‘It’s about mindset’. How do young migrants in Poland build their resilience?

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to investigate how young migrants’ resilience manifests in different spheres of their lives. Adapting the Keck and Sakdapolrak's framework, we define resilience as being comprised of coping, adaptive and transformative capacities. While coping capacities are a post-crisis short-term response, adaptive and transformation capacities encompass more proactive and long-term planning. Drawing on interviews with young Third Country Nationals living in Poland, conducted within the framework of H2020 project MIMY, we analyse how the different types of resilience capacities intersect with different areas of integration. We also highlight that resilience is not only the ability to bounce back, but also the power to bounce forward, which implies the capacity to transform individual lives and their environments. Interestingly, in young migrants’ narratives their personal resources, such as a positive mindset, persistence etc. play a crucial role. While community resources (family support and social capital) were mentioned, structural opportunities were largely absent in their narratives on resilience. Therefore, we can talk about a process of (self-)responsibilization of migrants for integration, which relates to the neoliberal discourse on newcomers’ self-reliance.

KEYWORDS:

• Young migrants
• resilience
• resilience capacities
• well-being of migrants
• integration

Introduction

Recently, Poland, like other CEE countries, has transformed from a traditional ‘sending’ country to a ‘receiving’ country, particularly for migrants from Ukraine and other Eastern European countries (OECD 2020).¹ At the moment of conducting this study, in 2020 and 2021, among incoming migrants, young people looking for a job or educational opportunities constituted a major part (UdSC 2021). In this article, we focus specifically on young adult migrants, as a growing body of literature (see e.g. Juárez et al. 2013; Wu et al. 2018; Singh 2021) indicates that in their case, the challenges connected with migration intersect with developmental tasks inscribed in the transition to adulthood. Interrelating structural and developmental transitions make the integration process particularly demanding for young migrants, requiring them to use their own various resources (OECD/EU 2018; Wu and Ou 2021).

In this article we focus on one of these resources that appeared to be prominent in the interviews with young migrants living in Poland, namely resilience. Stemming from physics, and adopted later by the social sciences, particularly by psychology and environmental studies (Adger 2000; Leys et al. 2020), resilience is defined as ‘a dynamic process encompassing positive adaptation within the context of significant adversity’ (Luthar, Cicchetti, and Becker 2000, 543). However, more recent publications on the subject emphasize that resilience is not only about coping with adversities and restoring a status quo, but it may have a positive, transformative effect on migrants’ individual trajectories, as well as on their lives at the community level (Keck and Sakdapolrak 2013).

In this article, we explore young migrants’ resilience in the context of their integration process in Poland. Being aware of the current scientific and political debates on the notion of integration (Grzymala-Kazlowska and Phillimore 2018; Schinkel 2018) we do not aspire in this article to resolve the conceptual discussion around this term, instead we use it broadly, as a ‘two-way process of mutual accommodation by all immigrants and residents’ (EESC 2004, in: Grzymala-Kazlowska and Phillimore 2018, 181). The generally accepted assumption that integration is a multifaceted and segmented process (Ager and Strang 2008), namely that it takes place in different life domains, is crucial for further analysis in this article. Along these lines, we investigate how young migrants’ resilience manifests itself in the domains of their legal and financial situation, education, position in the labor market and career development, social capital, socio-political activity, sense of belonging, as well as feelings of safety and general well-being. The last area is of particular importance, as it has often been neglected in previous conceptualizations of integration (Paparusso 2021).

So far in migration studies, resilience has been researched mainly among forced migrants (Pickren 2014; Fingerle and Wink 2020) or international and foreign students (Ploner 2017; Singh 2021). Here, we have a broader scope which includes different groups of migrants who are, or have been in the past, in vulnerable situations. This article is based on the qualitative data collected during the Horizon 2020 project entitled ‘EMpowerment through liquid Integration of Migrant Youth in vulnerable conditions’ (MIMY). Specifically, we focus on data concerning the resilience and integration of young Third Country Nationals living in Poland for at least one year. Our aim is to develop the framework of resilience put forward by Keck and Sakdapolrak (2013) with reference to young migrants’ integration process. We analyse how the different types of capacities that form resilience manifest in migrants’ lives and how they intersect with different areas of integration.

From resilience as an individual trait to a multifaceted concept of resilience

Resilience is differently defined depending on the discipline (Adger 2000; Leys et al. 2020). In the most general terms, it is understood as the capacity for positive adaptation despite significant adversities (Masten 2019). Popularized in psychology in the 1980ies, resilience is most often conceptualized in this field as an individual trait or disposition connected with personality, temperament, or coping strategies that allow people to develop successfully despite vulnerable and stressful situations (Masten and Garmezy 1985; Wu, Tsang, and Ming 2014). Although even in the seminal Kauai Longitudinal Study (Werner and Smith 1982), the authors highlighted the role of social support from family members or community, resilience was later often perceived as a characteristic explaining why certain people cope better than others ("less resilient"). Such an individualistic and unambiguously positive understanding of resilience has been criticized, particularly for shifting responsibility for the outcomes of an adaptation solely on a person and not taking into account structural factors, or even masking structural vulnerabilities (Mahdiani and Ungar 2021; Preston, Shields, and Akbar 2022). At the same time, in sociology, human geography or environmental and developmental studies, resilience is defined as an attribute not only of a person but also of a group or community. For instance, we can speak of resilience in the context of recovery from disasters or transforming in the face of environmental pressures (Aldrich 2012) or about urban resilience described as the capacities of cities to react to rapid changes and to adapt to them (Meerow, Newell, and Stults 2016; Zapata-Barrero 2023). In the context of migration, urban or community resilience would mean transforming in order to create a liveable and inclusive environment (Czerska-Shaw and Kubicki 2023).

