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Tacit differences, ethnicity and neoliberalism: Polish migrant mothers in German cities

Taylor & Francis
Gender, Place & Culture
Authors:
  • German Centre for Integration and Migration Research DeZIM

Abstract

This article presents an inquiry into which tacit differences are relevant for how people make sense of encounters with others in urban settings, and how, if at all, they are translated into ethnic categories understood as ‘basic operators’ in everyday life. Drawing from our interviews with twenty Polish mothers living in Berlin and Munich, we argue that what our research participants distinguish as ‘typically Polish’ or ‘typically German’ is not necessarily connected to some ethnically specific ways of working or mothering, but, rather, significantly structured by locally specific forms of neoliberalism. By asking what kind of difference becomes understood as ethnic difference and how this process of demarcation occurs, this article adds to the strand of intersectional approaches that theorise the notion of difference, recognise heterogeneity of individual categories and render them suspect.
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... I juxtapose these findings with my subjective experience as a first-generation migrant, wife, mother and daughter. In cruising through my home, I reflect upon issues that were central in my past research interviews, such as proximity, temporality and synchronicity, continuity and ruptures, but also the themes which were significant in interviews with Polish migrant women in my later study, such as the "proper ways" of homemaking (Lisiak and Nowicka 2018). ...
... The study of Woramon Sinsuwan (2017) among Thai women in Berlin, for example, demonstrates that these women, despite having higher education and long-term professional experience, are perceived through the lens of a stereotype of Asian workers in Europe and offered jobs related to domestic care or beauty; in turn, they face the choice of unemployment or deskilling. Such racialised and gendered role expectations are mirrored in migrants' ideas on femininity of the self and others (Lisiak 2017(Lisiak , 2018. As home-space is the externalisation of the self (Jacobs and Malpas 2013), the idea of femininity shaped by migrants' socialisation correspond with their home-keeping practices. ...
... As home-space is the externalisation of the self (Jacobs and Malpas 2013), the idea of femininity shaped by migrants' socialisation correspond with their home-keeping practices. As Agata Lisiak demonstrates (2017; also Lisiak and Nowicka 2018), Polish women in England and in Germany squeeze housekeeping into their busy schedules and put pressure on their children to keep the home-space always tidy and 'presentable'. This also makes them distinct, they believe, to German or English mothers. ...
Chapter
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Homes are spaces permeated by global flows. Homes of international migrants anchor objects and people with their norms, values and ideas that originate in different countries. From an auto-ethnographic perspective, I scrutinize selected objects in my own flat to ask what a transnational perspective can tell us about home spaces in the globalized condition. I argue that the power of nationalism is best visible when we study how migrants maintain connections to other spaces, times, and people in their homemaking. To demonstrate how transnationalism highlights the significance of gendered, classed and racialized nationalism for homemaking, I discuss three objects: a bookshelf, a tea pot, and my floor. Each of them helps me to reflect upon a different aspect - nationally shaped upbringing and heritage, raptures which become significant because of national closures, and racialised and gendered cultural norms and expectations towards home space and homemaking.
... Gdula and Sadura 2012), as well as my own research among Polish migrants in Germany and the UK, show how Poles internalised and normalised neoliberal values in their subjectivities. For example, they proudly present themselves as 'workaholic', taking initiative in life, actively searching for a job, not using state support, learning fast, being ambitious and competitive, investing in the improvement of thier own professional skills, etc (Nowicka 2014b;Lisiak and Nowicka 2018). ...
... Cosmopolitan values, typical for the liberal-intellectual milieu, are something that they learn and practice with respect to consumption (such as eating out) but do not embrace fully; for example, they present themselves as generally tolerant towards sexual minorities but clearly reject homo-and transsexual people from their family, not wishing them as a partner or even teachers or babysitters to their children (Lisiak and Nowicka 2018). Similarly, they stress being indifferent to Muslims, refugees, or Black people but are sceptical about whether an intimate relationship with groups that they consider culturally distant could function for them. ...
Article
This article examines how highly skilled immigrants from Poland become middle-class in Germany through a transnational and intersectional lens. Hence, it asks what is the middle-class, and who and where belongs to it. First, it considers the fluidity of social class in post-socialist Poland to deconstruct middle-classness. Second, it draws on Reckwitz's distinction between the new and old middle classes in Germany and their factions to argue that immigrants cannot become middle class members by default. Based on the analysis of empirical material consisting of narrations of Polish immigrants, the article asks if Polish immigrants become middle class ‘by effort’. The analysis shows that Polish immigrants’ habitus locates them in-between different middle-class factions. The narrations suggest that these immigrants experience discrimination and exclusion, but – curiously – also demonstrate these immigrants’ lack of awareness of structural barriers in access to the middle-class factions in Germany. It argues that such ‘blindness’ to structural underpinnings of exclusion is a result of the entanglements of nationalism and neoliberalism, for example, the immigrants’ belief in meritocratic principles. Finally, the article suggests avenues for future theory-building by addressing the intersection of social class, gender, life course, and ethnicity to better understand middle-classness of immigrants.
... Wessendorf, 2018;Yeoh & Khoo, 1998). Class inequality is studied mainly in relation to gender (Collins et al., 2008;Lisiak & Nowicka, 2017;Orum et al., 2009), religion (Fields, 2010, ethnicity/race linked to institutional power of majority (Lidz, 2010) and in terms of ethnic or racials manifestations in public spaces (Grzegorczyk, 2012;Ho et al., 2015;Orum et al., 2009;van Gent & Musterd, 2016). ...
