Recent Polish Migrants in London: Accessing and Participating in Social Networks across Borders

Abstract

The role of pre-migration networks in encouraging and facilitating the migration process through, such as, assistance with employment and accommodation; secondly, the dynamism and make-up of networks in the post-migration period, such as the extent to which networks may gradually extend through new friendships and weak ties; thirdly, migrants involvement with transnational networks and their changing relationships and roles over time. Finally, considers some of the limitations and constraints of migrants social networks. The process of network building depends on and in turn reinforces relationships across space, linking migrants and non-migrants. These relationships and contacts may influence decisions to migrate, provide money to finance moves and, after migration, provide accommodation, jobs, information and emotional support. There has been a long history of Polish migration to the capital and areas such as Hammersmith and Ealing, in West London, have been associated with Polish communities since the end of the Second World War.