In this article, acknowledging the critique of resilience mentioned above, we conceptualize it as a multifaceted process shaped by personal, community and structural resources (Trąbka, Pietrusińska, and Winogrodzka 2023). In other words, resilience stems from both individual capacities and opportunity structures at the meso and macro-level; it involves repeated interactions between personal qualities and surrounding environmental factors (Luthar, Cicchetti, and Becker 2000; Gilligan 2001). Furthermore, in line with some conceptualisations, we use the term resilience not only as the ability to bounce back (return to the state from before adversity), but also to bounce forward (adapt and develop as a result of adversity) (Obrist, Pfeiffer, and Henley 2010).

Although in this paper we focus on the resilience of individuals, albeit shaped by structural and social factors, we find Keck and Sakdapolrak’s (2013) analytic framework of social resilience particularly fitting, as it offers a multifaceted and dynamic understanding of resilience, while precisely describing its dimensions.

Hence, in line with their conceptualization, we define resilience as being comprised of three dimensions: (1) coping capacities, which mean the ability of individuals to cope with and overcome different kinds of current adversity using directly available resources; (2) adaptive capacities, which point to learning from past experiences and adjusting to future challenges by applying preventive measures; (3) transformative capacities, which indicate taking action using access to broader socio-political support that fosters individual welfare and strengthens resilience towards future adversities (Keck and Sakdapolrak 2013). While coping capacities are a post-crisis, short-term response, adaptive and transformation capacities include more proactive and long-term planning. The three types of resilience capacities also differ in terms of their outcomes and the degree of change they imply. Coping capacities are geared towards maintaining the status quo by restoring the current level of well-being; adaptive capacities consist of gradual changes ensuring the security of future well-being, and transformative capacities lead to radical changes aimed at enhancing people’s well-being in the face of both present and future challenges. Table 1 presents the Keck and Sakdapolrak’s (2013) conceptual model of resilience – four criteria distinguishing the three dimensions of resilience that we use in our analysis: response to risks, the time horizon of actions taken, the degree of change in people's lives, and the outcomes induced by different capacities.

Table 1. Capacities of resilience.

	Coping capacities	Adaptive capacities	Transformative capacities
Response to risk	ex-post	ex-ante	ex-ante
Temporal scope	short-term	long-term	long-term
Degree of change	low, status quo	medium, incremental change	high, radical change
Outcome	restoration of present level of well-being	security of future well-being	enhancement of present and future well-being

Source: Keck and Sakdapolrak (2013, 10).

Methods and data

This article draws on empirical material collected for the Horizon 2020 research project MIMY, which focuses on the integration processes of young migrants from Third Countries in Europe. Our main research question concerns how different young migrants’ resilience capacities manifest themselves and how they intersect with different areas of integration.

The article presents the Polish findings – the results of the three complementary parts of qualitative research about young migrants (18-30 years old, with an average age of 25) who have lived in Poland for a minimum of one year: (1) three focus group interviews (FGI in which 8 women and 8 men took part); (2) 39 semi-structured individual in-depth interviews (IDI) with young migrants in vulnerable situations (22 women and 17 men), and (3) 10 IDIs with young migrants in a relatively better situation, who were perceived as having positive integration experiences and who are recognized in local communities due to their socio-cultural or business activities (8 women and 2 men²) (see Table 2).

Table 2. Sample characteristics in the three parts of the study.

	Participants (18–30 years old)	Country of origin and number of participants	Methods and gender of participants	Research period
Part 1	Young migrants in vulnerable situations (with an uncertain legal situation, precarious working and living conditions)	Ukraine (8), Belarus (1), other countries (7): Turkey, Colombia, Thailand	3 FGIs (16: 8 – F, 8 – M)	March – July 2021
Part 2		Ukraine (16), Belarus (7), other countries (16): Tadjikistan, Russia, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Chechnya, Turkey, Sierra Leone, Brazil	39 IDIs (22 – F, 17 – M)	June 2021 – January 2022
Part 3	Young migrants in a relatively better situation, who were perceived as having positive integration experiences	Ukraine (6), Belarus (4)	10 IDIs (8 – F, 2 – M)	January – February 2022^3

Source: own elaboration.

Vulnerable conditions of participants in Part 1 and Part 2 were understood broadly and included experiences of forced migration, precarious living and working conditions or having an uncertain legal situation in Poland. Almost all interviewees in this group worked below their qualifications, in low-paid jobs, some of them combined it with education. They were diverse in terms of their family situation: the majority migrated on their own, while some people came with their parents, partners, or children. Interviewees from Part 3 were enjoying relatively good life situations at the time of the interview, but in the past, they had struggled with diverse challenges. The aim of distinguishing these two subgroups in the project was to ensure that we cover a variety of trajectories and migration experiences. However, we do not assume they are completely different in both groups. On the contrary, in each life story, we can see moments and areas of vulnerability, as well as positive experiences. In all three sub-samples the majority of interviewees were of Ukrainian and Belarusian origin, as migrants from these two countries constitute the vast majority of foreigners in Poland (Górny and Kindler 2023). The absence of persons from other countries in subsample three does not mean that they do not have positive integration experiences in Poland but is connected with the recruitment strategy. In Part 3, interviewees were indicated by peer researchers working in the project as persons who are recognized in their communities and therefore their nationalities match the ones of peer researchers. At the same time, their integration in Poland may be relatively easier due to linguistic and cultural proximity. In the interview scenarios, there were questions about migratory experiences and, more specifically, on different factors that young migrants perceived as opportunities and constraints along their integration trajectory.

