“Bridging Worlds – Vietnamese Transnational Migrant Communities in Poland”

Despite recent developments in the field, Vietnamese migrant communities in Eastern European countries continue to be poorly investigated in both regional studies and migration studies. However, this history – starting with educational exchanges between Soviet bloc countries and developing into “grey zone” bazaar practices under conditions of ‘wild capitalism’ – offers fascinating insights into macro and micro processes, from larger geopolitical frameworks to individual migration experiences, as well as relations between migrants and with those back in the homeland. Based on more than ten years of research on Vietnamese communities in Poland, as their families in Hanoi, I focus on the transnational connections maintained by migrants and returnees against a backdrop of changing political and economic systems in both countries, exploring how such changes have shaped individual strategies of contemporary migration to Europe.

Dr. Grażyna Szymańska-Matusiewicz is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Sociology of University of Warsaw and one of Poland’s foremost experts on the Vietnamese diaspora in Central Europe. Her comparative work on Vietnamese families in Warsaw and Hanoi has been published in Central and Eastern European Migration Review, Asian Anthropology, Qualitative Research Journal, and numerous Polish venues. Her current project on transnational migrant communities as a bridge between Poland and Vietnam is funded by a SONATA research grant from the Polish National Centre for Science.