The figure of the Polish plumber or builder has long been a well-established icon of the
British national imagination uncovering the UK's collective unease with immigration from
Central and Eastern Europe. But despite the powerful impact the UK's second largest language
group has had on their host country's culture and populist politics very little is known about
its members. This painstakingly researched book offers a wide perspective on Polish migrants in
the UK taking into account the interactions between Poles and British society through
discursive actions policies family connections transnational networks and political
engagement of the diaspora. Borne out of a decade of ethnographic studies among various
communities of Polish nationals living in London Micha? P. Garapich documents the changes that
affect both Polish migrants and British society. Arguing that neither group can be fully
understood in isolation it explores the complexity of Polish ethnicity and offers an insight
into the inner tensions and struggles within what the public and scholars often assume to be a
uniform and homogeneous category. From Polish financial sector workers to the Polish homeless
population this groundbreaking book offers an ethnographic street-level account of cultural
and social determinants of Polish migration and how Polish migrants redefine and reconstruct
their understanding of class and ethnicity on a daily basis.