The project adhered to rigorous ethical standards regarding interviewing, data handling, and preservation of anonymity that are characteristic of research with migrants in vulnerable situations (Happ 2021). The methodology of the MIMY project included a participatory approach and the use of peer research methods, which recognize that peer researchers have insider knowledge and shared ‘lived experience’ with study participants (Pietrusińska, Winogrodzka, and Trąbka 2023). Young people with migration backgrounds, after receiving research training, were actively involved in recruitment, interviewing and, partially, in analysing data. Thanks to the cooperation with peer researchers, some of the interviews were conducted in the native languages of the interlocutors – in Ukrainian, Russian, or Tajik, the rest were conducted in Polish or English. The FGIs and IDIs were conducted both face-to-face and using internet video calls. The project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee at the implementing institution.

With participants’ prior permission, both FGIs and IDIs were recorded and transcribed or detailed notes (with quotations) were made. To analyse the research material, we used thematic analysis (Nowell et al. 2017). This involved identifying and coding data segments that reflected different strategies used by young people when facing migration and integration challenges. The codes were theory-oriented, created on the basis of Keck and Sakdapolrak’s (2013) resilience concept (coping, adaptive, transformative capacities) and the different spheres of integration. We used co-occurrence coding that assigns two or more codes to the same passage of text: one of the three resilience capacities and one or more spheres of integration to which the statement referred.

As ‘a research team builds codes and coding builds a team through the creation of shared interpretation and understanding of the phenomenon being studied’ (Weston et al. 2001, 382), the authors decided to code collaboratively by organizing ‘data coding sessions’ to discuss research material and gain interpretative convergence. The thematic analysis, facilitated by the MAXQDA 2020, resulted in three empirical subsections, discussed below, in which various resilience capacities are described in the context of different areas of integration.

There was a lot of my own personal impact and a lot of my personal dedication. The resilience capacities of young people in the context of migration

In the course of the following analysis, we apply and develop the framework of resilience put forward by Keck i Sakdapolrak (2013) and reconstruct the relationship between young migrants’ resilience capacities and different areas of integration. This way we contribute to the body of knowledge in migration studies. As we demonstrate, resilience is processual and may evolve over time, depending on migrants’ life situation and different integration areas. The beginnings of life in a new country require multiple and diversified coping capacities to restore safety and well-being after various changes connected with migration. Young migrants make coping efforts primarily to stabilize their financial and legal situation, as well as to build bonding capital. After some time, it is important to employ adaptive capacities to gain comfort of living in the new place in the future. Young migrants use adaptive tactics especially to improve their educational and occupational situation and to build bridging social capital as well as gradually form a sense of belonging in a new place. In turn, transformative capacities are revealed only after an extended period, when a person has enough resources to engage in longer-term goals. The last type of resilience capacities is used by migrants in relation to career development as well as involvement in socio-cultural and political activities. Young migrants tend to develop their resilience capacities with time, but it does not mean that this process is ineluctable, nor that it has some universal pace. On the contrary, it is highly dynamic, depending on personal, community and structural resources.

Coping capacities – bouncing back and stabilizing the situation

Most of the time, migration is a stressful experience in the life of a young person due to the multifaceted changes in cultural, social and economic domains (Wu and Ou 2021). An individual needs to rebuild a basic sense of security, navigate in a new socio-cultural context and restore their well-being after the structural transition. The number of challenges requiring immediate actions in various areas make the initial integration phase particularly demanding. Coping capacities of resilience prevail mainly in this early period of migration, allowing some young migrants to bounce back to the state they knew before facing the adversities connected with migration.

Basic coping strategies appear in areas such as obtaining legal status, finding a job and a place to live, learning a new language and building initial social relations in a new place. The majority of young migrants use informal networks of friends and relatives to overcome adversities that appear in the beginning of their migration journey. As one of the interviewees recalled: ‘My friend is a journalist, and she found some people who helped us, one guy told us where to open a bank account, gave us a guidebook for Gdansk, helped to find a flat etc. When we had a roof, we started to search for a job’ (P2, F, Belarus, 27). However, those migrants who did not have any close contacts in Poland tended to deal with getting to know the new locality on their own:

(…) it wouldn't hurt to find out some information from the Internet, or maybe find some acquaintances, or there is some kind of centre for helping migrants, to have at least a little idea in advance about where you're going, what you need, how to adapt and how to be legitimised (P2, F, Russia, 18).

In interviewees’ narratives, restoring physical safety through finding a flat and a job was important, but they also highlighted the role of a suitable mindset and attitude towards their new life situation. Many interviewees mentioned retrospectively that it was important to ‘be prepared to get out of one’s comfort zone’ at the beginning of their stay in the new country. Having personal resources such as self-esteem, self-efficacy – was crucial for dealing with adversities that had occurred at the beginning of migration. One of the young migrants noticed: ‘for some people adaptation, acclimatization to new work, without family … when people don’t have such mental resources it could be a problem’ (P2, M, Belarus, 24). Another person also mentioned a positive attitude that helped him to cope with new situations:

I think it’s about mindset, how you will set your mind in a very different culture, very different weather, very different society. (…). Those who are really weak in a mental way, those who are not very strong mentally, it’s hard for them to survive in a new environment. In the beginning you have to be very smart, your mental health should be very good otherwise you won’t be able to adapt to everything fast, because everything is quite new, you have to give yourself time, you have to think a lot about yourself (P2, M, Bangladesh, 27).

Some interviewees mentioned different skills useful on the migration path, such as adaptability, flexibility, communication skills and general openness, that were extremely important in overcoming obstacles that appeared in the first months after migration.

