Diaspora and Civil Society: the case of Polish migration to the UK pre- and post-Brexit.
Short description
This project investigates the seemingly contradictory processes of social solidarity and division within diaspora civil societies, taking the Polish civil society process in the UK as a case in point. The aim is to contribute towards explanations as to how and why diaspora civil societies develop the way they do, through what mechanisms and under what conditions. Currently, this is of particular relevance in view of the polarization in the aftermath och recent Polish elections and Brexit.
The Polish civil society process has developed with different generations of Polish migrants and at the intersections of class, gender, nationality and migration status. This project opens up for contributions towards contested concepts such as diaspora, community and social solidarity; for the exploration of the integrative potential of the ethnic bonding of social capital; and to analyses of how Brexit has compounded or bridged internal cleavages and influenced the Polish civil society trajectory.
Related projects include:
Institutional constraints and creative solutions: Civil society in Poland in comparative perspective. Project leader: Kerstin Jacobsson, funded by Swedish Research Council