Anna Gawlewicz

Language and translation strategies in researching migrant experience of difference from the position of migrant researcher

In an era of accelerated international mobility, migrant researchers are increasingly studying their migrant co-nationals in a language different from the language in which they report their findings. This raises very significant considerations regarding language experience and translation of research data. While crucial for understanding production of knowledge, these issues have not yet been given adequate attention. In response, this article focuses first on the challenges related to the assumed shared relationship with language between migrant researchers and their migrant informants. In doing so, it contributes to the discussion about positionality of a migrant researcher. Second, it recognizes the role of a translator researcher and discusses the implications of collecting data in one language and presenting the findings in another. As such, it addresses essential methodological queries many migrant researchers face when conducting studies involving their compatriot communities.

Beyond openness and prejudice: The consequences of migrant encounters with difference

This article investigates the consequences of migrant encounters with difference in terms of ethnicity, religion, class, social status, sexuality and gender. While the notion of encounter has attracted much academic attention, in particular with regard to multiculture, social diversity and the challenge of living with difference, many of these debates tend to, oddly enough, overlook migrant populations. Furthermore, although they acknowledge that significant numbers of migrants to diverse societies such as the UK originate from much less diverse communities, they rarely reflect on the intricacies of production of difference in these respective places. Recognising these limitations, this article outlines the consequences of encounters with difference in the context of migration from Poland (a relatively homogeneous postcommunist society) to the UK (a ‘superdiverse’ post-colonial society). The article draws upon extensive empirical material collected among Polish post-2004 migrants to the Northern English city of Leeds. It establishes that migrant encounters result in development, revision or change of values and attitudes towards difference. This may involve a range of personal stances including favourable and prejudiced attitudes as well as, most likely, ‘complicated’ and ‘in-between’ responses.

‘We Inspire Each Other, Subconsciously’: The Circulation of Attitudes towards Difference between Polish Migrants in the UK and their Significant Others in the Sending Society

In this article, I explore how attitudes towards difference in terms of ethnicity, religion, sexuality and gender travel between Polish migrants to the UK and their significant others in Poland. In doing so, I bring together and critically engage with two disparate literatures—on social remittances and family and peer transmission of attitudes. I demonstrate that what occurs between Polish migrants and their non-migrant significant others is a complex process in which favourable and prejudiced attitudes are passed on, challenged, rejected or negotiated. While I stress that both migrants and non-migrants influence each other’s perceptions of difference, I show that non-migrants are more likely to assume the ‘correctness’ of migrant’s attitudes due to the construction of migrants as trusted experts. Acknowledging the multidimensionality and simultaneity of such mutual influences, in the article, I call for the use of the term ‘circulation’ to describe the mobility of ideas, values and attitudes between people and places.

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.