Developmental and structural transitions related to migration reshape family relations. Young migrants, who start to live abroad without their families, have to reshape their daily relations with their parents and relatives, who are no longer physically close. Moreover, being away from the parents forces young migrants to quickly adjust to the new social role of an adult, which also influences their relations with family members. Although this process is challenging, most of our interlocutors see it as a source of their resilience. As one of our interlocutors said:

When I went abroad, I started to be more independent in everything – in thinking, cooking, buying clothes, working, living, falling asleep and waking up. When you are alone you have to manage everything independently. When you are with your parents, you have someone with whom you can talk, someone who takes care of you (P2, M, Uzbekistan, 20).

Young migrants try to create a safe space for themselves in both physical and psychological sense. After providing this basic sense of safety, they also try to build up their sense of comfort and well-being in the new space. They build a ‘second home’ for themselves, for instance by domesticating the place they live in (‘[in a flat that I live] I’ve created a cosy place, especially by putting flowers’ (P2, F, Ukraine, 30)). In the initial integration phase, when people do not know the language yet, bonding social capital is particularly helpful. As one of the male migrants noticed:

Any relocation is much easier (…) when you know people, when you are moving not to complete emptiness. I was in such a situation when you are in a foreign country, you don’t speak the language, and you are completely alone, it’s very sad. Such situations happen. (…) But it’s always less stressful when you have someone to contact (P2, M, 30, Belarus).

Although the majority of coping capacities were related to personal resources, sometimes participants also mentioned family and friends as social resources that they used to deal with adversities. They talked with their parents via social media and sought their advice, as in the case of one of the interviewees, who said:

Most of the time they [parents] help me with the advice. They advise me what to do in certain situations, where to go. Yea, I’m independent but I prefer to ask them, to learn from them, because they live longer than I (P2, M, Uzbekistan, 20).

Coping capacities are not limited merely to restoring a sense of safety at the beginning of migration but are also used when adversities appear further on during their migration trajectory. They are related to sudden or daily stressful situations, such as problems at work, in relationships, etc. Interestingly, to regain balance in life in such situations, young newcomers more often use personal resources than community or structural ones. For instance, in stressful situations, young migrants do sport (‘Sport allows me to get rid of negative emotions. There is a positive atmosphere and emotional support’, P3, F, Ukraine, 30); go for a walk, engage in other hobbies (‘Listening to music or watching movies and TV series helps me when I’m stressed’, P2, F, Ukraine, 25), so they use resources that are directly available to them. Some young migrants also mentioned attending sessions with psychologists to deal with hardship in their life.

Other strategies that use community infrastructure, as well as strategies that are based on established social relations, such as: team sports, activities within the diaspora, informal networks – did not appear in the interviews as important coping strategies at the beginning of migration but were present in further stages of their stay in Poland. We assume that this might be due to the fact that at the beginning of migration, individuals do not have sufficient information about the above-mentioned resources; they are absorbed with organizing their lives in a new locality and they may not have extensive social networks to rely on.

Coping capacities allow young newcomers to find balance in their life after changes related to structural and developmental transitions caused by migration. When young migrants regain psychological and physical safety and well-being, as well as restore basic aspects of life like legal status and social relations, they are more likely not only to bounce back, but also develop.

Adaptive capacities – bounce forward through planning small steps

As illustrated above, the initial settling period requires intensive coping efforts connected to overcoming challenges with organizing one’s life in a new place or dealing with daily stressful situations. In comparison with the above characterized coping capacities, adaptive capacities imply longer term strategies aimed at gradually improving one’s life situation. They are not an ex-post reaction to emerging adversities, but rather preventive measures aimed at securing one’s well-being.

Bearing in mind the challenges connected with both structural and developmental transition (Wu and Ou 2021), such as finding a satisfactory job, building one’s social network and finding one’s place in a society, interviewees drew primarily on their personal resources, such as optimism and persistence. The conviction that it is necessary to overcome one’s fears and reservations, and leave one’s comfort zone, was a recurring theme in the narratives describing both coping and adaptive capacities. However, in the case of the latter, this effort was not made to ‘bounce back’ from adversities, but to ‘bounce forward’, to develop and introduce incremental changes in their lives.

Hence, in the case of adaptive capacities, interviewees acted in order to accumulate different resources (financial, educational, cultural etc.) to avoid potential adversities in the future that could hinder the realization of their migration plans, for instance deportation, problems with obtaining a residence permit, or underemployment. As one of the interviewees stated: ‘You should always keep in mind your purpose: why did you come here’ (P2, M, Bangladesh, 26). At the same time, participants highlighted the role of patience and persistence. Referring to her friends’ decision to return to Ukraine after a short period in Poland, another participant said: ‘They wanted everything at once, and you need to do things in turn, step by step’ (P2, F, Ukraine, 29).

Despite possible difficulties at the beginning, such as working below one’s qualifications, financial problems or lack of fluency in Polish, many interviewees were realizing a long-term strategy for improving their situation. This strategy of small steps was often visible in the domain of education and the labor market. Many young migrants have educational aspirations, but for the moment they cannot afford to study and are forced to work below their ambitions and often qualifications to earn money for studies.

I came here to study. My goal is to become a highly qualified software developer. But currently I cannot enrol in normal studies because of my financial situation. Nevertheless, I pursue my goal. I work and I earn money for my studies (P2, M, Uzbekistan, 20).

In a similar vein, another interviewee emphasized her determination to overcome difficulties connected with the language barrier, with a view to improving her situation in the longer perspective, which is illustrative of adaptive capacities. ‘I came not knowing Polish at all. I worked in a factory. During this period, I attended Polish language courses. It was very hard to combine. (…) This adaptation process lasted for over a year’ (P2, F, Ukraine, 27).

