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Anthropology of Migration Centre at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw, in cooperation with the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, is happy to invite everyone to its 62. Migration Seminar, which will take place on
October 20, 2026 (Tuesday) at 17.00 (CET)
@IEiAK UW, Żurawia 4, at room 421
Our speaker, Dr Jaro Stacul (Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw) will speak of
Recovering Solidarity? Representations of Polish Identity in Multicultural Australia
Abstract:
In contemporary Poland, 'solidarity' is one of the 'keywords' to which different political forces appeal. In the 1980s, the same concept became associated with the building of independent civic movements, and particularly with the Solidarność social movement. Yet to understand the appeal that the idea of solidarity continues to have in the collective imagination we need to understand how it has been put in practice not only in Poland, but also by the Polish diaspora during and after the socialist period, as well as how the same idea 'migrates' to other contexts. Drawing upon the analysis of published and archival materials as well as on conversations with Poles who have settled in Australia since the 1980s, the seminar examines some uses and understandings of 'solidarity' by different Polish organizations and social actors in the last four decades. It illustrates a paradox: although the wave of Polish migrants who came to Australia in the 1980s as political refugees is commonly referred to as the 'Solidarity wave', it was particularly the Poles who migrated to Australia after World War II who embraced the idea of 'solidarity' as a form of struggle for Poland's freedom and independence from Soviet domination. Yet the subsequent demise of state socialism and Australia's transformation into a multicultural society affected not just representations of Polish identity, but also the meanings many Australians of Polish heritage attach to solidarity (and Solidarity) nowadays.
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Event venue
Żurawia 4, Warszawa, 00-503 Warsaw, Poland, ulica Żurawia 4, 00-503 Warszawa, Polska, Warsaw, Poland
Tickets
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