In the summer of 2021, the Polish-Belarusian border became one of the key sites along an irregularised route to the European Union. The migration route was not entirely new. While it had been used in earlier decades, it re-emerged in 2021 after the Lukashenko regime simplified visa procedures for travellers to Belarus. This move was widely understood as a response to EU sanctions imposed after the fraudulent 2020 presidential election and the violent suppression of the pro-democracy movement, thereby challenging the EU's border externalisation regime. Amid these geopolitical dynamics, it opened a new opportunity for people devoid of regular routes to seek protection in Europe. Polish authorities responded by denying people access to the asylum procedure and carrying out violent pushbacks to Belarusian territory, often resulting in harm and death of asylum seekers (Border Death Monitoring Group, N.D.; Czarnota et al., 2021). This situation set in motion a process of militarisation, in the form of deployment of soldiers, fortification of the landscape and the gradual institutionalisation of practices denying access to fundamental rights initiated by the state, creating a protracted humanitarian crisis in the borderlands.
Over the past five years, researchers and grassroots organisations have documented the violence experienced by people on the move, the transformation of the border landscape, and the consequences of militarisation for local communities, activists and the environment (Gulińska et al. 2024; Judzińska & Hajdarowicz 2025, Fiałkowska & Judzińska 2025, Judzińska & Sendyka 2022, Straczuk 2024, We Are Monitoring 2024a, 2024b, 2025, 2026). Today, the need for research has not diminished. The social consequences of policies aimed at curbing migration and the ongoing militarisation of the border continue to generate urgent questions for scholars and practitioners alike. In this text, I would like to reflect on what a feminist peace studies perspective can bring to the discussion regarding the Polish-Belarusian border. Specifically, I will explore how it can enhance our understanding of the multidimensional processes occurring on the ground and, equally importantly, identify categories that can help us recognise hope amid the overwhelming violence and exhaustion. A feminist peace studies perspective invites us to broaden our understanding of militarisation beyond soldiers, fences and security policies, while paying closer attention to the everyday practices through which violence is reproduced but also resisted.
Militarisation is clearly visible upon approaching the border. A wall has been built and replenished with new layers of razor wire and surveillance technologies. Nature itself has been weaponised and had become part of the border enforcement system, shifting responsibility for suffering and death onto the environment. The material aspects of the border acquire meaning through the practices of border guards, police officers and soldiers, deployed against unarmed civilians. Yet the effects of the border extend far beyond those who experience direct violence. The border reaches deep into the territory, reshaping mobilities and everyday lives of local residents, tourists and activists. Residents learned to navigate military checkpoints, particularly during the first year of the crisis, when a state of emergency covered much of the region. Casual walks in the forest became accompanied by the sound of helicopters and, for many, by the fear of encountering people in need—or the bodies of those who had died. Tourists, always attracted to the Białowieża Forest, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were first banned from entering and then often discouraged by the presence of soldiers and fear of those perceived as "others", reinforced by the government's securitising discourse. Amidst growing surveillance infrastructure, activists still reach people on the move with humanitarian assistance, despite increasing attempts at criminalisation. What these examples demonstrate is that militarisation is not confined to military infrastructure or the border line itself. It permeates everyday life, transforming places, landscapes and environments (Woodward, 2004), but also reshaping how people move, work, rest and care. Feminist peace studies direct our attention to these social consequences. Within this field, militarisation is understood as a socio-political process through which militarised logic and values are legitimised as necessary conditions of safety, normalising hierarchy, obedience, discipline, and violence (Enloe 2004, 2007; Gjørv 2021; Tucci, 2022). This process often unfolds in times formally understood as peace or beyond moments of declared war, which the Polish case ascribes to. When violence against people on the move is tolerated, justified through legal frameworks and presented as necessary for maintaining order, and when those responsible are not held accountable, it can foster a wider culture of violence. The notion of a continuum of violence allows us to consider that border militarisation may extend beyond the border zone, entering everyday spaces of homes and communities, shaping gender relations and social interactions, while making violence appear acceptable or inevitable (Cockburn, 2004).
A perspective of everyday does not only reveal how violence permeates ordinary life; it also draws attention to everyday embodied practices of resistance and peace (Feron & Väyrynen, 2024; Väyrynen, 2019). A feminist peace studies perspective recognises peaceful relations and behaviours, in the form of mundane acts of solidarity, cooperation within communities, often hidden from the public eye (Boulding, 2000). They enable community endurance but also, as a form of everyday politics, slowly transform power relations locally. On the Polish-Belarusian border, alongside the escalation of state violence and securitisation discourse, another process unfolded. A grassroots solidarity network emerged, built on the collaboration between activists from across Poland and local residents, some of whom drew on their earlier experience in the struggle to protect the Białowieża Forest. These efforts aimed to provide basic humanitarian assistance to people in need of support who, after crossing the border in an irregularised way, were denied access to protection, food, and medical assistance. Activists' bases were established, local warehouses set up, activists shared skills on navigating the forest, treating wounds caused by razor wire, recognising signs of hypothermia, and understanding their rights in the face of defamation and intimidation attempts carried out by the politicians. In parallel, gradually they recognised the need to care for themselves and one another, easing the psychological burden of operating in a militarised locality. The full extent of local support remains unknown, as many kept their acts of care hidden for fear of criminalisation or tensions within communities. The situation often divided families and friends, with people embracing different values in response to the crisis. Some continued to place unquestioning trust in the state and the border guards, once among the most respected public institutions in the region, while others could not turn away from people in need on their doorstep. Yet community endured, with new relationships forged and individuals slowly reclaiming places, forests and rivers often marked by violence.
