Citizenship, Political Engagement, and Belonging: Immigrants in Europe and the United States

Chapter 6: Odyssean Refugees, Migrants, and Power: Construction of the “Other” and Civic Participation within the Polish Community in the United Kingdom

124 Chapter 6 Odyssean Refugees, Migrants, and Power Construction of the “Other” and Civic Participation within the Polish Community in the United Kingdom Michal P. Garapich Introduction: Poles Apart . . . Again Since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the region regained its status as one of the major supply areas for migrant labor to Western Europe. The recent enlargement of the European Union and the principle of the free movement of labor have legitimized a long existing, albeit often illicit, dense web of migration networks. The sudden increase in public attention focused on migration from Accession Countries , and especially from Poland, marks a change of perception rather than reality on the ground. Suddenly it is fashionable to talk about Polish migrants . But the semantic play offered by the double meaning of the word “Pole” is being uncreatively overexploited by the British media, which is covering the recent influx of Polish immigrants in articles with titles such as “Poles Apart,” “Pole Position,” and “Opposite Poles.” Unintentionally, however, this reveals an important characteristic of the Polish presence in the United Kingdom. There are diverse groups of Polish migrants shaped by at least three generations of migratory history between Poland and Great Britain, multiple patterns of mobility, and diverse diasporic identities (Duvell 2004); Garapich 2006; Górny and Kolankiewicz 2002; Janowski 2004; Patterson 1964; Sword 1996; Zubrzycki 1956, 1988), which are also observable in the United States (Erdmans 1998; Mucha 1996; Schneider 1990). Complex cultural, generational, social, and structural differences between migrant cohorts result in a particular set of relationships of power Odyssean Refugees, Migrants, and Power 125 between groups and particular symbolic articulations where ethnicity, constructions of homeland, social class, and national ideologies are being negotiated and sometimes clash. This, in turn, has a direct outcome for issues of civic participation, inclusion, and integration in the host society since various groups may compete for recognition and the status of the “official” and “true” community. It puts official, formal associations of the established groups in a particularly privileged position of power to impose specific meanings of citizenship, belonging, and national identity. By definition then, the formal diasporic associations become a tool of exclusion and symbolic violence where specific meanings, performances, and discursive habits are reproduced and reinforced. Newcomers can opt for submission to and acceptance of these unequal power relations or contest in various ways the dominant position of those in power. Polish migration to the United Kingdom in the last decades thus offers a fascinating insight into contemporary dynamics of white immigrants’ associational life where states, transnational networks, and individuals participate in complex practices of place making, long-distance nationalism, and the reconstruction of relations between the state and the individual. At the heart of these processes lies the emergence of European transnational citizenship (Castles and Davidson 2000: 179–82) that contests nationalistic and state-centric notions of citizenship and belonging. The main argument of this chapter is that this process takes place not only between states and supranational institutions, but also within ethnic group institutions and associations, thereby directly affecting immigrants’ civic participation and use of their transnational citizenship. The internal diversity of contemporary Polish migrant groups raises important methodological questions for studies of the active civic participation of immigrants or ethnic group mobilization more generally. It offers a powerful case against an “ethnicist” (Brah 1996, see also Però in this volume) approach that essentializes ethnic minorities and equates them with interest groups with a clearly defined identity, based on a shared cultural or political agenda. The case of Polish migration to the United Kingdom described in this chapter supports Hassan Bousetta’s critique of Patrick Ireland’s (1994) one-dimensional institutionalist approach to the dominant role of the “political opportunity structures” framework in determining both the political mobilization of ethnic groups and the importance of the infrapolitical layer of this mobilization.1 The concept of infrapolitics derives from work of James Scott (Scott 1990) and refers to political action undertaken off-stage, away from public scrutiny where the stake is control over the community/ group political agenda and resources. Hassan Boussetta (2000), Gerd Bauman (1996), and John Eade (1989; see also Eade, Fremeaux, and Garbin 2002) have in various ways emphasized that the internal heterogeneity of immigrant community dynamics, as well as identity politics within the group should always be kept in mind when looking at immigrants’ civic participation and community...