Paper short abstract:

This paper is an attempt to analyze the current migrational politics in Poland by using a case study of Belarussian students. By juxtaposing the perspective of the students with the legal regulations I will present the profile of migrants who are welcome in Poland.

Paper long abstract:

Proposed paper is based on the fieldwork conducted among students from Belarus who have had experience with higher education or higher professional education in Poland. The paper is an attempt to present tactics (within the meaning of the theory proposed by de Certeau (1999)) used by the students and the strategies used by Polish state and the European Union towards migrants. By juxtaposing individual experiences of the students with the migration regulations on the national level I present the idea behind those regulations - the polonocentrism and cultural selection of the incoming migration to Poland.

The paper will be divided into two parts. Firstly, I will introduce the key issues, the context and the political aspects of the educational migration to Poland. In the second, more analytical part, by juxtaposing individual experiences of students with strategies of the Polish government and EU legal regulations concerning foreigners I will describe different tactics taken by the Belorussian citizens studying in Poland and move forward to presenting the image of a perfect migrant, that lays behind the regulations. I claim that the regulations preserve the discourse of Poland as a local empire and favors students and migrants with Polish background. Those legal acts also empower highly qualified young people to migrate, while at the same time the current Polish government is using antimigration rhetorics. In addition, this paper also takes a critical look at the Polish attempts to impose cultural hegemony in the region.