THE MOBILITY OF POLISH FAMILIES IN THE WEST OF ENGLAND: TRANSLOCALISM AND ATTITUDES TO RETURN

I explore how working-class Polish parents come to identify with their new localities despite their limited command of English, building just a few, but necessary bridges into the English-speaking community, e.g. by learning to decipher letters from children’s schools, or attending English masses in the weeks between Polish ones. Despite the apparent sparseness of these ties, parents who have lived in Bath or Bristol for a few years already feel quite strong attachments to the local area and are not interested in moving elsewhere in England. Feelings of wanting to stay put are enhanced by parents’ exhaustion after the period of intense mobility by all parties while only the husband was working in the UK. Simultaneously, parents – usually both from the same place in Poland - maintain close ties with their original home locality. This is the only place to which they would consider return. Different family members are attached to that Polish locality to different degrees, but it seems uncommon for one to persuade the rest of the family to go back.