CONVIVIAL CULTURES IN MULTICULTURAL MANCHESTER AND BARCELONA: EXPERIENCES OF POLISH WOMEN

This article concentrates on a new understanding of multicultural societies which emerges from routine interaction between recent and established individuals in various urban spaces. The question of the actual interaction with multicultural population has been largely overlooked in research on Polish migration. Therefore, by exploring the notions of conviviality and convivial cultures, this paper demonstrates how post-2004 Polish presence increasingly affects everyday relations with the local population in both Manchester and Barcelona. The research findings, mainly from the narrative interviews with Polish migrant women, shed light on how convivial cultures emerge and how cultural identities are negotiated in everyday encounters in various spaces of the city, including organisational niches, neighbourhoods, family spaces, schools and colleges, and workplaces. Convivial experiences of Polish migrant women with multicultural population are characterised by constant transformation of multiple identities shaped by personal biographies, experiences of gender and other social categories, which are often shared with other groups and individuals

CONVIVIAL CULTURES IN MULTICULTURAL MANCHESTER AND BARCELONA::EXPERIENCES OF POLISH WOMEN

This article concentrates on a new understanding of multicultural societies which emerges from routine interaction between recent and established individuals in various urban spaces. The question of the actual interaction with multicultural population has been largely overlooked in research on Polish migration. Therefore, by exploring the notions of conviviality and convivial cultures, this paper demonstrates how post-2004 Polish presence increasingly affects everyday relations with the local population in both Manchester and Barcelona. The research findings, mainly from the narrative interviews with Polish migrant women, shed light on how convivial cultures emerge and how cultural identities are negotiated in everyday encounters in various spaces of the city, including organisational niches, neighbourhoods, family spaces, schools and colleges, and workplaces. Convivial experiences of Polish migrant women with multicultural population are characterised by constant transformation of multiple identities shaped by personal biographies, experiences of gender and other social categories, which are often shared with other groups and individuals