The role of place in everyday life of Ukrainian war refugees in Poland

Kotus, Jacek; Adams, Paul C.

doi:0016-7282 (print)

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The role of place in everyday life of Ukrainian war refugees in Poland Kotus, JacekAdams, Paul C.

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The role of place in everyday life of Ukrainian war refugees in Poland

Geographia Polonica Vol. 97 No. 2 (2024)

Kotus, Jacek : Autor ; Adams, Paul C. : Autor

war refugees ; Ukrainians ; sense of place ; places as gaps ; places of redefinition

The article addresses the issue of Ukrainian war refugees in Poland. The authors aim to reconstruct the role that various places play in the everyday life of refugees in Poland and the differences between recognized places. In this way, the authors try to answer the question about the meaning of place in life as refugee persons during the first weeks and the following months of their stay in host country. The research used a mixed method approach: general questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews. The particular findings of the study are related to the observations that: a) the spaces/places in the first days and weeks of war refugees' stay in the host country are completely generic, b) during their stay in the following months, refugees look for places to redefine their situation. The main conclusion of the research is that places have a very great, perhaps underestimated, importance during the stay of war refugees in the host country.

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