Others, who came to Poland with tertiary education diplomas or professional qualifications which are not recognized in the EU and who are therefore not able to continue their career path, make pragmatic decisions to retrain, often in vocational colleges. For instance, a young woman who graduated from economy and was an accountant in Ukraine, now studies in a cosmetology school: ‘I am happy that I will have a trade job. I like the fact that no matter which city I go to, I can be a cosmetologist, and economist … ’ (P2, F, Ukraine, 29).

The second life domain where adaptive capacities manifest are social relations and hobbies. While social relations have already been mentioned as a crucial coping strategy in the initial integration phase, building one’s network is also an important part of adaptive capacities, aimed at securing one’s well-being in the future and introducing changes into one’s life. Although it does not always come easily or naturally, in the long run it turns out to bring a significant improvement in migrants’ life-situations. For instance, referring to the moment when he decided to sign up for drawing classes, a young man said:

I just forced myself to try, so then … I feel great there, it is like my second school, second home so … yeah, I would say finding the groups of interests of yours, even if they don’t speak English, it’s a good thing because then you know that you share the same interests, the same connections (P1, M, Ukraine, 21).

Echoing his words, another interviewee emphasized the role of finding and pursuing one’s interests: ‘if you are satisfied with some things in your life, you will adapt more easily’ (P1, F, Ukraine, 30). Analysing adaptive capacities, we can see how the above described strategies result in strengthening young migrants’ agency and self-efficacy, thus introducing longer term improvements in their quality of life. The relation between engaging in various activities and well-being is apparent in the quote below:

I consider myself a Varsovian of a new generation. Of course, there are a lot of older people here, but there are also many young people who came here and do plenty of interesting things. They create new forms of activities in Warsaw. I used to take part in them (P2, M, Ukraine, 29).

This citation also illustrates how people begin to feel more comfortable in their cities and how their sense of belonging emerges, resulting in the conviction that they have become part of their localities and bind their future with Poland: ‘I already feel at home here, I don’t want to come back [to Ukraine], in five years I see myself having my own studio flat, driving a good car and starting a family’ (P1, M, Ukraine, 22). The willingness to bring their family to Poland, or to support close ones who remain in countries of origin, are often part of these plans.

In contrast with coping capacities aimed at restoring a sense of safety and well-being, adaptive capacities are more future oriented and imply development – ‘bouncing forward’ (Obrist, Pfeiffer, and Henley 2010), although the changes may not seem radical or spectacular. The words below illustrate young migrants’ conviction that successful coping not only allows them to solve problems ‘here and now’, by relying on directly available resources, but also has consequences for the future. As people acquire more faith in their capacities, they feel more comfortable and self-confident, and are therefore less afraid of potential difficulties.

I feel different if I compare now and the moment I arrived. Now I feel that I can make any agreement, I can solve any problem. I feel that there are more opportunities and vacancies that I can be good for. (…) They say that a person grows in uncomfortable moments, that’s how you get experience, and any experience will give an easier road later. Once you overcome something with difficulties, you know you can do it again. You probably need to treat difficulties the way that they will pass, that it’s a growing point (P2, F, Belarus, 27).

Speaking about their integration process, interviewees highlighted the role of their individual strengths in dealing with different vulnerabilities. In their eyes, it was their own resilience along with the support of their closest networks that gave them strength to develop and improve their lives. Few participants mentioned psychotherapy or other forms of psychological assistance, but the emphasis on the importance of mental health and a positive mindset was present in many interviews.

I am really happy that I have my therapist, because for me it is a form of self-development, but the therapy helped me a lot in the past, when I barely had strength and health to cope with the two jobs I had. I do not know how things would be now if not for the therapy. Getting to know myself better is crucial for me and thanks to that I also understand my students better (P3, Female, Belarus, 29).

Summing up, adaptive capacities are aimed at planning and initiating activities leading to gradual changes in one’s life situation. In contrast to coping capacities, they do not only restore stability, but are more future oriented and focused on securing well-being in the longer term.

Transformative capacities of migrants – looking for new opportunities leading to radical changes

Making radical changes aimed at avoiding or dealing with both present and future adversities distinguishes the transformative capacities of resilience (Keck and Sakdapolrak 2013). Similarly to the capacities described earlier, enhancing well-being requires young people to mobilize mainly their personal resources in order to manage this development proactively. As revealed in the analysis of interviews with young migrants, they use transformative capacities primarily to improve their careers and situation in the labor market – not only in the economic sense, but also in terms of job satisfaction.

The transition from education to work, including the pursuit of self-development, is an important stage in which young people form a vision of their career. This was also evident in the case of young migrants looking for their own place in the Polish labor market. In this context, participants mentioned the crucial role of individual strengths, such as determination and perseverance, strategic planning for future steps and persistence in making repeated attempts to implement their plans. One of the young Ukrainians spoke about her professional path, portraying the decision-making processes which led her to establish her own, prospering business in Poland:

I've always dreamed of having my own beauty studio (…), and I put aside money with that in mind. (…) I earned money for my first courses, and I started learning. I started getting my first clients. (…) I'm stubborn in life in general, and I think it helped me a lot because I keep going to the end, to victory. I think the most important thing for a person is to know what he wants. I had a dream that I would have my own business, and I have. I believe that if someone knows what he wants, he will strive for it (P3, F, Ukraine, 23).

Most of the participants using transformative capacities had already met their essential needs, such as legalization of stay or housing security. Most of them also had a relatively strong sense of belonging to Polish society and satisfactory social relations. Hence, they could undertake activities to develop their careers, including trying alternative scenarios and taking major risks. The participants referred to their strategic agency, autonomy, and self-reliance in creating their own life paths.

