Migrant Experiences of Conviviality in the Context of Brexit: Polish Migrant Women in Manchester

Introduction

The outcome of the European Union (EU) referendum in the UK on 23 June 2016 was strongly linked to views about immigration. An Ipsos MORI (2016) poll showed that immigration was the top issue for British voters. The wave of post-Brexit vote hostility revealed the extent of the racism and xenophobia which affected migrants and minorities (Burnett 2017; Guma and Dafydd Jones 2019; Komaromi and Singh 2016; Rzepnikowska 2018b; Virdee and McGeever 2018). While Manchester had the strongest ‘remain’ vote in the North West, the majority of Greater Manchester’s boroughs were characterised by the majority ‘leave’ vote, linked with an enduring frustration over immigration, including concerns about jobs, wages and public services. Many studies have shown that perceived threats to economic resources, particularly in cases of financial hardship and the risk of unemployment, lead to increased negative attitudes to immigration (Storm 2015). Hence, these longstanding frustrations should also be interpreted in the wider context of economic and political change in the UK since the 1960s which affects not only less-affluent Brits but also the ethnic minority population. Furthermore, these frustrations over immigration in the context of Brexit can be understood in terms of a resurgent nationalism and anti-immigrant populist sentiment forming part of the political narrative not only during the Brexit Leave campaign, but over at least the past six decades:

British immigration debates have long been intertwined with public anxieties over race and identity, with public hostility in earlier decades directed at black and South Asian migrants from former imperial territories in the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent, who began arriving in large numbers from the 1950s onward. Yet starting in 2004, the focus of anxiety moved to the large new flow of migrants from EU states in Central and Eastern Europe. As a result, anti-immigration voters came to see migration (and the social changes that it brought) as an issue closely bound up with Britain’s EU membership (Ford and Goodwin 2018: 21).

EU migration into the UK was a key issue in the EU referendum debates in 2016. The Leave campaign used the anti-immigration discourse to claim that the main cause of all the UK’s issues – including housing shortages or the strained National Health Service (NHS) – is uncontrolled mass immigration from other EU member-states. Amber Rudd, in her speech at the Conservative Party conference in October 2017, said that foreign workers should not be ‘taking jobs that British people could do’ (see Vicol 2016), echoing Gordon Brown’s ‘British jobs for British workers’ remark in 2007. Even though it seems that the responses of some politicians to EU migration have not been racially but, rather, economically motivated, they do produce racialised effects (Fox, Moroşanu and Szilassy 2012). Furthermore, in the run up to the EU referendum in 2016, mainstream media reporting of immigration more than tripled over the course of the campaign. The coverage of the effects of immigration was overwhelmingly negative, particularly in the Express, the Daily Mail and the Sun (Moore and Ramsay 2017). Amongst those migrants singled out for particularly negative coverage were Poles. Existing research shows a link between the language and behaviour of perpetrators of racist violence after the EU referendum and the rhetoric of some politicians and the media (Burnett 2017). Nevertheless, recent findings show a positive shift in attitudes since the Brexit vote across both the political and the social spectrum (Ford 2018; Ipsos MORI 2017). They show that, while a majority still want immigration levels reduced, people have become more positive about immigration in the last few years. About half of those who said that they have become more optimistic about immigration attribute this to more positive discussion about immigrants and their contribution to the UK, while a quarter said that they personally knew more people who were migrants either at work or socially (Ipsos MORI 2019).

Over the years since the Brexit vote, while some attention has been paid to attitudes towards immigration following the EU referendum, little is known about the complexity of the actual everyday experiences of migrants in their local areas, particularly Polish migrants, who constitute the largest group of non-UK-born nationals in the UK. Both prior to and at the time of the referendum, Polish migrants were subjected to significant levels of hostility and racialisation. This paper explores how people live together in the context of Brexit. The focus seems more relevant than ever due to the continued attention to immigration, identity and nation, which raise questions about conviviality – understood in this paper as a way of living together in shared spaces where diverse groups and individuals coexist. Building on my earlier work and drawing on qualitative interviews conducted with Polish migrant women after the EU referendum in 2016, I explore here the complexity of my participants’ everyday interactions with the local population in Manchester in the context of Brexit.

Brexit can be understood as a transitional event set in a broader context of economic, political and social transformation and impacting on social relations in various ways. Brexit can be viewed in different ways and from diverse positions, depending particularly on class, race, location, gender and age (see Botterill, McCollum and Tyrrell 2019). As Anderson and Wilson (2018: 292) suggest:

Brexit is many things: the apparently accepted name for a decision that marks an event to come; a state project of disentangling and separating the United Kingdom from the European Union; a proliferating set of impacts and effects felt across multiple dimensions of life; and an end point to be desired, feared or more ambivalently related to.

