Small Stories Fight Back: Narratives of Polish Economic Migration on an Internet Forum

Abstract

A long and distinctive history of Polish emigration (see Iglicka-Okólska, 1997; Slany, 1997; Iglicka, 2001; Cyrus, 2006) has left its mark on the cultural tradition of Poland. Both literature and film discuss this phenomenon widely and the media feed returns to the topic frequently. The recent outflow from Poland after the EU enlargement of 2004 added a new dimension to the existing discussion about migration in both the public and private spheres as well as in academia. Having such a long tradition of migration it is not surprising then that consecutive waves of Polish migrants have had to deal emotionally with the existence of a grand narrative of migration and position themselves in relation to it. That means they have to produce or indeed reproduce their own versions of a migrant story. Moreover, they have to negotiate their stories with several groups of challenging ‘others’, that is, a local community in the home country, a local community in the host country, as well as existing Polish communities in the country of destination. This chapter discusses one such issue: the changing form and function of a grand narrative of migration among Polish migrants to the UK. I shall focus on stories of migrants as mediated and discussed on an internet forum.KeywordsHost CountryPersonal NarrativePersonal StoryWork PermitPolish CommunityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.