Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

104 Krystyna Romaniszyn
consumer culture, it does, however, suit the interpretation of the cultural
diversification as well. In the case of Poland, and other post-communist countries
the rationality of McDonald’s – as a specific organisational method of human agency
– stands in contrast to the irrationalities of former communist management
strategies, and its remnants. Indicators of the implementation of this organisational
model in these countries may be traced in a whole spectrum of economic and social
fields such as the housing and trade sectors, in the food industry and mass tourism.
Secondly, the same rule of dissemination pertains to consumption habits and
patterns brought in and developed by the newcomers. As one author observes:
A pattern of consumption which has its roots among an ethnic group, and
which helps its members to create a sense of identity, may become partially
adopted by some other groups in the wider society. Chinese, Indian, Greek
and Turkish Cypriot restaurants, for instance, have had something of this
pattern in their history in Britain.
(Bocock 1993: 57)
It also happens that the entrepreneurial immigrants who operate, for example, in
the trade or food industry introducing and advertising new products or services
may well shape new consumption habits among the indigenous population. This
is, for instance, the case of Vietnamese businessmen opening their restaurants
and fast-food kiosks all over Poland, attracting and pulling in local clientele, and thus
successfully competing with the Polish ethnic businesses. Needless to say, before
the mass immigration of Vietnamese entrepreneurs, Oriental restaurants and
fast-food kiosks were rare in the country.
Another dimension of the impact of migration on economic culture provides
the diffusion of new consumption patterns acquired by migrants abroad, brought
back upon their return, and ‘implemented’ by means of remittances. This time, the
direction of the diffusion goes from the host country into the out-migration region
via the return migrants and their families. The imitation in the home region
of consumption patterns obtained abroad reveals a strategy of postponed consumption
as opposed to immediate consumption, occurring in the host country (Romaniszyn
2000b: 140). The former one takes place in the hometown or village upon the
migrants’ return or, in the meantime, by use of the remittances and serves to raise
the migrants’ standard of living, and to tighten social relationships due to the sharing
of goods (ibid.). It also sets or adds to the shape of the local standards of consumption
in the out-migration region which are clear copies or ‘mutations’ of the patterns
perceived in the immigration country. For instance, in Podlasie, which is an outmigration
region in north-eastern Poland, those returning from the Benelux
countries, the destination for local labour migrants, imitate middle-class housing
standards observed abroad. Heading mostly for Brussels and surrounding places
these migrants take up jobs as cleaning ladies (women) and construction workers
(men), and thus exploit the opportunity to study the patterns of house architecture,
decoration, landscaping, etc. Back in the home they copy those patterns utilising
acquired means. Visible results of the consumption patterns’ diffusion brought about