This paper reformulates classical questions regarding the plans and strategies of Polish migrants in the UK -such as decisions to leave or remain in the host country, or be 'deliberately indeterminate' about future plans -from a sociologically situated 'rights-based' perspective. This approach considers migrants' attitudes towards specific 'civic integration' measures in a medium-term time frame, as well as in the new context created by the UK's vote to leave the EU. Based on the quantitative analysis of original survey data, we investigate the factors behind Polish migrants' migration strategies, and we argue that basic socio-economic and demographic factors are inadequate, on their own terms, to explain future migration and civic integration plans. Instead, we find that aspects such as interest in and awareness of one's rights, as well as anxieties about the ability to maintain one's rights in the future are stronger determinants.

Britain confronts a historic choice as to its future direction. Will it try to turn the clock back, digging in, defending old values and ancient hierarchies, relying on a narrow English-dominated, backward-looking definitions of the nation? Or will it seize the opportunity to create a more flexible inclusive, cosmopolitan image of itself? Britain is at a turning point. But it has not yet turned the corner. It is time to make the move. (Parekh, 2000: 14-15). AbstractThe paper focuses on the discourses, recommendations and programmes for facilitating community cohesion in the UK as recorded on the pages of an archive of documents such as: The Community Cohesion Review Team Report (2001), The Bradford District Race Review (2001) and The Local Government Association's Guidance on Community Cohesion (2002). These documents were commissioned in relation to the disturbances in the city of Bradford and in the towns of Oldham and Burnley in the north of England in the spring and summer of 2001.The facilitation of community cohesion, it shall be revealed in this paper, is a rather sociological enterprise involving the problematization and modification of the forms of sociation in communities and especially the structures of interaction between different communities. Community, civil society and social capital are central to this community cohesion discourse, and the towns of Oldham, Burnley and the city of Bradford are at the epicentre of this unfolding social project of attempting to alleviate disorder, disharmony and discord in these areas characterized by multi-ethnic, multi-faith and multi-cultural communities.However, despite the best of intentions, the process of community cohesion facilitation as read off the pages of this archive of documents will be presented here as being blighted by three inter-related factors; (1) the practical problems associated with attempting to formulate a public policy of community cohesion on the assumption that common principles and shared values can be founded in multiethnic, multi-faith and multi-cultural societies; (2) the relative de-emphasis of material deprivation and socio-economic marginalization in community cohesion 377 facilitation programmes in favour of concentrating on inter-community relationships; and (3) with special reference to Bradford, the criminalization of young male British-Asian 'rioters' in the city is shown to be inconsistent with the rebuilding and re-orientation of social capital from defensive 'bonding' to inclusive 'bridging' in the judicial aftermath that is currently gripping this city.

This article adds to literatures bridging the divide between internal and international migrations by investigating patterns of internal mobility following the international move of post‐accession Polish migrants to the UK. Our analysis is based on a large‐scale qualitative study carried out among 83 Polish migrants living in urban and rural locations in England and Scotland. We analyse the reasons behind their initial choice of location in the destination country and the propensity for subsequent internal mobility after arriving in the UK. We consider the role of family characteristics, migration channels, and time in the spatial moves the migrants undertake. In our analysis, we differentiate between residential mobility (which was generally very high among our study participants) and internal mobility (undertaken by one‐third of our sample). Our research findings indicate that migrants who arrive through recruitment agencies and do not have children (with them in Britain) are the most internally mobile, whereas those who arrive through personal networks (of family, friends, or acquaintances) and with (especially school‐age) children are the least likely to relocate after arriving in the UK. Moreover, it appears that migrants with families are more willing to make urban to rural moves, whereas young and childless migrants favour rural to urban relocations. Notably, the internal migration of some of our (childless) study participants was sometimes interspersed with short‐term return migration. Finally, the general propensity to move internally seems to decrease with time: once the migrants secure permanent employment and stable accommodation, they are less willing to uproot again. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This article examines data from a qualitative study of post-accession Polish migrants living in the UK. We examine themes from our interviews such as 'dignity', 'normality', 'happiness' and the 'affordability' and 'ease' of life in the UK (compared to Poland). We focus on the autobiographical or intra-personal discursive practices that define what Habib calls migrants' continuing relationship with their 'homeland'. We draw on Emirbayer and Mische's analysis of the relationship between 'agency' and what they call 'embedded temporalities' to examine the interaction between our participants'recollections of life in Poland and their evaluation of their present lives in the UK in order to examine the impact of these on their future plans (to stay in the UK or return to Poland). We locate this analysis in what we call a transnational autobiographical field which is a modification of what Levitt and Glick Schiller call a transnational social field. Rather than examine, for example, how decisions to migrate, settle and re-migrate are embedded in inter or trans-personal social relations and networks, in this article we examine the self-dynamics associated with our participants' articulation of their intra-personal and autobiographical embedded temporalities. Our argument is that articulations of individuals' pasts, presents and anticipated futures are also significant factors shaping their migration, settlement, and re-migration decisions.

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