Polish mobilities and the re-making of self, family and community

Abstract

The thesis explores the social and spatial mobilities of young Polish people and the ways in which the self, the family and the community are being re-made through mobility in an enlarged European Union. The research is based on an empirical study with post-accession current and return migrants in Edinburgh, Kraków and Katowice. It explores young people‘s perceptions and experiences of mobility in three key areas: the personal histories of mobility; the practice of mobility; and the relations of mobility. The thesis argues that social and spatial mobility are differentially and relationally experienced by young Polish people. Furthermore, through a critical engagement with theories of mobility and modernity it is argued that collective social forms (family and community) are being re-configured through mobility. Conceptually, the research is positioned within the inter-disciplinary study of mobilities, which assert the centrality of movement in contemporary social life (Urry and Sheller, 2006). Drawing on empirical evidence, the thesis provides an intimate reading of the personal transformations of mobility for young Polish migrants and offers micro-level analysis of theories of migration, mobility and modernity. As such it responds to calls for empirically grounded studies on mobilities (Cresswell, 2006; McDowell, 2006) and reflexivity (Atkinson, 2010), and contributes to a growing area of research post-accession Polish migration and mobility (Burrell, 2009).