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Paper short abstract

Based on autobiographical interviews with descendants of Polish migrants in Germany, this study explores how transnational mobilities produce liminal, devalued, idealised and imagined forms of (non)belonging. It shows how these processes shape wellbeing at various life stages.

Paper long abstract

While Eastern European migrants receive increasing scholarly attention, their adult children are often seen as a “success story” of integration and, consequently, remain "invisible". Based on 35 autobiographical interviews with people raised by Polish parents in Germany, this paper examines how different forms of mobility shape experiences of (non)belonging and related wellbeing.

The study shows how mobility operates ambivalently: it both reinforces feelings of exclusion and offers strategies for coping with them. For many interlocutors childhood relocations within Germany and regular holiday trips to Poland rather than fostering belonging often intensified a sense of instability and difference. In adulthood, mobility to Poland and other countries acquired new meanings: opened spaces for self-exploration and the creation of alternative forms of belonging beyond national categories.

The paper identifies three interconnected processes through which (non)belonging was shaped: positioning in a liminal space of (non)belonging and devaluation, rejection, or romanticisation of their connection to their parents' homeland. Participants described prolonged states of liminality, in which belonging was conditional and required continuous emotional and social labor, resulting in uncertainty about one’s place in society. Second, family narratives and practices variously devalued, rejected, or idealized ties to Poland, producing fragile or inaccessible forms of belonging and, for some, a diminished sense of self-worth or cultural loss. Third, "imagined belonging" was often temporary, giving way to disappointment.

By foregrounding mobility as an everyday and biographical process, this paper shows how “invisibility” conceals ongoing struggles over belonging and wellbeing.