Jacek Schmidt

This text seeks to present basic knowledge on the detention of foreigners in Poland and the research perspective adopted in the project involving the authors of the papers published in this volume. The article has been divided into two parts. The first one contains characteristics of the detention of foreigners in the Polish context: directions of migration flows resulting from the location of our country, as well as the whereabouts and profiles of the centres administered by the Border Guard. Part two familiarises the reader with the specific nature of our detention study project: its conceptual apparatus, the adopted research paradigms, the applied methodology, and the challenges related to our exploratory efforts being performed in a very specific place – the guarded centres for foreigners. In the authors’ intention, all this information is to constitute a useful background to the detailed considerations contained in the subsequent papers presented in this volume of the journal.

This paper focuses on the characteristics of the space and places of guarded centres for foreigners in Poland. It contains a discussion of universal features of the detention space for foreigners typical of the total institution, stocktaking of the centres’ space and the places which fill it, as well as characteristics of the ways of using the space and their determinants. The general perspective of the perception of the detention space focuses on its identification as a tool of authority and the execution of social control, domination and subjugation.

For eight years, employees and students of the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań have been providing support activities in guarded centres for foreigners in Poland. Their work involves organising play and art, craft and music activities for children and adult foreigners. This offer has benefited at least 500 foreigners. The second form of assistance is the organisation of workshops for police officers (expansion of their legal, socio-cultural and psychological knowledge, formation of tolerant attitudes, etc.).

Detention of Foreigners as a Research Topic and Methodological Challenge

The paper presents the conceptual and methodological assumptions (research strategies) regarding the project “Space organisation in Polish detention centres for foreigners”. This pioneer research project studies detention centres as a total institution, which so far was outside the area of academic interest. An interdisciplinary, one-year group research project in all six guarded centres for foreigners in Poland involved an original, eclectic concept of studying the organisational culture of total institutions. This concept referred to various theoretical inspirations, such as proxemics, kinesics, symbolic interactionism, morphogenesis theory, the model of patron-client relations, the concept of morality economics, etc.

Keywords: total institutions, detention of foreigners, research strategies, interdisciplinarity

Streszczenie

Tekst zawiera prezentację koncepcji i założeń metodologicznych (strategii badawczych) projektu „Organizacja przestrzeni w polskich ośrodkach detencyjnych dla cudzoziemców”. Jest to pionierskie przedsięwzięcie badawcze realizowane w instytucji totalnej, która do tej pory pozostawała poza oglądem przedstawicieli nauk społecznych. Roczne badania zespołowe, które przeprowadzono we wszystkich sześciu strzeżonych ośrodków dla cudzoziemców w Polsce miały charakter interdyscyplinarny, wymagały opracowania autorskiej, a zarazem eklektycznej koncepcji badania kultury organizacyjnej instytucji totalnej, odwołującej się do różnych inspiracji teoretycznych (proksemika, kinezyka, interakcjonizm symboliczny, teoria morfogenezy, koncepcja „patron-klient”, koncepcja ekonomii moralności i in.).