The June 23, 2016 referendum in the United Kingdom yielded a 52 to 48 percent vote in favor of the country's exit (Brexit) from the European Union. Michał Garapich's monograph of Poles living transnational lives between London and Poland was published on the eve of this momentous event, but it will have landed in the hands of most readers in the aftermath. It is therefore destined to be read and commented upon with the benefit of hindsight. Voters who chose Brexit based their decisions on a variety of factors. However, according to the prevailing consensus, the key issue that soured vast sections of the British public on the idea of EU membership was the sharp rise in immigration from eastern Europe in the little more than a decade since the eastward expansion of the European Union in 2004. At the time, the government chose not to impose restrictions on the freedom of movement of citizens of newly admitted member states which, in the case of Poles, resulted in nearly a tenfold increase in the numbers residing in the UK, registered between the 2001 census (60,000) and the 2011 census (570,000).
Garapich duly cites these figures in the Preface and contends, somewhat optimistically from a post-referendum perspective, that the impact “on the economy, welfare, and society in general has been positive.” Nevertheless he allows that “indirectly and partially, the massive movement from Poland to the UK resulted in the rise of anti-immigrant parties like the United Kingdom Independence Party and in increased pressure on the British political class to call for an in-out EU referendum” (19). The book is “about the people behind this process” (19). Indeed, with considerable ethnographic skill and historical depth, Garapich fleshes out the complexities and contradictions of the many meanings of being a “Polish migrant” in London. Most of his impressive body of data has been collected over the past decade. However, he also draws on accounts of earlier waves of migration to situate the last decade of mobility in its historical context and to argue against the common misconception that the floodgates opened precisely on May 1, 2004. This discussion is concentrated mainly in Chapter 2, which will be useful particularly to those readers less familiar with the role, and mythology, of earlier Polish migratory movements. Garapich highlights the continuities in migratory practice and the tense relationships between groups of settled British Poles, and the more recent arrivals. In these encounters class divides feature as importantly as shared ethnicity. The interplay of those categories in the transnational social field inhabited by Garapich's protagonists is the main theoretical thrust of the book. This focus is fleshed out in the somewhat leaden theoretical discussion in Chapter 1, but it really begins to bear fruit as the monograph progresses into Chapters 5, 6, and 7.
This latter part of the book is especially rich in priceless anthropological insights. For example, the section on the cultural meaning of moaning (173) explains why Polish migrants bond through ritualized complaining, even though they are generally optimistic in their pursuit of opportunities in the UK. The observations on class markers, dress, and looks (230), dissect specific modes of class stigmatization and ways in which Garapich's informants work to disassociate themselves from the negative image of the Slavic lumpen-proletariat. Chapter 6 tackles also the ambiguous ways in which many Polish migrants make sense of the racial hierarchies in a multicultural global city like London. In the end, their views range “from strongly cosmopolitan, enthusiastic, and carefully nuanced to covertly or explicitly racist” (255). Garapich seeks to show, however, that the practices of living in a multicultural environment, often involving daily interactions between members of different ethnic groups, are more indicative of Polish migrants' adaptation to diversity than verbal declarations. At the same time, London provides the context where Poles begin to see themselves as white and thus sharing an essential affinity with the English middle classes rather than with other (non-white) migrants (260ff). This is a fascinating observation, one that could serve as the point of departure for a future inquiry into the transnational lives of Poles post-Brexit.
Early in the book Garapich remarks that “Poles have been largely ignored sociologically despite being in the UK for a substantial amount of time” (88), although he does not really explain why. But if it is indeed the case that Poles played a key part in the drama of Brexit, this question demands an urgent answer. Further literature examining their place in contemporary Britain must follow, but in the meantime scholars of migration and transnationalism should turn to Garapich's rich and engaging ethnography.
