Migrant and refugee women from former USSR countries at the Crossroads of Sociopolitical Crises, Russian War in Ukraine and Intersectional State Violence

Women from former USSR countries with migration histories who arrived in Poland in recent years have faced complex challenges resulting from the recent poly-crises in the Eastern European region. This empirical article, based on 39 in-depth narrative interviews with Belarusian, Chechen, Russian and Ukrainian migrant and refugee women, hears and retells their narratives of fleeing, migration, trauma and marginalisation. Particularly, it shows the diverse experiences of the multiple wounds related to war, intersectional state violence, disadvantage and deskilling in the labour market and the complex processes of precarization. However, whilst it uncovers the accumulation of risks and precarity, it also documents how women regain strength and agency in decisions and life strategies, especially in the context of intersectional state violence experienced transnationally. It concludes that despite multiple and complex adversities, migrant and refugee women retain their subjectivity, whilst the (transnational) sisterhood – women’s support in recovering and shaping livelihood strategies – plays a crucial role in such processes.