Are Ukrainian refugees still ‘temporary’?

Borders & Belonging

Since February 2022, over 19m Ukrainians have fled their country. Almost half probably remain spread across the world, most of them in Europe. They are considered temporary refugees – but are they really temporary? Where are these people, and what challenges face their host countries?

First in this episode, we'll hear from Aleksandra and Michał Miszułowicz, a couple in Poland who helped resettled thousands of Ukrainian refugees as soon as the conflict began in 2022.

Host Maggie Perzyna then turns to two academic experts to explore the situation of Ukrainian refugees: Izabela Grabowska, professor of social sciences at Kozminski University in Poland, where she is also director of the Centre for Research on Social Change and Human Mobility (CRASH), and Yuliya Kosyakova, professor of migration research at the Otto Friedrich University Bamberg and head of the research department at the Research Institute of the Federal Employment Agency in Nuremberg, Germany.

Maggie is a researcher with the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration & Integration program at Toronto Metropolitan University and this podcast is Borders & Belonging. In it, Maggie talks to leading experts from around the world and people with on-the-ground experience to explore the individual experiences of migrants: the difficult decisions and many challenges they face on their journeys.

She and her guests will also think through the global dimensions of migrants’ movement: the national policies, international agreements, trends of war, climate change, employment and more.

Borders & Belonging brings together hard evidence with stories of human experience to kindle new thinking in advocacy, policy and research.

Top researchers contribute articles that complement each podcast with a deeper dive into the themes discussed.

Borders & Belonging is a co-production between the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration & Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University and openDemocracy. The podcast was produced by LEAD Podcasting, Toronto, Ontario.

Show notes

Below, you will find links to all of the research referenced by our guests, as well as other resources you may find useful.

Art and documentary

‘Arts of war: Ukrainian artists confront Russia’, by Blair Ruble, Wilson Centre (2023)

‘Children caught up in the Ukraine War’, by DW Documentary (2023)

‘Defying Russian missiles and Soviet censors, Ukrainian art goes on show’, by Scott Rayburn, New York Times (23 November 2022)

‘How Ukrainian refugees in Poland are coping a year on from the war’, by BBC Newsnight (2023)

‘Ukrainian refugees in Russia’, by ARTE.tv Documentary (2022)

‘Uprooted’, by Andzej Gavriss, Creative Agency Don’t Panic, for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (2022)

Donate or get involved!

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)