Poland is a country that opens various possibilities related to what you want to do. [Here] you can try; if you fail, you can keep trying. Poland doesn't close you in one field for the rest of your life. (…) I finished my studies and decided that the best thing I do is lead someone, and I just created what I have now [a stand-up network]. It wasn't easy, but I just tried different things, and it worked out. (…) I had to take a risk (P3, F, Belarus, 28).

The analyses show young migrants’ capacity to make significant changes in their life circumstances, but also their attempts to transform the social structures within which the different challenges are often embedded. Mainly in the case of interviewees from Part 3 of the study, we heard many examples of their efforts to help migrant communities which focus on overcoming hurdles related to discrimination and socio-political exclusion. These social activities are very often directly related to difficulties that young migrants encounter as newcomers, and are usually performed by them voluntarily. Meanwhile, some participants are more entrepreneurial and find a niche market where they can combine community support with money-making abilities. An example of the former instance is given by a female participant, a volunteer in one of the NGOs helping asylum seekers and a blogger who provides migrants with necessary information during their first steps in Poland:

I have my blog on Instagram and TikTok to share my knowledge about legalization in Poland and how you can develop your career in Europe and Poland. A part of the blog is dedicated to interviews with people who moved from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus and their experience in Poland, the reality, and expectations. (…) I can help a person who needs it. I can give support and see the result of my work. It’s a fantastic feeling (P3, F, Ukraine, 26).

Young migrants utilize different resources in order to overcome challenges related to gaining a suitable education or employment and, consequently, achieving social and political inclusion, equally on a collective level. These transformative capacities are illustrated very well by the story of a socially engaged artist, who, in her cultural activity, focuses on the inclusion of Ukrainian migrants in the Polish labor market. Her significant achievement was establishing the first trade union in Poland associating female Ukrainian domestic workers. As she said:

I appreciate this project very much because it really responds to such a need, such a fundamental need of these people and these elderly domestic workers, for the need to meet. (…) I just know that it was needed, and I can also see the effects of the fact that this group of people is now working, developing, and going to for example meetings with the politicians. This group is still self-organizing, and these women are grateful so much for organizing it, and that it just works (P3, F, Ukraine, 27).

The determination of young people to take action to improve the quality of life of migrants very often proceeds from individual struggles they themselves have experienced in Poland just after migration (Wu and Ou 2021). Based on their own experiences, they are strongly empathetic, and, in consequence, committed to protecting other young people from similar obstacles. This is very clear in the story of a performer and social activist, who works with young migrants from the LGBTQ + community. His engagement was built from self-advocacy, and the real need to be supported and to support others at the same time.

I was looking for something that I would do for myself, and that was the turning point because I was in Warsaw, and I really couldn't find a program that would be aimed at me, for a boy who is 22 years old, who is not interested in parties. I looked around and found nothing. And that was the moment when I realized that I wanted to do something for myself, I wanted to meet new young people and so on and so on. (…) So I wrote on Instagram to [the name of the institution where he works now], asking if they needed a person who speaks Ukrainian, they invited me for an interview, (…) and they said ‘okay, let's try’ (P3, M, Ukraine, 26).

As mentioned earlier, based on the observation of other migrants’ experiences, some participants very accurately identified the gap in the services available in the Polish market. They mobilized their individual strengths such as inventiveness, courage to risk, resourcefulness, and entrepreneurship to create their own business, combining earning money with providing services that improve the lives of migrant clients. An example of a young entrepreneur who runs a Polish language school for Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian-speaking people demonstrates that transformative capacities of resilience constitute not only the capacity to respond to existing hardships, which means the ability to bounce back to the same state; transformative capacities also involve taking preventive measures to avoid coming difficulties and as a result to enhance situation. Moreover, the power of resilient people to bounce forward relates to not only the ability to transform their own lives but also the life of their community. A young woman's statement shows that having a tangible influence on strengthening integration processes and the social inclusion of migrants was the driving force behind her activities.

My goal is not, for example, to earn more money – of course, it's great, but I would like every person following these courses to be able to find a good job, speak Polish well, understand Poles, and not feel uncomfortable in this country. I want the students to know not only the language but also the history, so we have a lot of different meetings or speaking labs to help them learn more about this country and its culture (P3, F, Belarus, 29).

The conducted analysis proves that transformative capacities make participants better prepared and empowered to deal with both present and future hardships and setbacks. This is demonstrated not only in the context of their career, but also in relation to socio-cultural and political participation, both individually and collectively, thereby transforming the reality they live in. However, it should be emphasized that even in the case of the transformative capacities of resilience, interviewees used, above all, their own personal resources.

The model of resilience in the context of migration

The article aimed to analyse how different resilience capacities – coping, adaptive and transformative – manifest in different spheres of young migrants’ lives. In this section, we summarize this analysis. We show how we unpack the relatively generic concept of resilience in the social sciences, presenting the practical implications of resilience capacities (Keck and Sakdapolrak 2013) within the field of migration studies. We develop Keck and Sakdapolrak’s (2013) model of resilience by supplementing it with several new dimensions – areas of integration, response to adversities, and the scope of change.

Regarding different dimensions of resilience, coping capacities incorporate short-term, re-active responses that allow individuals to overcome current adversities using directly available resources so that they are able to restore their level of well-being after different critical events. In the context of the migratory experience, coping emerges especially in the beginning of migration, to face up to challenges related to building one’s life in a new place. It includes stabilizing the legal and financial situation, building a sense of security, often basing primarily on bonding social capital, and restoring one’s well-being after various challenges connected to migration.

