In June 2021, researchers from different countries and fields attended and presented at the online conference ‘Socio-Economic connections between Eastern Europeans in South Africa’ to understand the diversity of those connections and their representatives. The conference was organised by the Ukrainian Association of South Africa (NPO), the Polish Association of Siberian Deportees (NPO) and Sol Plaatje University in Kimberly, South Africa.

The conference aimed to spark the curiosity of researchers from different fields to map key migration processes from Central and Eastern Europe to South Africa. Its objectives were to understand the present contributions to this field of research of integration of migrants, to identify the institutions migrants are setting in South Africa and to discuss the role those communities play in developing cooperation between South Africa and Eastern Europe.

Today we are excited to present the collection of papers developed based on the conference presentations.

Thank you to Oksana Pyatkovska, Stefan Szewczuk, Nikolai Vukov and Istvan Tarrosy for their contribution.

For the research on Ukrainian community see also the publication Ukrainians of South Africa: Society, Identity and Future