Paper short abstract:

The paper is based on the materials gathered during three years of ethnographic study on immigrants in the city Poznan, Poland. While not presenting a large immigrant population as compared to other EU countries, several phenomena characteristic of migration in the modern era were observed.

Paper long abstract:

The paper is based on the materials gathered during three years of ethnographic study on immigrants in the city Poznan, Poland (2010-2012). Neither the country, nor the city can be regarded as having a significant immigrant population, at least in comparison to many other EU countries (official data say that immigrants comprise less than 1% of the total population, and some experts estimate their number reaches 2%). However, several phenomena characteristic of migration in the modern world can be observed in this case. The number of people on the move is constantly growing. Various categories of migrants can be distinguished, for instance, highly qualified professionals, freelancers, workers desiring to improve their standards of living, people working in services, and those engaging in practices classified by the authorities as illegal. The question is, how all these phenomena reflect wider migration processes in the region or even the world, and to what extent they are locally specific. The question of tolerance towards the Others, implied social inequalities, and emerging new social relations are addressed. At the moment, it is still a work in progress, and the results of it should be ready by next year.