Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

172 Ewa Morawska
2001; Rajkiewicz 2000). In that study I personally interviewed or corresponded
with twenty religious and organisational leaders of the Berlin Polish community,
members of the Polnischer Sozialrat (a local German–Polish organisation assisting
contract workers and undocumented migrants), editors of Polish-language newspapers
and radio programmes, and authors of studies of Polish (im)migrants in
Berlin. The list of my (co)respondents can be found in Appendix II.
I also content-analysed 1992–2001 samples of the monthly Kurier Berlinski-Polonica
published in Polish and German, and Berlin newspapers Der Tagesspiegel, Die
Tageszeitung, and Die Berlinerzeitung, looking for material related to Polish (im)migrant
adaptation in Germany and, in particular, their national identities, collective
self-representations, and images of ‘others’, especially Germany/Germans and
Europe/Europeans.
The Polish group in Berlin is not homogenous but consists of different waves
of immigrants ‘moved’ by different economic and political mechanisms (the interwar
period, the 1960s–1970s, the 1980s, the postcommunist era); different ethnic
backgrounds (Polish, ethnic German, Silesian, 2 Jewish); and different socioeconomic
positions and legal statuses in Germany. This discussion focuses on four groups. In
the category of the so-called Arbeitstouristen, or tourist-workers predominantly from
the postcommunist wave, 3 who overstay the official three-month visit allowance
and work illegally in the informal sector of Berlin’s economy, 4 I consider lowand
highly-educated migrants separately. The other two groups are represented
by middle-class immigrant Polish permanent residents in humanistic and
business/technical professions who have settled in Berlin since the 1980s and who
display different kinds of national identities and perceptions of ‘others’.
I began my study with three hypotheses. (1) Because of Poland’s continued
economic and political backwardness in relation to Western Europe, in this case,
Germany, and Poland’s treatment by German public opinion as a semi-periphery
whose citizens represent a threat as unwanted aspiring members of the European
Union, national identities of Polish (im)migrants who are exposed to these realities
in their everyday lives represent an intensified combination of the traditional
defensive–offensive syndrome of Polish nationalism containing, on the one hand,
a resentful ‘civilizational inferiority’ vis-à-vis West Europeans and, on the other
hand, a claim to ‘spiritual superiority’. (2) At the same time, during their Western
(German) sojourns these ambivalent national identities of immigrants acquire
a new, third component, namely, some behavioural habits and a sense of civilizational
superiority as residents of a highly developed Western (German) country
toward the backwardness at home. (3) These incongruous multidimensional
national identities of immigrants are displayed situationally: in Germany, the
original defensive– offensive component is dominant; in Poland (after return or
during temporary visits), the I-the-Westerner part is played out.
The results of my preliminary study suggest, however, even more complicated
patterns – no fewer than four types of national identities among Polish (im)migrants
in Berlin. As I discuss each of these types and their generating contexts, I formulate
questions for further research.