My article focuses on the impact of Brexit on the everyday lives of migrant women in everyday spaces. The existing literature on geographies of encounter shows how some city spaces are more convivial than other. Amin (2002: 959) emphasised the significance of ‘prosaic sites of cultural exchange and transformation’ where ‘much of the negotiation of difference occurs at the very local level, through everyday experiences and encounters’. He highlighted that ‘micropublics’, such as the workplace, schools, colleges and youth centres, may serve as sites of inclusion and negotiation. This means that people may step out of their daily environment and into other spaces which bring them together with those from different backgrounds and allow a habitual negotiating of difference. This is explored in more detail in this paper, which shows that conviviality is a highly dynamic process influenced by spatio-temporal characteristics and revealing various forms of interaction in immediate neighbourhoods, family spaces and workplaces. Amin (2008: 7) also reminds us of the erosion of public space, policing and neglect, resulting in the running down of public facilities and the emergence of ‘dangerous’ streets, causing fear and avoidance. This raises the issue of ‘less convivial’ spaces in cities marked by socio-economic deprivation, fear and avoidance. This paper pays particular attention to the spatio-temporal and highly contextual dynamics underpinning more and less convivial encounters. Conviviality becomes a useful concept, broadening our understanding of complex and ever-changing social relations in different places and in uncertain times.

I begin by providing some contextual information on Polish migration and outlining my methods. I reflect on the importance of conviviality in exploring migrant experiences. Finally, I discuss empirical findings which draw on the narratives of my female Polish migrant participants, who recounted their experiences of living alongside local residents in Manchester and the wider area of Greater Manchester in the context of Brexit. This illustrates the situatedness of conviviality within the geographical, social and temporal contexts. While my findings show how less-visible minorities can become racialised, they also provide examples of conviviality resisting racism and xenophobia, characterised by habitual interactions between mothers and neighbours, co-operation, trust and acts of care and kindness. This illustrates the possibilities of maintaining social connections and belonging in the era of Brexit, as well as a more resilient form of conviviality which is able to thrive in uncertain times. It also means that some of the participants become more rooted in their local areas and are more likely to settle on a more permanent basis, contrary to earlier assumptions about post-accession migrants being temporary.

Polish migrants in the UK and Manchester

The accession of eight new member-states (A8 – Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary) to the European Union on 1 May 2004 has resulted in significant migration within Europe in recent years. The UK, as well as Ireland and Sweden, granted A8 nationals free access to the labour market immediately after the enlargement, in a bid to alleviate severe labour-market shortages, mainly in low-waged and low-skilled occupations in construction, hospitality, transport sectors and public services (Anderson, Ruhs, Rogaly and Spencer 2006; Eade, Drinkwater and Garapich 2006). This freedom of movement attracted many Polish people, especially the young, who were affected by high rates of unemployment, low wages and a lack of opportunities in Poland (White 2010). These newly arrived migrants constituted the largest group from an A8 country entering Britain. Between 2003 and 2010, the Polish-born population of the UK increased from 75 000 to 532 000 (ONS 2011b). It was estimated that, in 2015, the most common non-British nationality was Polish, with 916000 residents or 16.5 per cent of the total non-British national population resident in the UK (ONS 2015), although these data do not record the length of stay and there is limited knowledge of how many have left the UK. According to 2011 census data, Polish migrants have the highest birth rate amongst other migrant groups in the UK (ONS 2011c) and the Polish language has become the most commonly spoken non-native language in England and Wales (ONS 2011a).

In the post-2004 period, Manchester has witnessed the arrival of Polish migrants, amongst other A8 nationals, who have contributed to a greater diversity of the city. The official statistics on the their number and distribution are limited – according to Manchester City Council (2015: 29) data, Polish migrants constituted 1.2 per cent of Manchester’s population and 0.8 per cent of that of Greater Manchester (based on self-descriptions). Polish is the second most-common language spoken in Manchester other than English. Polish residents are dispersed across Manchester and the area of Greater Manchester, although the City Centre ward and Cheetham are described as popular with the Polish community (Manchester City Council 2015). It is a city with a migration-friendly narrative characterised by wide support from local government (Smith 2010).

Polish migrants, as well as many other EU migrants, have been in a position of privilege in terms of the legal, social, cultural and racial capital closely linked to their Europeanness and whiteness (Burrell and Schweyher 2019). Nevertheless, Brexit might mean the removal of these protective privileges – which are linked to their EU citizenship status granted in 2004. Furthermore, despite their assumed whiteness, the Polish presence has become particularly visible across the UK, with Polish shops in most towns and cities, community centres, Polish Saturday schools, as well as visibly distinctive Polish surnames. This visible and audible difference has often been racialised, particularly in the context of Brexit (Rzepnikowska 2018b).

