Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MIGREMOV (Movements, Migration and Emotion: East/West Mobility, Transnational Bonding, and Political Identities in Polish Activists' Biographies)
Reporting period: 2018-05-01 to 2020-04-30
MIGREMOV studies life histories of Polish LGBTQ (former) activists, through their experiences of migration to a Western country. This research is rooted in a context in which homophobia and transphobia are increasingly addressed in Europe, and are instrumentalized in various ways by European governments. In Poland, in particular, politicized LGBTQ-phobia has been promoted by successive governments for the last fifteen years, and state repression against LGBTQ activists is on the rise. In this context, it is often assumed that Polish LGBTQ people tend to leave their country to find a “better life” in Western Europe or North America. However, as different studies have already shown, reality is much more complicated. On the one hand, motivations for migration are diverse, and East/West economic inequalities remain an important cause of departure for everyone. On the other hand, the stigma connected to being an “Eastern European migrant”, and the way this experience interacts with being part of a sexual/gender minority, is often under-estimated.
Polish LGBTQ activists, in particular, are seen as “natural” candidates for migration to Western countries. They can sometimes feel that they are being asked, both by their nationalist opponents and their Western LGBTQ partners, to choose between their attachment to their nation and their allegiance to promoting LGBTQ rights and emancipation presented as a “Western” project, as Agnès Chetaille, MIGREMOV’s Experienced Researcher, had shown in her earlier research. Inspired by a growing body of research on individual activist careers and how their study can tell us how and why people become and remain activists, or on the contrary exit from social movements, MIGREMOV focuses on how different experiences – such as belonging to a sexual/gender minority, political mobilization and migration – interact with each other and influence a life course. It also tackles the subjective aspect of biographies, and looks at the role of emotions and at the dynamics of politicization of various aspects of one’s life.
In the context of rising xenophobia in Europe (and of specific anti-Polish feelings in the UK around Brexit), of growing (East/West) economic inequalities, and of intense public debates about what international response to bring to LGBTQphobia in different places including Poland, MIGREMOV sheds new, insightful light on all of these issues and how they interact, in ways that can be relevant way beyond the specific case of Poland. It also raises the question of social change and the conditions necessary to politicize one’s identity, and organize collectively around it.
Polish LGBTQ activists, in particular, are seen as “natural” candidates for migration to Western countries. They can sometimes feel that they are being asked, both by their nationalist opponents and their Western LGBTQ partners, to choose between their attachment to their nation and their allegiance to promoting LGBTQ rights and emancipation presented as a “Western” project, as Agnès Chetaille, MIGREMOV’s Experienced Researcher, had shown in her earlier research. Inspired by a growing body of research on individual activist careers and how their study can tell us how and why people become and remain activists, or on the contrary exit from social movements, MIGREMOV focuses on how different experiences – such as belonging to a sexual/gender minority, political mobilization and migration – interact with each other and influence a life course. It also tackles the subjective aspect of biographies, and looks at the role of emotions and at the dynamics of politicization of various aspects of one’s life.
In the context of rising xenophobia in Europe (and of specific anti-Polish feelings in the UK around Brexit), of growing (East/West) economic inequalities, and of intense public debates about what international response to bring to LGBTQphobia in different places including Poland, MIGREMOV sheds new, insightful light on all of these issues and how they interact, in ways that can be relevant way beyond the specific case of Poland. It also raises the question of social change and the conditions necessary to politicize one’s identity, and organize collectively around it.
MIGREMOV research was carried out through different stages:
1- Methodology: Developing a methodology to collect long biographical interviews and Life History Calendars (LHC) – a tool that enables visualization of the different stages of the respondent’s life, from birth to the present day, in different aspects. The Calendar produced especially for MIGREMOV focused on: place of residence, living conditions, romantic relationships and friendships, education, professional career, and activist experience (see picture of LHC filled for fictional respondent).
2- Fieldwork: Identification of possible respondents, contact and negotiation with them (including signature of a detailed consent form), physical meeting(s) to record the interview and fill a LHC together. Interviews were carried out with twenty people based in six countries (Germany, Belgium, France, the UK, Canada and Poland with people who had moved back to their home country).
3- Transcription and analysis of the data: The 55-hour long recordings were entirely transcribed in the three different languages used by the researcher in the interviews (English, Polish and French - the interviews in Polish were transcribed by an external help hired for this). The transcriptions were analyzed with a qualitative data analysis tool, and special attention was put on the use of different languages by respondents during the course of the interview.
4- Results were disseminated in international conferences and scientific seminars, leading to one completed and two pending publications. As specified in the Data Management Plan of the project, the data and results will continue to exploited by the researcher in her further research.
