The worker branch in Yorkshire as a way of organising Polish migrants: exploring the process of carving out diasporic spaces within the trade union structure

While post-2004 Polish labour migration to the UK was underpinned by diasporic spaces instrumental in facilitating social and labour market adjustments, the institutions of the host society such as trade unions also sought to establish links with migrants. The analysis of interactions between UK unions and EU migrants focused on organising strategies and specific provisions such as English language learning. However, the discussion tended to ignore the impacts of diasporic influences, from ethnicity and native languages of migrants to the outcomes of migrant worker organising. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative data, this paper discusses how Polishness, in its ethnic, historic and linguistic manifestations, has affected the internal dynamics of a migrant worker organisation created by a major UK trade union. The explicit acknowledgement of diasporic particularities of post-2004 Polish migrants not only enabled labour organising activities but also shaped the migrant worker organisation from within. The strength of diasporic influences on one hand and the chosen form of union organising on the other created conditions for the development of diasporic spaces within the institution of the host society

Being (un)settled as citizens and community: post-2004 Polish migrants, Brexit and the legacy of the Parekh report

This article applies the concept of Britain as a community of citizens and a community of communities to the analysis of post-2004 Polish migrants. This concept received its clearest articulation in the 2000 report on The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain chaired by Bhikhu Parekh, which constituted a hallmark of the national debate on multiculturalism. The report is used as an intellectual inspiration to see post-2004 Poles not just as white labour migrants to the UK, but as citizens and community within the multi-ethnic Britain envisaged by Parekh and his co-authors. The discussion draws on a set of qualitative data gathered in the Northern English district of Wakefield following the Brexit vote. The analysis reveals a high degree of local embeddedness of Polish migrants both as citizens and community, which involves civil relations across ethnic lines and the sense of shared commitment. This inclusion is however undermined by the pattern of paid employment, language difficulties and arbitrariness of the Brexit state, which interviewees experienced both as a community and as individual citizens. While following the dialectical frames set by the report, this article expands notions of the boundary of multi-ethnic Britain by putting this ethnic and post-EU enlargement group within its map

Being a Migrant in the New Destination: the Analysis of Social and Labour Market Experiences of Migrants Residing in a Medium-Sized Northern English Town

This study focuses on migratory experiences in the locality situated in the North of England. This medium-sized town since the late 1990s became a destination for international migrants. Contemporary migration to this locality has been associated with two structural policies: the dispersal of refugees and asylum seekers by UK government and the opening of the UK labour market to the new EU citizens from Central Eastern Europe. The study’s sample has included migrant participants coming both from EU and non EU (dispersed) backgrounds. This piece of research is explorative and inductive in nature. Its ontological and epistemological stances are influenced by intepretivism. The data has been gathered through biographical and semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews and ethnographic observations. The data and its interpretations contributed to the understanding of the following aspects of migrant living in this locality: the motives of migration, the arrival mechanisms, the experiences of paid employment and informal work. The study also examines the local dynamics of ethnic intolerance and individual experiences of housing provision. The interpretation of empirical data is used to construct a theoretical analysis exploring the migration process in the locality which has a particular set of social and labour market characteristics

False self-employment:The case of Ukrainian migrants in London’s construction sector

This article, presenting qualitative accounts of Ukrainian fake business owners, highlights how migrants engage in bogus self-employment in the UK. Their experiences problematise notions of legality and binary depictions of migrant workers as “victims or villains”, demonstrating that migrants see their illegal status as a transient stage before gaining legal status

Intra-EU migration and crime: a jigsaw to be reckoned with

The expansion of the EU has generated vast interest and debate about an alleged crime–migration nexus. The gradual disappearance of borders within the EU has created opportunities for easier people movement, and potentially for offenders to commit criminal offences in other countries. The authors have found that little work has been undertaken to understand the general nature of criminal activity by intra-EU migrant populations. Data on localised offending by foreign nationals can be used to inform intelligence by national and international police agencies, to generate effective cross-border information exchange, aid investigatory techniques and significantly inform crime reduction activity and policies. However, where such information is not collected and available for analysis within member states, informed knowledge within and between member states is difficult to achieve. In order to begin to address these discrepancies, the authors suggest multi-disciplinary and mixed methods

Between disruptions and connections: “new” EU migrants in the UK before and after the Brexit

This paper examines the pre- and post-Brexit experiences and perspectives of migrants from three “new” EU countries – Latvia, Poland and Slovakia – who are living and working or studying in the London area. Deploying the key-concepts of power-geometry and relational space, the analysis explores the way that Brexit impacted the migrants’ connections to the UK “bounded space” and their ongoing mobility behaviour and plans. Empirical evidence comes from 35 in-depth interviews with migrants, most of whom were interviewed both before and after the referendum of 23 June 2016. We find that migrants are unequally positioned socio-spatially to deal with the new power-geometries resulting from Brexit, and we detect diverging trajectories between the more highly-skilled and high-achieving EU citizens and the more disadvantaged low-skilled labour migrants. First, we probe the uncertainties brought about by juridical status, related to the length of stay in Britain. Second, we explore personal and professional connections and disruptions. Third, we question how the power-geometries of time, juridical status and personal/professional connections/disruptions shape future mobility plans

Not Quite Right: Representations of Eastern Europeans in ECJ Discourse

Although the increasing responsiveness of the Court of Justice of the European Union (the ‘ECJ’) jurisprudence to western Member States’ concerns regarding Central and Eastern European (‘CEE’) nationals’ mobility has garnered academic attention, ECJ discourse has not been scrutinised for how it approaches the CEE region or CEE movers. Applying postcolonial theory, this article seeks to fill this gap and to explore whether there are any indications that ECJ discourse is in line with the historical western-centric inferiorisation of the CEE region. A critical discourse analysis of a set of ECJ judgments and corresponding Advocate General opinions pertaining to CEE nationals illustrates not only how the ECJ adopts numerous discursive strategies to maintain its authority, but also how it tends to prioritise values of the western Member States, while overlooking interests of CEE movers. Its one-sided approach is further reinforced by referring to irrelevant facts and negative assumptions to create an image of CEE nationals as socially and economically inferior to westerners, as not belonging to the proper EU polity and as not quite deserving of EU law’s protections. By silencing CEE nationals’ voices, while disregarding the background of east/west socio-economic and political power differentials and precariousness experienced by many CEE workers in the west, such racialising discourse normalises ethnicity- and class-based stereotypes. These findings also help to contextualise both EU and western policies targeting CEE movers and evidence of their unequal outcomes in the west, and are in line with today’s nuanced expressions of racisms. By illustrating the ECJ’s role in addressing values pertinent to mobile CEE individuals, this study facilitates a fuller appreciation of the ECJ’s power in shaping and reflecting western-centric EU identity and policies. Engaging with such issues will not only allow us to better appreciate—and question—the ECJ’s legitimacy, but might also facilitate a better understanding of power dynamics within the EU. This study also makes significant theoretical and methodological contributions. It expands (and complicates) the application of postcolonial theory to contemporary intra-EU processes, while illustrating the usefulness of applying critical discourse analysis to exploring differentiation, exclusion, subordination and power within legal language