking identity, security and incorporation, emphasises, on the one hand, the psychological and emotional aspects of establishing new footholds and, on the other hand, tangible anchors and structural constraints. Its added value lies in the fact that it allows for complexity, simultaneity and changeability of anchoring and the reverse processes of un-anchoring to be included

Foreigners under protection in Poland

The paper looks at the selected issues related to the asylum seekers in Poland. The first section is devoted to legal basis for protection (both international and domestic regulations), its various forms, as well as assistance granted to the foreign nationals seeking asylum. Next, the authors present statistics on the scale of the phenomenon and discuss the questions related to the social integration of foreigners