5- Contributions to the public debate were made through newspaper articles and interviews given to different media outlets. They popularized and promoted a vision informed by social sciences on the issue of LGBTQ rights in Poland and in Europe, putting forward perspectives that look at this issue through an intersectional, critical lens and consider East/West economic and symbolic inequalities.
1- Methodology: Developing a methodology to collect long biographical interviews and Life History Calendars (LHC) – a tool that enables visualization of the different stages of the respondent’s life, from birth to the present day, in different aspects. The Calendar produced especially for MIGREMOV focused on: place of residence, living conditions, romantic relationships and friendships, education, professional career, and activist experience (see picture of LHC filled for fictional respondent).
2- Fieldwork: Identification of possible respondents, contact and negotiation with them (including signature of a detailed consent form), physical meeting(s) to record the interview and fill a LHC together. Interviews were carried out with twenty people based in six countries (Germany, Belgium, France, the UK, Canada and Poland with people who had moved back to their home country).
3- Transcription and analysis of the data: The 55-hour long recordings were entirely transcribed in the three different languages used by the researcher in the interviews (English, Polish and French - the interviews in Polish were transcribed by an external help hired for this). The transcriptions were analyzed with a qualitative data analysis tool, and special attention was put on the use of different languages by respondents during the course of the interview.
4- Results were disseminated in international conferences and scientific seminars, leading to one completed and two pending publications. As specified in the Data Management Plan of the project, the data and results will continue to exploited by the researcher in her further research.
5- Contributions to the public debate were made through newspaper articles and interviews given to different media outlets. They popularized and promoted a vision informed by social sciences on the issue of LGBTQ rights in Poland and in Europe, putting forward perspectives that look at this issue through an intersectional, critical lens and consider East/West economic and symbolic inequalities.
The main contributions to the state of the art made thanks to MIGREMOV results are:
- An innovative exploration of how East/West economic, political and symbolic inequalities have impacted LGBTQ transnational organizing and cooperation in Europe. MIGREMOV shows that these inequalities, which affect the way transnational activist networks function, influence the role, position and social and geographical mobility of Polish LGBTQ activists. This result is relevant to the broader discussion about relations of power within progressive transnational organizing.
- Valuable hypotheses as to what conditions enable the emergence of “migrant activism”, i.e. mobilization as migrants, in a given context. In particular, MIGREMOV has pointed to the role of existing economic, social and cultural capital, to the influence of different types of migration/integration regime (especially discussing the significance of multiculturalism), and to the felt need for reinforcement of intersectional belonging (in this case Polish & LGBT) in times of crisis (e.g. the AIDS crisis or the Brexit crisis).
- Meaningful input in the study of individual biographies, especially in relation to social movement studies, adding the notions of transnational social capital, and migration. MIGREMOV demonstrated that migration plans can take place in a broader dynamics of converting social capital acquired through activism into other fields as a social mobility strategy. This result confirms the role of activism as a crucial space of socialization, with major implications on activists’ lives. It calls for more systematic consideration of transnational social capital and transnational circulation in relation to both social/political movements and social mobility.
- Finally, MIGREMOV has shown that stigmatization as migrants / Eastern Europeans can lead either to de-politicization or re-politicization according to the context and resources available to the person subjected to the stigma. Some respondents tended to internalize such stigma whereas others described a new phase of politicization, this time related to their Polish identity, even leading back to collective action in some instances.
- An innovative exploration of how East/West economic, political and symbolic inequalities have impacted LGBTQ transnational organizing and cooperation in Europe. MIGREMOV shows that these inequalities, which affect the way transnational activist networks function, influence the role, position and social and geographical mobility of Polish LGBTQ activists. This result is relevant to the broader discussion about relations of power within progressive transnational organizing.
- Valuable hypotheses as to what conditions enable the emergence of “migrant activism”, i.e. mobilization as migrants, in a given context. In particular, MIGREMOV has pointed to the role of existing economic, social and cultural capital, to the influence of different types of migration/integration regime (especially discussing the significance of multiculturalism), and to the felt need for reinforcement of intersectional belonging (in this case Polish & LGBT) in times of crisis (e.g. the AIDS crisis or the Brexit crisis).
- Meaningful input in the study of individual biographies, especially in relation to social movement studies, adding the notions of transnational social capital, and migration. MIGREMOV demonstrated that migration plans can take place in a broader dynamics of converting social capital acquired through activism into other fields as a social mobility strategy. This result confirms the role of activism as a crucial space of socialization, with major implications on activists’ lives. It calls for more systematic consideration of transnational social capital and transnational circulation in relation to both social/political movements and social mobility.
- Finally, MIGREMOV has shown that stigmatization as migrants / Eastern Europeans can lead either to de-politicization or re-politicization according to the context and resources available to the person subjected to the stigma. Some respondents tended to internalize such stigma whereas others described a new phase of politicization, this time related to their Polish identity, even leading back to collective action in some instances.