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Shifting Racialised Positioning of Polish Migrant Women in Manchester and Barcelona

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Relating Worlds of Racism

Abstract

This chapter focuses on encounters between Polish migrant women with the native white population and settled ethnic minorities and other migrants in multi-ethnic Manchester and Barcelona by drawing on narrative interviews conducted in 2012/2013. What is particularly interesting about these migrant women is their unstable racialised positioning which is explored in this chapter. The empirical examples show how whiteness, in-betweenness and Otherness are (re)produced through various encounters with white and non-white population in both cities. They show how whiteness is not just phenotypic but malleable, conditional and temporary. The chapter illustrates how in some situations, Polish migrants may become victims of racism, xenophobia and stereotyping, while in other contexts, privileged white Europeans, suggesting temporary sameness and partial inclusion in the notion of ‘us’.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A populist Polish MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke, in his speech in the European parliament in 2014 used the term ‘Negroes of Europe’. The article titled “Murzyni Europy” [Negros of Europe] in Gazeta Finansowa, August 26, 2016, makes a direct reference to Polish migrants in various European countries, including the UK. See various discussions on a Polish forum website mentioning the term biali Murzyni [white Negroes]. “Biali murzyni – najlepsze wpisy,” Gazeta.pl Forum, accessed December 13, 2017, http://dyskusje.gwar.pl/szukaj/forum/biali+murzyni

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Alina Rzepnikowska

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  1. Alina Rzepnikowska
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Antioch University, Yellow Springs, OH, USA

    Philomena Essed

  2. University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Karen Farquharson

  3. School of Social Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

    Kathryn Pillay

  4. Department of African American and African Studies, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    Elisa Joy White

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Rzepnikowska, A. (2019). Shifting Racialised Positioning of Polish Migrant Women in Manchester and Barcelona. In: Essed, P., Farquharson, K., Pillay, K., White, E.J. (eds) Relating Worlds of Racism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78990-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78990-3_8

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