Inspired by the border walk organized as part of the 33rd Researchers on the Border Seminar, our researcher Michal Korhel has published a commentary in the Slovak daily newspaper Denník N.
The migration crisis of 2021 has largely disappeared from public attention but it continues to affect the lives of local people and those trying to cross the border. Based on his experience of the border walk in the Białowieża Forest, Michal explores the experience of ordinary visitors and that of migrants, for whom the same landscape means different things. While people usually talk about migration using statistics, national security, and politics, Michal points to the fact that when we do this, it is easy to forget about the real people involved. In the end, his article asks readers to stop looking at migrants as just a political group, and to start seeing them as human beings.