... Wessendorf, 2018;Yeoh & Khoo, 1998). Class inequality is studied mainly in relation to gender (Collins et al., 2008;Lisiak & Nowicka, 2017;Orum et al., 2009), religion (Fields, 2010, ethnicity/race linked to institutional power of majority (Lidz, 2010) and in terms of ethnic or racials manifestations in public spaces (Grzegorczyk, 2012;Ho et al., 2015;Orum et al., 2009;van Gent & Musterd, 2016). ...
Chapter
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What variation can be identified in urban diversities? In this chapter we provide an empirical mapping of diversity characteristics in cities as outlined in Chap. 2 : diversity of origins and residential segregation between people with and without a (first generation) migration background. Can we identify cities that have distinct combinations of the two main dimensions? Inductive analysis in this chapter will provide a second step towards developing a typology of cities of migration. At the end of this chapter, we will identify clusters of cities and select typical cities to be examined more in-depth in subsequent chapters.
... Gandziarowska 2006;Praszałowicz 2010;Szczepaniak--Kroll 2018, to należy stwierdzić, że dotychczasowe analizy doświadczeń migracyjnych w dużej mierze przyjmowały perspektywy kobiet-migrantek (m.in. Main 2016;Lisiak, Nowicka 2018). Z kolei problematyka migracji Polaków do Hamburga zdaje się być zupełnie pomijana przez badaczy. ...
Article
Gender influences most aspects of migration, placing migrants in slightly different positions in the host country. Gender differences are visible not only in masculinized or feminized migration streams, but also in those that are balanced in terms of gender ratio. In the case of Polish migrations to Germany, the third type of migration streams dominates. This type of migration is characterized by a relatively equal gender structure of Polish migrants. The main aim of this paper is to identify the migration experiences of Poles in the context of revealing gender differences and their potential impact on everyday life in the host country. The article was prepared based on the results of original quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (in-depth interviews) social research conducted among Polish women and men living in Berlin and Hamburg. The example of Germany as a host country allowed to prove that Polish women and men migrants experience the migration process differently. A significant difference in the context of gender was revealed in the following areas: activity in the public sphere, satisfaction with remuneration and level of knowledge of the German language.
... As Lisiak and Nowicka (2018) argue, migrants confronted with unfamiliar behaviour and opinions might become critical of their own socialisation. And participants in the 2018 FGIs were indeed explicitly negative about the neoliberal pressures in Poland. ...
... As Lisiak and Nowicka (2018) argue, migrants confronted with unfamiliar behaviour and opinions might become critical of their own socialisation. And participants in the 2018 FGIs were indeed explicitly negative about the neoliberal pressures in Poland. ...
Chapter
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A systematic approach towards capturing and understanding the variation of urban diversities, requires a careful conceptualization of urban diversities. In migration studies there has been a growing interest for the ‘local dimension’ of migration-related diversities (Borkert & Caponio, 2010). In this book we develop the thesis that this local dimension brings a plurality of urban diversities. However, in order to capture this plurality, we need a proper understanding of relevant dimensions on which urban diversities can vary. Often, urban diversities are described in terms of different degrees of diversity, such as in terms of ‘minority’ cities with significant migrant groups or ‘majority-minority’ cities where the majority of a city has a migration background (Crul, 2016). Or it is described in terms of spatial unevenness of distribution of people with and without a migration background, or ‘segregation’.
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Civic, cultural and political engagement of women is an intrinsically interesting issue in the context of Polish migration processes. The Poles constitute the second largest group of immigrants in Germany, after the Turks. Despite this fact, they are still considered the so-called invisible minority, characterised by generally low social and civic engagement which is mainly due to the history of migration to Germany before 1989. However, it has been gradually changing in recent years and nowadays different behaviour patterns can be observed. This is particularly visible among the women who are more socially, culturally and politically active than the men. Although it cannot be regarded as a general trend, it may be considered a significant precedent indicating some key changes in Polish migration to Germany. What is more, the level of socio-political engagement depends on the host city itself, as well as on numerous socio-cultural and economic issues. In order to grasp the variability of behaviour patterns and approaches of the Polish women in Germany, a series of in-depth interviews was carried out in two German cities: Berlin and Hamburg. The study allowed to assess the level of participation in both cities and revealed some reasons behind the diversity of behaviour patterns observed in the selected cities.
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Whereas much has been written about migrants’ visibility, the multiple and complex layers of migrants’ invisibility invite further exploration. Migrants’ in/visibility is not clear-cut: it differs across various locations and, as such, demands a comparative, intersectional analysis. This paper seeks to explore it by investigating how recent migrants make sense of their own appearance, as well as those of others they encounter in their new places of residence. Specifically, I inquire into the notion of femininity as it is performed and perceived by Polish migrant mothers living in German and British cities. I discuss whose performances of femininity are visible and whose femininity is rendered invisible in the eyes of my research participants, and what implications this may carry for urban and migration research. Strikingly, the women I interviewed only seem to recognise white British and German women’s performances of femininity for what they are. Non-white and Muslim femininities remain, at best, invisible or, in the not infrequent cases of racism and Islamophobia, are stripped not only of their unique gendered features, but of humanity altogether. As seemingly peaceful interactions in urban space do not exclude privately harboured racial, ethnic, religious and class prejudice, a feminist revision of encounters with diversity provides valuable insight into the structure of such metropolitan paradoxes, yielding new understandings of how racism, classism and sexism persist alongside ostensibly inclusive urban cultures.