The unconference was an interesting exercise for me in evaluating how I work and think versus how my peers work and think. While I have looked up “polish women migration” “polish women transition period” so many times at this point, it was interesting to see what my other group members found using their fresh perspective and searching on Google. Avery did this and found a webpage called ‘War, Cold War, and New World Order: political boundaries and Polish migration to Britain’ by Kathy Burrell at De Montfort University. This page includes testimonies about both men and women’s experiences migrating, and how before the fall, migrating from Poland meant you were preparing to never return to Poland. As some of the oral history in this webpage touches upon Polish identity and its relation to migration, I hope to examine it further for my final paper. Another aspect that I enjoyed about the unconference was hearing from both professors during our Tribe A exercise. I think as students of history, we are so used to hearing “what are you going to do with that degree after uni?” and sometimes feel discouraged by how unfeasible other students or adults make a successful career after doing history seem. Hearing the optimism both Dr Struck and Dr Banjeree have about their career choices and research made me feel a bit more relaxed about my degree choice and that it is worth studying a subject that I love, rather than one that is focused only on making money after graduation.
At the unconference I was brainstorming a topic for my short essay, and after looking over the course document and its encouragement of focusing on historiography, I think I want to focus more on the historiography of migration, gender and Poland. This will illuminate hubs of migration that have already been focused on (Chicago, Germany, UK, etc.) and in this will also showcase where the gaps lie that my research and final paper can fill. Another idea that I wrote about during our speed writing sessions on Saturday is to focus on what is going on in Poland in the postwar period that affects women such as contraceptives, child care, and employment changes. Still, I think context about these phenomena will arise in papers about gender in Poland that can then be coupled with migration. Another idea is to look deeply into social reproduction theory, however, I do not want to push too many things together in just 2,000 words. These are my journal-like thoughts after Saturday and as I head into writing the short essay.