In contrast to coping capacities aimed at dealing with emerging setbacks, adaptive capacities imply longer-term planning and preventive measures aimed at gradually improving one’s life situation. It involves more strategic agency based on learning from past experiences to create ways of mitigating or even overcoming future adversities. Adaptive capacities emerge with the passage of time in the new place and manifest mainly in the area of education and the labor market; however, contrary to coping capacities, they encompass not only securing one’s situation, but also improving it by gaining new qualifications or looking for more satisfying jobs. These capacities are also present in the area of social capital, particularly in a bridging form, as well as in fostering a sense of belonging to a new locality.

Contrary to adaptive capacities that conduce to incremental changes aimed at preparing for future challenges, transformative capacities lead to considerable developments that enhance people's well-being in the face of both present and future adversities. Furthermore, using transformative capacities, people can make the changes and attain a better situation not only at the individual level, but also on a collective level, within existing opportunity structures. In these cases, personal resources become community or structural resources that can be used by others. Young migrants with the ability to make significant changes both in their own lives and in their surroundings have a relatively strong sense of belonging to society, and are able to consciously use their personal resources to manage these changes proactively. Their narratives testify to their agency and high level of reflexivity in creating their own life paths, including looking for new opportunities, taking risks and experimenting with different options. These capacities are used mainly in the context of the labor market and career development, as well as in socio-political activities aimed at changing the status-quo (Table 3).

Table 3. The model of resilience in the context of migration.

TIME

	Coping capacities	Adaptive capacities	Transformative capacities
Areas of integration where different types of resilience are manifested	legal and financial situation, safety and well-being, bonding social capital	education, labor market, bridging social capital, belonging	career development, socio-cultural and political activities
Response to adversities	bounce back (stabilizing the situation)	bounce forward (adjusting and planning)	bounce forward (looking for new opportunities and taking risks)
Scope of change	individual	individual	individual and collective

Source: Own elaboration inspired by Keck and Sakdapolrak (2013).

With reference to the dimensions that we added, ‘areas of integration’ indicates those areas of integration among young migrants where a particular type of resilience capacity manifests most. As we demonstrated, coping capacities are present mainly in the areas of integration related to establishing a new life, such as: the legal and financial situation, general well-being, and bonding social capital. Adaptive capacities manifest most in the areas of life related to education, labor, belonging and building bridging capital, while transformative capacities are related mostly to socio-cultural and political activities. The diversified manifestation of the following types of resilience is related to the fact that, during the course of their migration journey, young migrants gain resources enabling them to navigate effectively in new areas of integration. Thus, over time, the range of the resilience capacities may extend under enabling conditions and with access to adequate personal, community and structural resources.

By adding the new dimension called ‘response to adversities’, we wanted to grasp the effects of each resilience capacity and what can be achieved with them. In our model, we do not reject the dimensions proposed by Keck and Sakdapolrak (2013) to describe the different types of resilience (response to risk, temporal scope, degree of change, outcome). At the same time, for greater clarity of the model, we present them within a synthetic single dimension. Thus, coping capacities allow one to return ex-post, in the short term, to one’s state from before adversity by stabilizing the situation. In contrast, the effects of adaptive and transformative capacities (ex-ante, long-term) are related to development and improving one's situation. Adaptive capacities allow young migrants to plan and adapt to challenges by implementing incremental changes, while transformative capacities are used when they modify their environment and develop themselves by implementing radical changes. This latter process is related to risk taking and looking for new opportunities.

The last dimension added by us – ‘scope of change’ – describes who experiences the change. The subjects of coping and adaptive capacities are individuals who change themselves and their own lives. When young migrants use transformative capacities, besides making individual changes, they can modify the broader environment where other people exist (e.g. by creating working spaces for others).

Discussion and conclusion

Though the model of resilience proposed here concentrates on the integration process in a host country, what needs to be considered when exploring the dynamic process of resilience are individuals’ social, cultural and economic capitals (Trąbka, Pietrusińska, and Winogrodzka 2023) acquired before their migration. Personal resources in the form of various accumulated capitals cause different people to develop different resilience capacities at different paces and at different stages of the migration path. As a result, migrants may have unequal exposure to the same challenges, and thus experience various constraints and opportunities in building and developing their resilience. For instance, people who prepare for migration (e.g. learn the host country's language before leaving, gain knowledge of the law in the destination country, and have an extensive social network there) may have a smoother initial integration phase, in which particularly intense coping efforts are required. In a similar vein, structural conditions are different, depending on migrants’ country of origin. In the Polish context, citizens of several countries, including Ukraine and Belarus have relatively easier access to the labor market, they learn the language faster due to its similarity with Polish and they often have social networks that may offer support. Thus, such persons can use their adaptive or transformative capacities earlier by planning and looking for new opportunities in the new place. This again corroborates the processual and contextual character of resilience, as well as its interdependence on structural resources.

While we by no means undervalue structural factors in the course of migration, we want to emphasize that interviewees themselves highlighted primarily the role of personal resources such as: self-esteem, agency, positive self-image, adaptability, flexibility, communication skills and general openness. Young migrants stressed that elaborating a certain mindset had a very direct impact on how they managed in their lives and envisaged their future. Taking into account the character of our data (subjective and retrospective) we do not imply that the path to integration of young migrants is undisturbed and successful, provided that they have a positive mindset, nor that resources and support on mezo and macro level are irrelevant. What we want to highlight is that their personal resources play a vital role in how they construct their resilience and, connected with it, that they feel responsible for the ‘outcome’ of their integration.

