Gossiping in the Polish Club: An Emotional Coexistence of ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Migrants

This paper explores the emotional coexistence of three groups of Polish migrants in the UK. In particular it focuses on how this coexistence is reflected in narratives-in-interaction produced by members of Polish communities. Methodologically the paper is anchored in a constructivist view of emotions, when they are seen as discursive practice, as way of speaking, rather than as some internal states associated with physiological conditions of our bodies. Consequently, discourse and narrative analysis is my chosen way to analyse emotions in a given research area of Polish migration. The data come from my current project on leisure activities as well as cultural consumption among Polish migrants and were collected in established Polish ‘centres’ in the UK. My informants belong to three different groups of immigrants: 1) post-World War Two immigration; 2) post-1989/pre-enlargement immigration; and 3) post-enlargement immigration.