Production and Transnational transfer of the language of difference: the effects of Polish migrants’ encounters with superdiversity

While Polish migration to the UK has attracted much academic attention, there has been less discussion about the consequences of Polish migrants’ encounters with difference in socially diverse UK contexts. In particular, relatively little has been written about how Polish migrants describe or refer to ‘visible’ difference in terms of ethnicity, nationality, religion, class and gender. This reflects a broader tendency in migration studies to frequently overlook the production and transnational transfer of migrant language. In this article, I explore how Polish post-2004 migrants to the northern English city of Leeds produce ‘the language of difference’ and how this migrant language is passed on to non-migrants in Poland. I distinguish two types of language of difference – the language of stigma and the language of respect. I note that migrants construct both speech normativities through engaging with rhetoric existing in the Polish and/or the UK context as well as through developing ‘migrant slang’ of difference. I further argue that the language of stigma and the language of respect are transferred to Poland via the agency of migrants. The article draws upon a broader study of Polish migrants’ values and attitudes towards difference and the circulation of ideas between these migrants and their family members and friends in Poland. It contributes to emerging debates on Polish migrants’ encounters with difference and social remittances between the UK and Poland

Do we need other “posts” in migration studies? Polish migration to the UK through a postdependence lens

In this paper, I discuss postdependence as a compelling new lens to study Polish migration to the UK and Poland as a migratory context. Revisiting existing critiques, I argue that neither postcolonialism nor postsocialism sufficiently reflects on the complicated geo‐historical situatedness of Poland and its distinctive migratory circumstances. Postdependence, on the other hand, advocated by Central and East European scholars, opens up new avenues for exploring dependence, oppression, and the politics of difference, offering a decolonial perspective on migration from/to/within the area. In the paper, I draw on a study of encounters with difference conducted with Polish nationals in England and Poland. In this study, participants utilised orientalist and essentialist discourses to make sense of sameness and difference, and to reflect on England and Poland. I propose that the employment and circulation of such discourses should be understood and explored against the overarching framework of postdependence. In doing so, I address a wider question of whether new conceptual frameworks (new “posts”) are needed and why. The paper contributes to the fast‐growing body of work on East–West migration in Europe and the emerging scholarship on decolonising migration studies

Beyond ‘us’ and ‘them’: migrant encounters with difference and reimagining the national

In an era of accelerated international mobility, individuals have increased opportunities to confront values, practices and discourses linked to their national belonging with lifestyles, cultural scripts and social norms of receiving societies. This paper discusses how migrants who move between a relatively homogeneous society (Poland) and a superdiverse one (the UK), negotiate ‘the national’ and ‘the foreign’ in orientalist binary oppositions. It explores how Polish migrants’ lived experience of difference in the UK context impacts on the construction of Poland. As such, it focuses on essentialist discourses of ‘inferiority’ and ‘superiority’ (of the UK to Poland and vice versa) that are mobilised while migrants negotiate what they believe are British values (i.e. tolerance and diversity) and Polish values (i.e. family). The article draws upon multiple interviews and audio-diaries from a wider study that explores Polish migrants’ encounters with difference and the circulation of values and attitudes between Poland and the UK

The politics of embedding and the right to remain in post-Brexit Britain

The European Union membership referendum (i.e. the Brexit referendum) in the United Kingdom in 2016 triggered a process of introspection among non-British European Union citizens with respect to their right to remain in the United Kingdom, including their right to entry, permanent residence, and access to work and social welfare. Drawing on interview data collected from 42 European Union nationals, namely Finnish and Polish migrants living in Scotland, we explore how European Union migrants’ decision-making and strategies for extending their stay in the United Kingdom, or returning to their country of origin, are shaped by and, in turn, shape their belonging and ties to their current place of residence and across state borders. In particular, we draw on the concept of embedding, which is used in migration studies to explain migration trajectories and decision-making. Our key argument is that more attention needs to be paid to the socio-political context within which migrants negotiate their embedding. To this end, we employ the term ‘politics of embedding’ to highlight the ways in which the embedding of non-British European Union citizens has been politicized and hierarchically structured in the United Kingdom after the Brexit referendum. By illustrating how the context of Brexit has changed how people evaluate their social and other attachments, and how their embedding is differentiated into ‘ties that bind’ and ‘ties that count’, we contribute to the emerging work on migration and Brexit, and specifically to the debate on how the politicization of migration shapes the sense of security on the one hand, and belonging, on the other

Don’t forget the countryside: rural communities and Brexit

The relationship between rural areas and Brexit has been neglected in a preoccupation with the urban geographies of the ‘left behind’ and the political arguments about culture wars. How might the patterns of the 2016 referendum vote be interrogated to provide insights about social and economic changes in rural places and wider shifts in rural populations, ask Sarah Neal, Anna Gawlewicz, Jesse Heley, and Rhys Dafydd Jones

Unpacking the Meanings of a ‘Normal Life’ Among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Eastern European Migrants in Scotland

This article explores the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) migrants from Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union in Scotland. Drawing on interviews with 50 migrants, the article focuses on the experiences and aspirations which they articulate as being part of ‘a normal life’, and analyses them within broader conceptual understandings of security and ‘normality’. We first examine how normality is equated with an improved economic position in Scotland, and look at the ways in which this engenders feelings of emotional security and well-being. We then explore how more positive experiences around sexuality and gender identity are key to a sense of emotional security – i.e. of feeling accepted as ‘normal’, being visible as an LGBT person but ‘blending in’ rather than standing out because of it. Finally we look at the ways in which the institutional framework in Scotland, in particular the presence of LGBT-affirmative legislation, is seen by participants to have a normalising effect within society, leading to a broader sense of inclusion and equality – found, again, to directly impact upon participants’ own feelings of security and emotional well-being. The article engages with literatures on migration and sexuality and provides an original contribution to both: through its focus upon sexuality, which remains unexplored in debates on ‘normality’ and migration in the UK; and by bringing a migration perspective to the debates in sexuality studies around the normalising effect of the law across Europe. By bringing these two perspectives together, we reveal the inter-relationship between sexuality and other key spheres of our participants’ lives in order to better understand their experiences of migration and settlement

Slurs like 'letter box' are more problematic than we think: how discriminatory language travels

Former UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson generated controversy in August when he used the terms 'letter boxes' and 'bank robbers' to describe Muslim women in burkas. Anna Gawlewicz and Kasia Narkowicz argue that while Johnson received a great deal of criticism in the UK for his comments, the use of such language also has the potential to travel internationally with migrants, normalising discrimination in other countries

Social networks, language and identity negotiations among queer migrants in Scotland

In this article, we explore queer migrants’ social networks and the role language plays in how they negotiate companionship, romance and sex within queer community and diasporic environments. We draw on interviews with 56 self-identified LGBT migrants from Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union living in Scotland, UK. In doing so, we bring into conversation and critically engage with perspectives from queer migration literature and from work on migrants’ social networks and language use. In the article, we show how language underpins access to English-speaking and ethnic social circles, and how it is powerfully bound up with emotions, affect and perceptions of social proximity or distance. We argue for the need to move beyond abstract notions of queer or diasporic communities, and for an exploration of queer migrants’ sociality grounded in their personal communities, social networks and the language(s) used within them. We argue that this approach can better capture queer migrants’ complex identity negotiations and diverse sources of support and belonging, without assuming the primacy of either sexuality or ethnicity

Heroes or villains? Migrant essential workers and combined hostilities of Covid-19 and Brexit

No abstract available