This mechanism of young migrants’ self-responsibilization for integration is a complex process strongly intertwined with the requirements of independence and autonomy during the transition to adulthood experienced by young people (Arnett 2000) that influence the way of their self-presentation, also during individual and group research interviews. In a contemporary world characterized by uncertainty and rapid change (Heinz 2009), young migrants are forced to navigate a reality where self-reliance becomes crucial. The individualized society (Bauman 2005) reinforces the ideology of self-fulfilment present in the neoliberal system's discourses. Within its framework, young migrants are encouraged to take charge of their own migration and integration journey, making independent decisions and actively seeking opportunities for themselves. The fact is that young migrants firmly believe in their own agency, illustrating the formation of their resilience. Young migrants, emphasizing the predominant role of personal resources (i.e. determination and not giving up, patience and persistence, planning for future steps, taking risks, etc.) embody the essence of self-responsibilization in the context of integration. This does not mean that young migrants do not benefit at all from structural and institutional support. However, from their own subjective perspective, this category of support is positioned at the very end, following what they consider to be the crucial factors: their own determination, the role of family, and friends.

This attitude of young migrants is closely related to the mechanisms of responsibilization of young migrants for integration (Trąbka, Pietrusińska, and Winogrodzka 2023) that are multifaceted and often arise due to hostile conditions in the host country (Arendas et al. 2023) resulting in a lack of supportive structures at the central level. In the face of the absence of coherent national migration and integration policy in Poland, young migrants struggle on their own with the complexities of integration. They are supported in this by various NGOs, although the range of problems NGOs encounter (instability in terms of financing and staff; rigid frameworks of funding institutions resulting in lack of flexibility and – sometimes – impossibility to implement projects that would best address the young migrants’ needs) does not always allow for effective and adequate support (Shahrokh et al. 2021). Making migrants responsible for integration is compounded by the scarcity of projects specifically addressed to young adults, leaving them with limited resources and tools in their transition to adulthood in a new country. In practice, the approach to migrants’ integration in Poland can be seen as neoliberal, meaning that integration is treat as the individual’s responsibility (Preston, Shields, and Akbar 2022). Such an approach reorients the understanding of integration towards a ‘one-wayness’ perspective, contrary to the frequently proclaimed two-way nature of this process (Trąbka, Pietrusińska, and Winogrodzka 2023). It is worth stressing that the neoliberal discourse on newcomers’ self-reliance affecting their self-dependence can be empowering for some, but also overwhelming for others and deepen young migrants’ vulnerable situation.

With regard to future research, it would be beneficial to deepen the topic of integration constructed as the individual’s responsibility (Preston, Shields, and Akbar 2022) and seek answers to the question of why young migrants in Poland mainly use personal resources to build their resilience and overcome adversities without taking into account institutional support. Additionally, examining people of the same age in the present context – the massive influx of war refugees after February 24, 2022, after full-scale Russia's invasion of Ukraine (Duszczyk and Kaczmarczyk 2022) – would provide reflection from a temporal and social perspective regarding if, and how, the approach to integration in Poland has changed. Second, given the intersection of migration studies and youth studies, it would be worth exploring which resilience capacities are used by young people more in the context of migration (Wu and Ou 2021) and which in addressing the challenges related to the transition to adulthood, involving different cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal changes (Juárez et al. 2013). Third, in relation to capitals owned and developed during the migration trajectory, it would be valuable to study how different kinds of capital are transferred and transformed, and how these processes can improve the integration pathways of migrants (Obrist, Pfeiffer, and Henley 2010). Fourth and last, there is a need for more research to verify to what extent the model of resilience inspired by Keck and Sakdapolrak's (2013) framework is applicable in wider contexts to study other social groups and different forms of mobility.

This article may provide a step towards bringing together the debates on the resilience of young migrants and their integration with host societies. These two notions, although prominent in migration studies, have usually been addressed separately. Our analysis suggests that there is an interrelation between resilience and integration processes, and that they reinforce each other. On the one hand, resilience helps migrants to deal with challenges and adversities inherent in the course of integration, on the other – successful adaptation strengthens resilience and makes people less prone to potential adversities in the future. However, the relation between these two concepts requires further investigation.

Competing interest

No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The paper is a result of the project ‘EMpowerment through liquid Integration of Migrant Youth in vulnerable conditions’ (MIMY). MIMY has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation funding programme under Grant Agreement No. 870700. Open Access of this publication has been supported by a grant from the Faculty of Management and Social Communication under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at Jagiellonian University.

Notes

1 At the beginning of 2022, the number of Ukrainians in Poland had been estimated at around 1.3–1.5 million (Duszczyk et al. 2023), while the combined number of foreigners from all other countries was over 800 thousand. A few months later, after the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, the number of Ukrainians living in Poland has risen to an unprecedented level of approx. 3.5 million. Russia's aggression against Ukraine has caused massive movements of war refugees (Duszczyk and Kaczmarczyk 2022). A year after Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine, 1 million Ukrainian citizens, mainly women and children, have temporary protection in Poland. A total of 1.4 million people has valid residence permits (the data does not include people staying in Poland under visa-free travel or based on visas) (Gov.pl 2023). Economic migrants, characteristic of the previous wave of migration from Ukraine to Poland and recently forced migrants from Ukraine faced different opportunity structures resulting from the national support system. The latter group benefited from more comprehensive support and various development opportunities, while the former group experienced limited options shaped mainly by economic and labor policies.

2 Regarding migration trends to Poland, we observe a progressive feminization. Female migrants actively engage in various labor-market sectors and participate in social and cultural activities within the host community. Additionally, entrepreneurship has emerged as a solution for them to avoid discriminatory practices in the labor market (Homel 2022; Andrejuk 2018). Hence, the sample in Part 3 primarily consisted of women.

3 All parts of the study were completed before Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.