September 17, 2025

Migrants as Heritage Makers: Micro-Level Practices and Multiscalar Perspectives in Post-Migration Cultural Heritage Participation

Key Points

The study shows migrants actively shape their cultural heritage practices post-migration, enhancing their agency.
Grassroots heritage practices were examined through the cultural engagements of Poles in Norway and Ukrainians in Poland, revealing distinct participation dynamics.
This exploration employs a multiscalar perspective to understand micro-level heritage practices in broader social and structural contexts.
Understanding heritage as a dynamic phenomenon highlights the importance of migrants' contributions, encouraging further inquiry into transnational identities.

Abstract

This paper explores migrants' engagement with cultural heritage, approached at the micro level of individual practices and offering a novel model of migrants’ participation in cultural heritage. Grounded in critical heritage studies and recent developments of migration studies, it bridges these fields by applying spatiotemporal and multiscalar perspectives to analyse how migrants negotiate, adapt and redefine their processual, performative heritage practices on a micro level post-migration. Focusing on the heritage performance of Poles in Norway and of Ukrainians in Poland, the study contributes to the growing scholarship on grassroots heritage practices, emphasising migrants’ agency in shaping heritage beyond Authorised Heritage Discourse. By situating people’s micro-participation in heritage after migration within broader structural, social, temporal and spatial contexts, this research fosters a deeper understanding of heritage as a dynamic, processual and multiscalar phenomenon. Keywords: cultural heritage, migration, Poles in Norway, Ukrainians in Poland, multiscalar perspective, transnationality

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