Pathological integration, or, how East Europeans use racism to become British

Abstract

East Europeans are integrating into life in the UK. This entails learning to get along with their new neighbours, but it also involves not getting along with certain neighbours. Integration is not confined to benevolent forms of everyday cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism and conviviality; it can also include more pathological forms, like racism. Whilst integration is generally seen as desirable, the learning that it entails necessarily includes less desirable practices and norms. The aim of this article is to show how East Europeans in the UK have been acquiring specifically British competencies of racism. This doesn't mean all East Europeans are racist or they always use racism; it does mean, however, that racism is a part of the integration equation. We focus on the racist and racializing practices of Poles, Hungarians and Romanians in Bristol in the UK. These East Europeans are using racism to insert themselves more favourably into Britain's racialized status hierarchies. This is a kind of integration.

Ethnic minorities' reactions to newcomers in East London: Symbolic boundaries and convivial labor

“…See alsoFox and Mogilnicka (2017) who describe how Eastern Europeans in the UK "learn to be racist" as a means of integration and to attenuate the status degradations which they suffered when coming to the UK.…”

Do I deserve to belong? Migrants’ perspectives on the debate of deservingness and belonging

“…On the other hand, the politics of belonging reflected by the migrants has been picked up and integrated into the discourse, framing a generalised standpoint of CEE migrants perceiving 'ethnic diversity as abnormal' (Eade, Drinkwater, and Garapich 2006, 18) and expressing racist views (D'Angelo and Ryan 2011; see also Barglowski and Pustulka 2018). Fox and Mogilnicka (2018), argue that East European migrants use divisive categories and racist discourses strategicallyas a way of securing their own place in racial and class hierarchies of British society. Mirroring the conflation of deservingness and belonging present in the discourse, migrants express reciprocal views and juxtapose their own, valuable contributions with disapproval of those who 'accept handouts' (Timonen and Doyle 2009;Willen 2012), namely the recipients of extended assistance provided by the welfare state (e.g.…”

Suburban ethnicities: Home as the site of interethnic conviviality and racism

“…For Guido, “Pakistanis” should be accepted when they express proper neighborly behavior and invest in the local neighborhood (see Erel, , p. 2054). In this way, then, Guido is acquiring “especially British competencies” of speaking and thinking about British Asian Muslims, and so positioning himself “into Britain’s racialized status hierarchies” as one of “us” rather than one of “them” (Fox & Moglinicka, , p. 5). These racialized stereotypes about British Asian Pakistanis become meaningful for and take hold of Guido when he thinks the stability and security that comes from home ownership is under threat.…”