Social and institutional dimensions of the central reception points on the polish-ukrainian boarder

Abstract

The military operations conducted by Russia since February 2022 are deepening the material and humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine every day. As a result, they also caused a wave of refugees to neighboring countries, including Poland. Most of the refugees, right after crossing the border, ended up in the so-called central reception points. Their organization and operation were unprecedented. From both an administrative and social point of view, we are dealing with a completely new phenomenon. Reception points are hybrid institutions created as a result of administrative decisions, but their functioning in Poland would be difficult to imagine without the social involvement of citizens, i.e. without countless support initiatives that created a powerful social movement. The article presented here is a summary of a field study conducted in April 2022. Its subject was the functioning of reception points in their institutional and civic dimension; their specific and nodal nature, which attracted the social movement to help refugees; the dynamics of attitudes and motivations of the parties involved in their functioning, as well as the cooperation of various social actors in this area.