Refugees or migrants? – Public perception of the concepts based on opinion poll results

Abstract

The aim of article is to answer the questions: what is the public perception of the terms ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’? as well as In the light of opinion polls, are these terms equivalent or do they have a different connotation (linguistic content) and denotation (scope)? The starting point for the analysis is the identification of the dictionary-encyclopaedic, statistical and formal-legal meanings of these names. The analysis presented in the article is based on the results of the public opinion research “Social perception of refugees from Ukraine, migrants and actions taken by the Polish state”, which was carried out between 2022 and 2023 by the research LAB managed by the author. In order to holistically reconstruct the social perception of ‘refugees’ and ‘migrants’, the author developed a multidimensional indicator (index), which he called the Social Perception of Migrants Index (SPMI). The result of the analysis is the identification of the constitutive features of the names ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’ as well as their denotation. The author also proposes to introduce a new concept concerning the migration crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border and the refugee crisis on the Polish-Ukrainian border, which he called a ‘hybrid humanitarian crisis’.