WSPÓŁCZESNE ZJAWISKA IMIGRACJI UCZONYCH A 'SPRAWA POLSKA'

Post-medieval Poland has been a country of emigration rather than immigration. Consequently, research on the former has dominated and there have been few studies on the latter process. Moreover, due to the character of immigration to Poland, there is nearly no research on highly skilled immigrants. The author of this text is primarily interested in the recent migrations of scientists. This kind of mobility is not completely unique but has some interesting characteristics. For instance, migrating scientists have better control over their life chances, their situation on the labour market is usually good, they have a relatively high status. This kind of mobility can be analyzed from the point of view of sociology of science as a global and local (national) enterprise; from the point of view of ethnography of scientific collaboration; but also from the traditional, for migration studies, point of view of the dynamics of culture contact, i.e. broadly understood assimilation processes, building of cultural ghettoes, or resistance to incoming aliens depriving the local people of attracting jobs.