Post-accession migration has initially been considered as ‘fluid migration’ (Grabowska- Lusińska and Okólski 2009) with no settlement goal and an undefined time period; it is associated with short-term, temporary and circular migration. Burrell (2010) reviewed previous studies which considered whether post-accession migration marks a new type of movement or whether it is temporary. The answer, however, for Burrell, is not so straightforward, as ‘post-accession migrants are a diverse, not entirely predictable, population, all existing within the same economic framework but formulating different strategies of migration and return’ (Burrell 2010: 299). Their intentions concerning the length of their stay will change over time (Ryan 2018; Spencer, Ruhs, Anderson and Rogaly 2007). Ruhs (2006) argues that post-2004 flows would not necessarily be as short-term as had been expected. While the impact of Brexit might affect settlement plans due to restricted mobility, the majority of my participants felt that they were settled in the UK and their local areas and were here to stay. Only two of my interviewees left the UK for family reasons. One of them obtained British citizenship, which gave her the unrestricted option of return to the UK in the future. Nevertheless, in most cases, Brexit has introduced a disruption in the continued security of Polish migrants as citizens (Botterill, McCollum and Tyrrell 2019).

My interviews before and after the EU referendum revealed that the length of residence in particular places – whether their local area or their workplace – and their relations with the local people both play a crucial role in influencing the Poles’ experiences of the conviviality that develops over time; this, in turn, can affect their sense of belonging, both in their neighbourhood and in the UK as a whole.

Conviviality: conceptual considerations

In recent years, a growing number of scholars have focused on exploring conviviality and discussing ways of living together in urban spaces, where diverse groups and individuals coexist in multicultural cities (Gilroy 2004; Heil 2015; Karner and Parker 2011; Morawska 2014; Neal, Bennett, Cochrane and Mohan 2018; Wessendorf 2014a, b; Wise and Velayutham 2014). As Nowicka and Vertovec (2013: 341) point out, ‘conviviality across a number of disciplines now conveys a deeper concern with the human condition and how we think about human modes of togetherness’. However, conviviality should be placed in a wider historical context which influences the complexity of encounters with difference. Gilroy (2004) discusses two concepts: on the one hand, postcolonial melancholia – defining guilt and grief over the lost British Empire – and, on the other, conviviality. Gilroy (2006a: 2) argues that some European nations have been unable to get past their ‘loss of global pre-eminence’; this inability then leads to ‘all sorts of pathological features in their contemporary encounters with strangers’. Brexit became a symbolic marker of nostalgia for Britain’s lost imperial past.¹ Gilroy (2004: xi) considers conviviality as the alternative to postcolonial melancholia – stressing the significance of how ordinary people manage tensions through the practice of living together – and defines it as ‘the processes of cohabitation and interaction that have made multiculture an ordinary feature of urban life in Britain’s urban areas’. For Gilroy (2006a: 40):

Conviviality is a social pattern in which different metropolitan groups dwell in close proximity, but where their racial, linguistic and religious particularities do not – as the logic of ethnic absolutism suggests they must – add up to discontinuities of experience or insuperable problems of communication.

Thus, racial, linguistic and religious differences are not considered to be an obstruction to convivial experiences and communication between people who interact and live together. These two forces of postcolonial melancholia on the one hand and of convivial living on the other are often at play, and the relationship between the two is paradoxical and defined by ongoing tensions (Back and Sinha 2016). Similarly, Neal et al. (2018: 29) consider conviviality as ‘a mode of togetherness but one saturated with and defined by ambivalence – tension, conflict, engagement and collaboration’. Hence, conviviality, in this article, is explored as a process of interaction that is not always free from racism and tensions (Gilroy 2004; Karner and Parker 2011; Nayak 2017; Neal et al. 2018; Nowicka and Vertovec 2013; Rishbeth and Rogaly 2018; Rzepnikowska 2019; Wise and Velayutham 2014).

While Gilroy focuses mainly on the postcolonial context, convivial encounters can no longer be solely explored in the context of a diversity conventionally characterised by the presence of African-Caribbean and South Asian communities from Commonwealth countries or former colonies but must also be seen through the lens of super-diversity as the result of an increase in migrants of different ethnic origins, with their diverse migration histories and their various characteristics such as gender, age, religion, language, education, legal status and economic background (Vertovec 2007). This includes Polish migrants who constitute a large proportion of ethnic minorities in the UK.

