The MEMPOP team is pleased to invite you to a book talk titled 'Memory in Postmigration Communities. Fields of Memory’ (Routledge, 2026) by Małgorzata Łukianow.

 

Time: 17.00 – 18.30 CET,  9 June 2026

 

Place: Zasedačka, Institute of Ethnology CAS, Na Florenci 3, 110 00 Praha 1 and on Teams

 

Teams link: Microsoft Teams meeting

Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/394538816945593?p=uwdx6HJXfeGTqTk3Hr

Meeting ID: 394 538 816 945 593

Passcode: 4Wb6bi3B

 

This book offers an exploration of Postmigration memory fields—spaces where multiple and often conflicting memory narratives of the same past event intersect within a limited locality. Focusing on Poland and the remembrance of the postwar and post-communist periods, it examines what happens when diverse mnemonic trajectories converge in small communities: how memories coexist, clash, merge, or become silenced.

By defining and illustrating diverse modes of social memory formation, the book explores how communities decide what becomes their heritage and how families, local authorities, and cultural institutions work to balance overlapping, and sometimes conflicting, memories within a shared space. Can a local museum that strives to encompass multiple narratives still act as a cohesive bearer of identity? Can families with ancestors from dispersed regions weave a coherent story about themselves? Combining theoretical insight with grounded ethnographic analysis, Memory in Postmigration Communities provides conceptual and methodological tools for studying societies shaped by total or large-scale population exchange. It will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, anthropology, history, and memory studies interested in collective remembrance, local identity, and post-displacement heritage.

 

The event is supported by the ERC Starting Grant 'Memory and Populism from Below' (MEMPOP) #101076092 .

 

About the speaker:

Małgorzata Łukianow is a sociologist at the University of Warsaw, Faculty of Sociology. Her research focuses on memory studies, with particular expertise in oral history. She has previously held positions at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Chemnitz University of Technology, and the University of Michigan. She co-chairs the Polish Regional Group of the Memory Studies Association.

 

Discussant: Diána Vonnák, MEMPOP, Department for Mobility and Migration, Institute of Ethnology CAS

Pdf version here.