Neither Here, Nor There: The Vicious Circle of Liminality among Ukrainian Forced Migrants in Poland

Abstract

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 forced many Ukrainians – including highly educated, middle-aged women with no previous migration experience – to migrate. As a result, they found themselves in liminality – suspended between past and future, old and new identities and different socio-political contexts; they are ‘no longer there’ (in Ukraine) and they are ‘not yet’ fully ‘here’ (in Poland). This article explores three different sources of this state among Ukrainian women: disrupted life paths, fractured identity and belonging tensions. The first source is related to the experience of war and forced migration, which has led to an existential crisis characterised by a sense of uncertainty, disorientation and limited agency. The second source is fractured identity, which involves an identity crisis manifested in self-perception dissonance, the reconfiguration of socio-professional roles and processes of self-redefinition. The final source is belonging tensions, which caused a belonging crisis marked by experiences of marginalisation and social exclusion by both Ukrainian and Polish society, which necessitates a constant renegotiation of social perception. This multifaceted crisis generates a vicious circle of liminality among migrant women which is challenging to overcome. This article demonstrates that liminality is a multidimensional, intersectional and dynamic process, characterised by continuous shifts and transformations.