Aleksandra during presentation. Photo by SIEF 2025 volunteer.
In her presentation, titled (Un)writing Borders through Hospitality: Capturing Private Hosting of Ukrainian Refugees in Poland through Flash Ethnography, Aleksandra shared insights from her fieldwork on private hosting of Ukrainian refugees in Poland, conducted as part of our ongoing NCN-funded OPUS project. She focused on how personal and institutional responses to the refugee situation intersect, and how private hospitality operates in a country without a formal private sponsorship program. Her presentation introduced flash ethnography as a method for capturing the brief, emotionally intense moments of hosting and being hosted, offering a way to reflect both the urgency of these experiences and the longer-term negotiations of care, belonging, and governance.
SIEF 2025 Conference
Aleksandra Krzyżaniak, PhD candidate in our project, participated in the 16th Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF 2025), which took place in Aberdeen, Scotland, under the conference theme (Un)writing at the beggining of June 2025.
At SIEF, Aleksandra joined the panel Writing about mobilities: borders and public health in the climate regime. The panel brought together researchers exploring the role of writing - both as an ethnographic method and as a way of shaping the experiences of mobility and borders. Through discussions on ethnographic storytelling, experimental writing, and the politics of knowledge production, panelists reflected on how writing can help challenge dominant narratives about migration, mobility regimes, and global inequalities.