Paper Short Abstract:

Private hosting of Ukrainian refugees in Poland operates at the intersection of care, migration, and governance. Using flash ethnographies, this paper explores how writing captures both the lived experiences and remembered narratives of hospitality, revealing the shifting borders of mobility and personal agency.

Paper Abstract:

Private hosting of Ukrainian refugees in Poland intertwines personal initiative with mobility governance. Unlike countries with official refugee sponsorship programs, Poland lacked a legal framework for private hosting when the war in Ukraine began. In response, individuals and communities spontaneously offered their homes, navigating hospitality through personal networks and evolving institutional responses. This paper examines how hosting functions as a negotiation of migration within domestic spaces, shaping experiences beyond formalized policies. How do we write about these fleeting, deeply personal moments of hosting and being hosted? How does writing shape our understanding of mobility, especially when our research encompasses both present experiences and retrospective memories of hospitality? Engaging with flash ethnographies—brief, urgent, and intense narratives—this paper explores the methodological challenges of capturing the immediacy and emotional dimensions of hosting. Inspired by Nomi Stone and Carole McGranahan, flash ethnographies document these transient yet critical experiences, illuminating intersections between personal agency, migration infrastructures, and border regimes. Drawing from ongoing ethnographic research in western Poland within the project “Private Hosting of Refugees from Ukraine in Polish Homes: Everyday Humanitarianism and Encounters across Difference”, funded by the Polish National Science Centre (NCN), I incorporate both my fieldwork and insights from my research team. This paper contributes to discussions on writing mobility and unwriting border regimes through ethnographic storytelling.