The perspective of feminist peace studies suggested here does not seek to diminish the violence of the border regime or romanticise everyday struggles. Rather, it makes visible everyday practices of resistance and care, often hidden from public view. Recognising these practices reminds us that militarisation is never complete, even when it permeates different spheres of life. It reveals hope not as an abstract ideal, but as a form of political engagement that both emerges from and fosters a refusal to accept militarised logics as the only way of organising social life (Agyei & Iglesias Ortiz 2025).
Resources:
Agyei, P. D., & Iglesias Ortiz, A. (2025). Resistance and hope in balance: Toward a complementary conceptual framework. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 0(0), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2025.2606199
Boulding, E. (2000). Cultures of peace: The hidden side of history. Syracuse University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.35615674
Border Death Monitoring Group. (n.d.). List of border deaths. https://wearemonitoring.org.pl/en/list-of-the-deceased/
Cockburn, C. (2004). The continuum of violence: A gender perspective on war and peace. In J. Hyndman & W. Giles (Eds.), Sites of violence: Gender and conflict zones (pp. 24–44). University of California Press.
Czarnota, K., Dąbrowska, A., Fiałkowska, K., Karwan-Jastrzębska, J., Klaus, W., Kosowicz, A., Mandelt, M., Mazur, J., Mikulska-Jolles, A., & Wesołowski, F. (2021). Humanitarian crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border. Grupa Granica. https://wearemonitoring.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Humanitarian-crisis-at-the-Polish-Belarusian-border-01.12.2021.pdf
Enloe, C. H. (2007). Globalization and militarism: Feminists make the link. Rowman & Littlefield.
Fiałkowska, K., & Judzińska, N. (2025). Reflections from the borderlands: On hegemonic whiteness and the construction of the Polish hostile environment. In K. Narkowicz, A. Gawlewicz, & K. Pędziwiatr (Eds.), Migration and race: Central and Eastern European perspectives. Routledge.
Gjørv, G. H. (2021). Feminism. Militarism. Whatever. Civil-military operations in Afghanistan. In T. Väyrynen, S. Parashar, É. Féron, & C. C. Confortini (Eds.), Routledge handbook of feminist peace research (pp. 157–166). Routledge.
Gulińska, Aleksandra, Łapińska, Ewelina, Madej, Karolina, Trubiłowicz, Kornelia, & Tymińska, Ada. (2025). So I told myself I couldn’t stay here ...Unaccompanied Children at the Belarusian Border and in the Polish Alternative Care System in 2024. Save the Children Poland. Save the Children’s Resource Centre. https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/document/so-i-told-myself-i-couldnt-stay-here-unaccompanied-children-at-the-belarusian-border-and-in-the-polish-alternative-care-system-in-2024/
Judzińska, N., & Sendyka, R. (2022). The crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border: Sites and things. Sprawy Narodowościowe. Seria Nowa, (54), Article 54. https://doi.org/10.11649/sn.2845
Straczuk, J. (2024). ‘Hybrid war’, military humanitarianism, and epistemic friction: Framing illegalised migration on the Polish-Belarusian border. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50(16), 4234–4252. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2293637
Väyrynen, T. (2019). Mundane peace and the politics of vulnerability: A nonsolid feminist research agenda. Peacebuilding, 7(2), 146–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2019.1590081
We Are Monitoring. (2024a). We have only one war, which is immigration, which is yours: The policy of pushbacks and border forces violence on the Polish-Belarusian border. https://wearemonitoring.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RaportGranica_srodek_ENG_online.pdf
We Are Monitoring. (2024b). I said “I want to stay in Poland” but they pushed me back: 12 months of the new government on the Polish-Belarusian border. https://wearemonitoring.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/WAM-12-months-of-the-new-government.pdf
We Are Monitoring. (2025). A summary of the year 2024 at the Polish-Belarusian border. https://wearemonitoring.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/WAM-summary-2024.pdf
We Are Monitoring. (2026). They did not let us speak: The ‘temporary’ suspension of human rights at the Poland-Belarus border. https://wearemonitoring.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/They-did-not-let-us-speak-WAM.pdf
Inga Hajdarowicz is a researcher and activist with a PhD in sociology. Her work focuses on participatory democracy, grassroots organising, feminisms, and border regimes. She is the author of the forthcoming book Everyday Politics in Exile. Collective Learning and Organizing of Syrian Women in Lebanon (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026). She is a member of the coordinating group of Researchers on the Border, a research collective documenting the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the Polish–Belarusian border. Alongside her research, she provides humanitarian assistance to people on the move.
This blog post was inspired by a Short-Term Scientific Mission (STSM) at the Tampere Peace Research Institute, carried out within the PEACE COST Action as part of the NextGen Fellowship.