Heritage in Diaspora-Forming Processes: Encounters of Local Ukrainians and Migrants from Ukraine in Poland

This article offers a reflection on heritage in the context of diaspora-forming processes examined from an anthropological perspective. Ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted since 2021 in the Ukrainian communities in two Polish cities, where the encounters of autochthonous Ukrainians (Ukrainian national minority members) and migrants from Ukraine have been traced yet before the recent arrivals of war refugees. Basing on the individual in-depth interviews with different Ukrainian communities’ leaders and activists, and on long-lasting participatory observation, the authors argue that for the autochthonous Ukrainians, the heritage has been a set of practices, non-reducible to tangible and intangible legacy. Therefore, they propose broadening of the meaning of heritage in migration studies towards a set of diasporic practices such as diasporic lifestyles, practices of positioning, and lived diasporic experiences stimulated by encounters with migrants. This approach allows going beyond common-sensical statement of alleged “old diaspora” conservativeness or “immersion in history” comparing with migrants’ different stances and practices. The next step is to propose considering heritage one of the diaspora-forming processes. Such a perspective localizes diaspora in the sphere of social beliefs, imaginings, and cultural practices. To mobilize people as a diaspora, they need to be shared and treated as common, but some of them mobilize only partially, i.e., particular communities, while being contested by others. The authors show that going below the superficial agreement on “common identity” among “the same” people, i.e., co-ethnics, may reveal deep processes of othering and bonding in forming a diaspora that would be hidden otherwise.