The Adjustment Of Polish Immigrants In Great Britain

Since the 2004 enlargement of the European Union over half a million Polish migrants have registered to work in the United Kingdom, constituting one of the largest migration movements in contemporary Europe. Drawing on research undertaken across a wide range of disciplines - history, economics, sociology, anthropology, film studies and discourse analysis - and focusing on both the Polish and British aspects of this phenomenon - both emigration and immigration - this edited collection investigates what is actually new about this migration flow, what its causes and consequences are, and how these migrants' lives have changed by moving to the United Kingdom. As the first book to deal with Polish migration to the United Kingdom, Polish Migration to the UK in the 'New' European Union will appeal to scholars across a range of social sciences, whose work concerns migration and the migration process.

AND CONCLUSION ABIBLIOGRAPHY.

How has the international mobility of Polish citizens intertwined with other influences to shape society, culture, politics and economics in contemporary Poland? The Impact of Migration on Poland offers a new approach for understanding how migration affects sending countries, and provides a wide-ranging analysis of how Poland has changed, and continues to change, since EU accession in 2004. The authors explore an array of social trends and their causes before using in-depth interview data to illustrate how migration contributes to those causes. They address fundamental questions about whether and how Polish society is becoming more equal and more cosmopolitan, arguing that for particular segments of society migration does make a difference, and can be seen as both leveller and eye-opener. While the book focuses mainly on stayers in Poland, and their multiple contacts with Poles in other countries, Chapter 9 analyses ‘Polish society abroad’, a more accurate concept than ‘community’ in countries like the UK, and Chapter 10 considers impacts of immigration to Poland. The book is written in a lively and accessible style, and will be important reading for anyone interested in the influence of migration on society, as well as students and scholars researching EU mobility, migration theory and methodology, and issues facing contemporary Europe.

All but one of the contributions in this book originated as papers at a conference bearing the same name. The authors provide a description and analysis of the development of the Polish community in the United Kingdom from the earliest days of World War II to the end of the 20th century.