Polish migrants in Scotland: voting behaviours and engagement in the Scottish independence referendum

Polish migrants are the largest non-UK born population in Scotland (56,000 in 2012). As EU citizens who are resident in Scotland, they are eligible to vote in the 18 September 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. Using a survey of 245 Polish migrants in Scotland we investigate their level of engagement with the Scottish referendum asking; do Polish migrants vote and where (Poland and/or UK)? Will they take part in the referendum? Will the outcome of the referendum have an impact on their migration or settlement plans in Scotland

Lost in Transnationalism: Unraveling the Conceptualisation of Families and Personal Life Through a Transnational Gaze

This paper compares and contrasts some of the conceptual language used to engage with the realm of family and personal life within the parallel fields of transnational family studies (TFS) and British family studies (BFS). Key concepts which are now widely referenced within BFS - such as 'family practices', 'family display', 'families of choice' and 'connectedness' - have not been widely drawn upon within TFS. Instead, TFS scholars are developing alternative concepts such as 'ways of being' versus 'ways of belonging' and 'frontiering and relativising', often to capture very similar ideas to those current within BFS. This paper critically explores some of the concepts currently being used within transnational family studies, highlighting points of similarity and difference with the BFS tradition, and considers what these parallel literatures might learn from each other. The paper is illustrated by examples drawn from ESRC-funded research on the experiences of post-accession Polish migrants living in the UK.Transnationalism, Polish Migration, Family Practices, Family Display, Connectedness

Should I stay or should I go? Strategies of EU citizens living in the UK in the context of the EU referendum

What might EU migrants in the UK do in order to cope if the UK leaves the EU? Might they stay or go? Using data from an online survey we find out what the three largest EU nationality groups (Portuguese, Polish and Romanian) in the UK have to say. These three groups represent three different EU enlargement waves, with Portugal having joined the European Union in 1986, Poland in 2004 and Romania in 2007

Regaining honour and regaining legitimacy: shame, obedience and risk practices amongst Chinese communist officials

As part of its anti-corruption campaigns in China, the Communist Party of China (CCP) provides officials opportunities to redeem themselves and renew their vows of loyalty to the Party and the people they serve. Officials must regain honour through a process of self-confrontation and self-renunciation in compulsory meetings in which they are encouraged to transform their immoral thoughts and behaviours through confessional criticism and self-criticism practices. These meetings facilitate officials’ redemption through a divinized, ritualistic and theatrical process. In the process of confession and penance, officials must expose themselves to a type of ritual martyrdom, which combines elements of shame, a commitment to absolute obedience and exposure to risk. This paper is based on original fieldwork comprising 50 interviews with high-, mid- and low-level officials across China during 2014 and 2015

Nurturing resilient future citizens through value consistency vs. the retreat from multiculturalism and securitisation in the promotion of British values in schools in the UK

The controversial duty to promote British values in Schools and Further Education Colleges in England, Scotland and Wales was introduced in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. This duty is described by some as the introduction of securitising mechanism into British Schools, for others it is a symptom of the UK Government’s further retreat from Multiculturalism. In this article, we present the duty as the most recent reconstructive intervention designed to remedy alleged failings in the education system to produce liberal British citizens and to counter the growth of extremism. In the article, we will explore how local institutions such as schools and colleges have implemented the duty in a way that defuses some of the securitising aspects of the Statutory Duty through celebrating the UK as a multi-racial, multi-faith and multi-cultural society and through ensuring that their promotion of British values is consistent with their existing value system and ethos which includes the promotion of pupils’ Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development

Polish Migrant Parents of Secondary School Boys in the United Kingdom

This article focuses on the parents of secondary school Polish boys and their capacity to realise their educational and professional aspirations for their children. Our primary finding is that although many Polish parents face considerable challenges in manoeuvring through the educational system, some Polish parents display a level of agency comparable to that of white, British middle-class parents

Governing through 'the family' in China: Cultivating ethical political subjects through officials' 'nearest and dearest'

In this article we argue that the families of Communist Party members are increasingly being seen as both part of the problem and part of the solution to eradicating corruption in contemporary China. Our findings reveal how families are being investigated as well as co-opted by the party as a mechanism for encouraging its members to become ethical communist subjects. The current anti-corruption campaign in China is the context that has enabled this indirect governance of communist officials through the co-option of their ‘nearest and dearest’ in the party’s power structures. We argue that ‘the family’ in China is a privileged site for the remoralisation of society and the party through the process of facilitating what we call the ‘ethical subjectivities’ of officials. The contribution we make in this article is to analyse the continuum between the formal agencies of socialisation within the communist system and the informal but equally important institution of socialisation, namely, Communist Party members’ families

Governing for and through harmonious community: The emergence of moral clinics in China

In this article, we advocate the adoption of ‘more temporal and processual characters’ to understand contemporary community governance in China. We show that communities in China are seen both as producing moral problems and as being the solutions to these problems. Furthermore, we argue that the establishment of the moral clinic provides an alternative to neoliberal ways of self-governance. In the article, we present moral clinics as a new form of community self-governance whose aim is to achieve a complex balance between various conflicts in the context of China’s unprecedented urbanisation in the name of governing for and through community harmony. Through examining the establishment of moral clinics, we expose how the relationship between the moral ‘hospitalisation’ of society and the socialisation of individuals can be understood in new ways. We argue that the institutionalisation of this ‘moral work’ is a strategy based on old techniques of Chinese traditional medicine that are being enhanced by modern organisational settings. In addition, we examine the micropolitics of the moral clinic through exposing the power relations behind its structural design, and especially its links with the state

From privileged to thwarted stakeholders – Polish migrants’ perceptions of the Scottish Independence Referendum 2014 and the UK General Election in 2015

Scotland in 2014 and 2015 provides an ideal context for examining EU citizenship political rights as established in the Maastricht Treaty of 1993 from the perspective of Polish migrants resident in Scotland. We argue that the contrast between Polish migrants’ full enfranchisement in the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014 to then being disenfranchised from the UK General Election in 2015 is a significant site for observing how EU laws interact with state-centric and also ‘post-national’ notions of citizenship. Our participants’ experiences of voting in the Referendum and subsequently not being able to vote in the General Election were articulated in the following terms: (a) the justification of their political rights in terms of their stake and contribution in the UK; (b) their frustrations with regards to anti-migration rhetoric and the limitations of European citizenship; and for some, (c) their plans of apply for British citizenship in the context of EU membership uncertainty

Complexities of Polish migrant's citizenship attributions in the context of Brexit and the Scottish Independence Referendums

This article focuses on the experiences of Scotland's largest foreign-born minority group, namely Poles, in the run-up to the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014 and subsequently the UK's EU Referendum. Through exploring Polish migrant residents initial responses and experiences with regard to both referendums, this article (1) outlines perspectives on blurred and contested boundaries and formations of citizenships and (2) the implications of complex and changing relations between citizenship attributions (e.g. political participation, legal status of citizenship and sense of belonging) on the process of citizenship formation. This article therefore offers a greater understanding of the transformation of traditional state-centric concepts of citizenship rights into the shifting borders and character of citizenship formation during the times of political uncertainties