Seminarium migracyjne Zespołu Socjologii Migracji IFIS PAN

Serdecznie zapraszamy na kolejne seminarium migracyjne Zespołu Socjologii Migracji IFIS PAN.

Podczas seminarium Klaudia Khan (IFIS PAN/ GSSR) wygłosi referat pt. “Precarious connections: Platform work and migrant integration in Poland as seen by experts and institutional actors”.

Termin: środa 21 stycznia 2026, godz. 11
Miejsce: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii PAN, sala 268

Badanie jest finansowane w ramach grantu Narodowego Centrum Nauki nr rej. 2023/50/O/HS6/00090 (Preludium Bis).

Klaudia Khan
IFIS PAN/ GSSR

Precarious connections: Platform work and migrant integration in Poland as seen by experts and institutional actors
In recent years, digital platforms have become both gateways to labour market and sites of inequality in Europe’s migration landscape. In Poland, taxi and delivery platforms such as Uber, Bolt, and Glovo have emerged as key entry points for newcomers lacking linguistic or institutional capital. Yet whether such work represents a pathway to integration or a trap of digitally mediated precarity remains an open question. The purpose of this study is to explore how experts and institutional actors in Poland conceptualize platform-mediated work as a space of migrant integration. The research examines how academics, union leaders, NGO practitioners, and representatives of digital platforms and fleet partners interpret the role of the platform economy in shaping migrants’ access to work, rights, and belonging. It asks: In what ways do experts perceive platform work as a pathway toward migrant integration in Poland, and in what ways do they see it reproducing precarity and segregation?

The analysis is grounded in a theoretical framework combining migration and integration theories, with critical approaches to digital labour. Drawing on Anthias et al. (2013) and Penninx (2005), integration is understood as a multidimensional process encompassing access, participation, and belonging. Concepts of anchoring (Grzymała-Kazłowska, 2016), differential embedding (Ryan, 2018), and liminal precarity (van Doorn, 2023) highlight migrants’ partial and unstable positioning within labour markets. At the same time, critical scholarship on platformisation (Srnicek, 2017; van Dijck et al., 2018; Altenried, 2024) situates digital work within the logics of capitalism, showing how algorithmic control and entrepreneurial rhetoric sustain flexibility while institutionalising insecurity. In the Polish context, these processes intersect with migration regimes to produce conditional inclusion – economic participation without social embedding.

A qualitative methodology is used in this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 experts representing diverse institutional perspectives. The interviews were analysed thematically, and the findings interpreted through the theoretical concepts outlined above.

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