Family and Mobility in Second Modernity: Polish Migrant Narratives of Individualization and Family Life

Botterill, Katherine

Abstract

This article revisits the individualization debate in the context of Polish migration to the UK. Drawing on empirical research with young Polish migrants in Scotland and Poland, I argue that as new opportunities for migration have shaped Polish family life, the family plays ideological, affective and practical roles in shaping and supporting young people’s mobilities. The pursuit of an apparently individualistic, mobile life in the context of post-accession Polish mobility is confounded by the persistence of family structures and relations that underpin and shape individual decisions and mobility pathways. I discuss three ‘ruptures’ to the individualization thesis (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2001) that relate to the process of migration over the lifecourse: ‘moving out’, ‘keeping in touch’, and ‘coming back’. Through these discussions I argue that individual mobility is a relational process and one that can, and should, be analysed alongside family structures rather than separate from it.

Citation

Botterill, K. (2014). Family and Mobility in Second Modernity: Polish Migrant Narratives of Individualization and Family Life. Sociology, 48(2), 233-250. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038512474728

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 6, 2013
• Online Publication Date: Jun 6, 2013
• Publication Date: 2014-04
• Deposit Date: Aug 1, 2016
• Journal: Sociology
• Print ISSN: 0038-0385
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-8684
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 48
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 233-250
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038512474728
• Keywords: family, gender, individualization, mobility, modernity transnational families,
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/320876