Conviviality can also be better conceptualised by drawing on the meaning of the Spanish word convivir, which allows us to understand conviviality as a mode of living together. In Latin, convīv(ere) means to live together (con ‘with’ + vīvere ‘to live’). In their analysis of the word convivencia, Giménez Romero and Lorés Sánchez (2007: 78) also refer to the Latin origin of the word and stress the Spanish interpretation of it as ‘acción de convivir’ (action of living together) or ‘relación entre los que conviven’ (relations between those who live together). Therefore, I use the term ‘convivial’, as informed by the idea of convivir, to describe the relations of living and interacting together in shared spaces. Furthermore, my conceptualisation of conviviality considers geographies of encounter, a body of work focusing on encounters with difference in urban spaces and seeking to document how people negotiate difference in their daily lives (Amin 2002; Rzepnikowska 2018b; Valentine 2008; Wilson 2016). It concentrates on cities as spaces of encounters between people from different backgrounds and highlights the importance of gendered spaces – often overlooked in debates on geographies of encounter. In my previous work (Rzepnikowska 2018a), I used the concept of situated conviviality, which I further develop here, because my research shows that conviviality is highly dynamic, contextual and characterised by spatio-temporal dynamics.

I argue in this paper that conviviality is a useful conceptual tool in the context of Brexit, as it allows us to consider the complexity of migrant experiences and the changing nature of everyday social relations in these times of Brexit uncertainties and tensions. Nevertheless, scant attention has been paid to conviviality in the context of Brexit. My previous work (Rzepnikowska 2019) highlighted the fact that the racist and xenophobic violence experienced by Polish migrants has been particularly notable since the Brexit vote. Furthermore, based on interviews with EU nationals in 2016 and 2017, Guma and Dafydd Jones (2019) explore the various experiences of hostility and violence encountered by these migrants both during and after the referendum campaign. Burnett (2017) and Komaromi and Singh (2016) also focus on how the wave of post-Brexit-vote hostility revealed the extent of the racism and xenophobia which affected migrants and settled ethnic minorities, including British citizens. In the context in which Brexit produces tensions and divisions, other research shows how it also strengthened co-national relations and solidarity with other Poles (Botterill, McCollum and Tyrrell 2019). This paper, however, shows a greater complexity of migrant experiences, the changing nature of encounters in the context of Brexit and the possibilities of more resilient forms of conviviality, experienced in different places and able to thrive in uncertain times. In addition, it stresses the importance of conviviality in understanding how migrants negotiate belonging and attachment to local people and places and the possible impact it can have on their settlement in the context of Brexit.

The research

My initial research, conducted in 2012/13, focused on different forms and degrees of conviviality in various city spaces and in the workplace by exploring the narratives of Polish migrant women in Manchester and Barcelona; it included participant observation, focus groups and narrative interviews. The interviews in Manchester included 21 Polish migrant women who were resident there and who entered Britain either just before or just after Poland joined the EU. I maintained contact with 15 of the 21 interviewees and contacted them again in 2017/18 to discover the impact which Brexit was having on their everyday experiences. The non-representative sample is varied, as it included Polish migrant women of different age, class, education level, family status and length of residence. The project received an approval from a relevant academic ethical review committee. The participants were interviewed at the place of their choice after signing the informed consent form which included information on anonymity and confidentiality and the right to withdraw from the research at any time. Initially, my research was not designed as longitudinal. As Ryan, Rodriguez, and Trevena (2016) point out, it would have been difficult to plan a longitudinal study considering the temporariness and uncertainty of Polish migrants’ trajectories. This paper draws on the data gathered during both stages of my research, with the qualitative interviews examined through narrative analysis and focusing on how the participants tell their stories and what is important to them. I chose narrative analysis because it allowed me to use a person- and case-centred approach and to concentrate on how the interviewees interpret and make sense of their experiences of everyday encounters in various parts of the city. Here, I mainly focus on the accounts of Renia, Nikola, Krysia and Oliwia (pseudonyms), illustrating how different local contexts, class dynamics and spatially distinct inequalities may influence migrants’ experiences, relations with the local population and sense of safety and belonging.

The interviewees were aware of anti-migrant sentiment in the run-up to and the aftermath of the EU referendum. Several were fearful of the post-Brexit racism and xenophobia which they had heard about in the media or from family and friends. Uncertainty about the future in the light of Brexit has bred further anxiety and distress. Nevertheless, going back to Poland was usually not considered a good option because they felt settled in the UK or felt discouraged by the current situation in their country of origin. Their complex experiences in the context of Brexit have been very much influenced by class and temporal dynamics and by the areas where they live and interact with the local residents. Their narratives show both tension, hostility, racism and various forms of conviviality, all h