JA – CHŁOPKA, JA – MIASTOWA. DOŚWIADCZENIE MIGRACJI ZE WSI DO MIAST W PAMIĘTNIKARSKICH RELACJACH KOBIET W POLSKIEJ RZECZPOSPOLITEJ LUDOWEJ / internal migration, biographies, diaries, social advancement, rural spaces, urban spaces, identity, upward mobility

Abstract

This article aims to describe the processes of identity changes of rural-urban women migrants in the 1950s and 60’s Poland. Based on an analysis of diaries, two ways of creating one’s identity in the context of social images of the rural and the urban, as well as social constructs of femininity in urban and rural settings will be described. Two models of migration process will be presented based on two diaristic narrations, analyzed with tools associated with the biographical method. Diaries will be examined in the context of contemporary modernization discourse, in opposition to conventional binary images of the rural (“backward”, traditional) and the urban (modern, active), as well as femininity models associated with rural and urban spaces. The article aims to present the female experience of migration and ways of adapting to a new lifestyle.

Keywords

• internal migration
• biographies
• diaries
• social advancement
• rural spaces
• urban spaces
• identity
• upward mobility