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Description
Reliable information about the humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border does not reach the Polish society. By preventing the media from covering the events freely, Polish citizens are not very familiar with the perspective of people with migration experience, activists and borderland residents. Topics such as changes in the daily life of the local community, the evolution of neighbourhood relations, the economic consequences of the state of emergency or hostility towards aid workers do not reach a wide audience. In our project we would like to present them and explain the socio-political processes involved. This is the intervention project for two reasons: 1) it responds to anti-immigrant rhetoric by providing comprehensive information from the Polish-Belarusian border; 2) it responds to the dynamics of the situation at the border and social reactions. If we do not investigate it now, we will never investigate it, or someone will do it for us, not necessarily reliably. The project will deepen knowledge about the humanitarian crisis in the Polish-Belarusian borderland by networking researchers. Together we will create popular science materials about the humanitarian crisis. The addressees of the project are opinion makers (teachers, local governments, media) and recipients looking for reliable information about the crisis. The project is implemented by people from partner organisations associated in the group Researchers on the Border. The project leader is the Foundation Centre for Migration Research – an experienced organisation specialising in migration research. Partners are: the SocLab Research and Social Action Laboratory Foundation, the ‘Walizka’ Foundation for Culture, the Jacek Kuroń Educational Foundation and the Institute of Sociology at the University of Białystok.
Summary of project results
The humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border is one of the most controversial topics in Poland. The way it is presented by politicians and the ruling camp, as well as mainstream media with an anti-immigration attitude, is harmful to the inhabitants of the border zone, as well as to the inhabitants of Poland, which, according to the latest reports, is becoming an immigration country with the largest number of temporary migrants in the OECD group. . This is not conducive to building social cohesion and communities that function based on respect for each other''s differences. This controversial nature is a huge challenge because this topic has already undergone polarization, politicization and has become the subject of disinformation activities.
The aim of the project was to influence this discourse, engage local actors (project partners) and cooperate with activists and residents of the border area. The project was based mainly on the cooperation of researchers from various scientific centers in Poland who, in accordance with the idea behind action research, address important social and political issues in their scientific work and do not shy away from civic involvement and opposition to unjust actions of the state. We translated the observations made on the Polish-Belarusian border into 19 popular science materials that were promoted on social media, three podcasts and three webinars. Additionally, we stressed the need to develop research on forced migration, limiting access to international protection, and state violence against the weakest people - borderland residents and migrants. We continued these discussions in the field of popular science and scientific activities - conference speeches (e.g. during the KBnM PAN conference in Łódź on September 21-23, 2022) and supporting exchange and communication at regular seminar meetings at the research base in Podlasie, from which researchers could free to use.
The project aimed to achieve the following goals:
- implementation of research projects - collecting reports, interviews, visual materials; field research; field visits by researchers from abroad.
There were 4 stationary and online seminars, which gathered a large audience on site (5 people in May, 13 people in September, 11 people in October and 12 people in November, respectively; a dozen or so people took part in online discussions during each of the organized seminars). In total, 58 people used the database during the project, which translated into 333 person-days.
A project tab has been created on the OBMF Foundation website: https://obmf.pl/projekty/granica.html The content and layout of the website have been supplemented with new events and materials from the project implementation.
As a result of the project implementation, 19 popular science texts were published as planned. Five of these materials were the responsibility of the partner organization of the Foundation for Culture "Walizka".
All published materials are available on the project''s subpage and are distributed on social media (FB, Twitter and social media of partner organizations).
Each text has undergone a substantive review and careful editing so that the materials are finally published in the best possible version.
Three podcasts produced by the partner organization, the Soc-Lab Foundation, were published. The three planned webinars were carried out by the "Walizka" Foundation for Culture.
The report summarizes and informs researchers from various research centers in Poland and abroad, independent researchers, activists, as well as the media with which we were in contact about the activities carried out. It collects in one place the most important information regarding field research, the scope of the research network of Researchers at the Border, and the topics of scientific materials presented in the form of texts, podcasts and webinars.
Conducted as part of the project, in the opinion of the project implementers, contributed positively to improving the quality of discussions, strengthening knowledge about the nature of the humanitarian crisis among observers, analysts and journalists, and introducing various threads and perspectives to scientific and popularizing discussions undertaken in connection with the ongoing humanitarian crisis. on the Polish-Belarusian border.
One of the key elements of the activity was networking, which enabled the strengthening of the activist and scientific community, establishing and maintaining contacts with a large number of researchers and activists from Poland and abroad.
The project enabled the development of scientific and popular science discussion regarding the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the border, thus starting to fill an important gap in knowledge among a wide range of recipients about the right to international protection and forced migration. Poland, as a country that has so far been mainly a country of emigration, has not yet been confronted with this type of events on a large scale.
As part of research and seminar activities, we gathered people who directly benefited from the growing knowledge and expertise of researchers active in the border area - substantive consultations on master''s and bachelor''s theses were held.
We managed to highlight various aspects of the humanitarian crisis at the border in a popular science form - we created 20 popular science materials, 3 podcasts and 3 webinars, as well as a report summarizing the activities in the project and collecting all published materials. And through promotion in social media with posts, we managed to reach over five thousand people (for example, the post about the webinar with the former Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights, Dr. Hanna Machińska, reached over 1,200 people, and Mateusz Grześkowiak''s text on the rule of law reached over 1,400 people).