Introduction

Post-enlargement Europe provides an interesting site where the traditional distinction between internal and international migration is becoming less useful. The advent of flexibility of movement within the European Union creates a context in which new patterns of migration appear. It is important to understand the new forms of mobility, particularly the emergence of transnational connections and multiple identities. Exploring Bailey and Boyle's (2004) suggestions, this chapter applies transnational theory to migration movements within the single union. Migration from Poland and the other new EU member states raises a number of issues about how we conceptualise labour migrations and transnationalism. This area has started to be addressed by scholars such as Morokvasic (2004), Ryan et al. (2008, 2009) and Baláž and Williams (2004). Studies of transnationalism have shown that immigrants maintain multi-stranded connections to their place of origin and that these continue to have significant influence on their lives. This chapter explores the ways in which different forms of migrant resources (social, cultural and economic capital) are accumulated, exchanged and transformed within a transnational setting. The research evidence was gathered as part of a study concerning the integration and transnational linkages of Polish immigrants in Scotland. The project involved the in-depth interviews as well as survey questionnaires conducted among Polish immigrants in Scotland in 2006-2007.

Polish post-accession migration to Scotland

Following the EU enlargement of May 2004, a significant number of workers and their families moved from the new member countries to take up employment in the United Kingdom. The opening up of the labour market to citizens of the new member states of the EU initiated what is almost certainly the largest single immigration the British Isles ever experienced, with Poles the largest single national group of entrants (Salt & Rees 2006). Part of that movement constitutes the arrival of around 50,000 Polish nationals in Scotland between 2004 and 2007.

The portrait of post-enlargement migration from Poland is a mixture of continuity and change. Before 2004, migration from Poland tended to be perceived as short-term, transient and individual (Grzymała-Kazłowska 2005; Düvell 2004), and many moves were undocumented. Migrants were depicted as either having no dependents or as leaving dependent family members ‘back home’.