Polish Migrants in Belfast: Border Crossing and Identity Construction proposes an understanding of identity as a multidimensional and multilayered entity whose various layers are in a dialogue. The book investigates the processual nature of one’s sense of belonging formed as a result of a dialectics between people’s efforts to preserve the boundaries of their culture of origin and the urge to transgress them, detectable in everyday life, religious holidays, and ethnic festivals. The book examines also the role of religion as an important factor shaping ethnic identities of Poles and explores how the “Polish” self-ascription remains a powerful building block of migrants’ identities. The work is based on a rigorous and original ethnographic study of the Polish community in Belfast, Northern Ireland and a review of the existing literature on the topic.
Both East Europe specialists and casual readers who are interested in study of migration, identity and religion will find this book invaluable. Whilst it is ethnographic in nature, it also synthesizes the existing literature on the identities and cultures in postmodern world, pointing out to different angles from which these issues have been discussed in anthropological theory.
