AGENTES FÍSICOS 24 

The evidence discussed above provided insights into lives of Northtown’s migrants coming from very diverse national, religious and ethnic backgrounds. However, because of the thickness of the data (most of biographical interviews were conducted with Polish-speaking participants), the analysis is more potent when it comes to the exploration of social activities of Polish migrants in Northtown. One

of such ‘Polish-oriented’ data segments’ relates to the activities around the Northtown based Catholic Church. Similarly to other material presented and interpreted in the section, this data is relevant because it offers an additional perspective on social interactions taking place outside of the paid labour market.

When it comes to out of labour market activities of migrants, the Church can be seen as both theoretically and empirically important for social research. It’s well documented by social scientists that locally based religious institutions perform multiple roles in social life: they are not only transmitters of sacral teachings and practises, but informal hubs used by individuals searching for social engagement outside the private and labour market spheres (Davie, 2007). In the context of this study, there has been substantial amount of empirical evidence suggesting that this religious institution (in the case of Polish migrants – one of Northtown’s Catholic Churches) has been an important site for migrants. For example, a manager of social services for young people, who sought to outreach to people from ethnic minority and migrant background, said that young Polish migrants have shown greater willingness to get involved when events were coordinated with the local Catholic Church. Ludmila, a community worker with a local migrant umbrella group, said with a strong conviction:

If you want to get in touch Polish migrants here, you need be in touch with a local Catholic Church, whether you like it or not

She personally believed that the local Catholic Church, where Polish migrants met, was important site for anyone wishing to observe social lives of Northtown’s migrants. She suggested that those observations came from her experience rather than any personal affiliations with the Church. A testimony from another Polish interviewee provided some support to such claims, and even more significantly brought light onto social activities requiring some form of work from migrants, but which, in contrast to two cases discussed above, did not lead to the generation of additional income.

The activities of Alina and her role in organising celebratory event illustrates how the premises of locally based religious institutions have been used by Polish migrants, who were prepared to contribute through their unpaid voluntary labour.

Alina’s name first came out in the interview with Jan, who described her as someone committed to community organizing activities – he called, ‘dzialaczka’, which means literally ‘the doer’ in Polish. He explained:

This means from the early age – I know her for a long time, she took part in organizing all kinds of events, for example, sport competitions. Now she together with her husband are organizing yearly New Year celebrations for the Poles here. And not only for the Poles, even a few Englishmen are coming, but of course the majority are Poles

He got in touch with her, explained about the purpose of my research, and gained her permission to pass her contact details to me.

During the interview it appeared that she was extremely proud of the way she managed to organise a New Year celebration event for Polish migrants in Northtown, in fact one of the first things she talked when asked about her life in Northtown, was the story surrounding this event.

Although post-2004 labour migration brought a substantial numbers of Poles to Northtown, according to Alina there had not been any Polish themed leisure event. This was spotted by Alina, who realised that there was a potential of filling the gap when it came to the activities neither belonging to paid employment nor to the private sphere of the household. Her starting point was the informal group gatherings around the local Catholic Church:

The only opportunity for the Poles to meet as a group after work is around the local Church. Around this Church groups are coming together, having chats after the Mass. But it did not last long, particularly if the weather was bad

Alina used such group gatherings as a channel to spread the word about a Polish leisure event of a secular character. Her strategy was twofold: first of all, she aimed to promote her idea among Polish post-2004 newcomers, and secondly, to get support from the local Catholic parish in using the hall adjacent to the chapel in launching this event. She calculated that the celebration of the New Year’s Eve would bring a large number of Polish migrants resident in Northtown. In her words, there was a demand for leisure event for Polish migrants, which was not

met by any local statutory, private or formally recognised voluntary sector provider:

There is nothing much to do for leisure here, just go to a pub. But what kind of music do they play? From what I heard and experienced, it just techno and rap. I do not mean to say that we are old and do not understand this kind of music, but we cannot simply relax while it’s playing. The important thing about Poles is that they want to have fun. So for us, the New Year Eve can be a chance to listen to popular Polish songs, to the music we love…

In order to organise this ‘Polish’ New Year celebration, she first of all had to persuade local Polish migrant families to take part in it. Initially Alina’s proposal was met with a degree of reluctance and scepticism – local Polish migrants tended to distrust an idea coming from a woman whom they did not know very well. On the other hand, not everyone was excited that the logistics of this event were built around the Church. There was a suspicion that since Alina maintained a good relationship with the priest and used religious gatherings in advertising her ideas of the leisure event, the celebrations would have a strictly religious character. It explained the initial scepticism of some migrants. It took Alina time to persuade that the nature of the event would be secular.

Secondly, there was another barrier, which Alina described as the culture of fear among migrants. She explained that Northtown’s Polish migrants had come from different parts of Poland, did not know each other prior to migration, hence there was a certain degree of distance and distrust in social relations. There was also a fear of that the permission to bring alcoholic drinks would lead to unpredictable behaviour and possibly even some acts of violence.

Alina dealt with those concerns in two ways. The New Year Eve celebration was promoted as a family event: migrants were invited with their children rather than on their own. This mixing of children with adults was supposed to introduce a degree of internal normative control: the expectation was that the presence of children would encourage adults to behave in a restrained and responsible way and to be moderate in their alcohol consumption. To respond to any potential disturbances, Alina established a contact line with the local police and was assured

that they would come at once and deal with any potential issues decisively but respectfully. Although all those fears proved to be wrong, there was still a mechanism in place which kept migrant families reassured that everything would go smoothly and safely. Alina claimed that the celebration became more popular over the two years with the numbers increasing from sixty participants in the first year to around one hundred and sixty the next year. There was a clear pattern of returning party goers; some participants would even invite their family and friends living in other European countries to come to celebrate the New Year’s Eve in Northtown. Although Alina’s assertions might be treated with caution – after all she was an organiser and had interest in reassuring that the event was an unambiguous success, two Polish couples who participated in the celebration were very positive for a number of reasons: it gave them the opportunity to enjoy themselves in a Polish language environment, to bring their own food and also to make charitable contributions to social causes. Alina herself was praised for showing initiative and determination in carrying things through. Jan told that during the last celebration they were raising charity for children suffering from cancer in Poland.

Reading through the narratives it appears that the celebratory event has had multiple functions: on the one hand, it was a Northtown based event, which gave its participants a chance to feel that there were social activities in Northtown unrelated to paid employment. The social event was structured and organised by migrant participants themselves rather than by any private or public body, or even by a formally structured voluntary group. Polish migrants also contributed through their voluntary labour in preparing food and turned the celebration into an enjoyable family event.

On the other hand, few local English people and members of other nationalities came or were invited, it was an explicitly Polish event both in terms of its functions and activities. This event shows how migrants, particularly the interviewees such as Alina can exercise their agency in the social sphere: employ their organisational skills and launch not for personal benefit, but for collective enjoyment. It also shows how migrants can use the sites of international institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church (importantly, Polish migrants share this similar religious

background) can be used for staging local events. Northtown is a new destination for post-2004 Polish migrants in the sense that it does not have any established Polish cultural institutions. The post-1945 Polish organisations ceased to function in this locality; according to the testimonies of local and newly arrived Polish interviewees, Northtown had Polish community group after 1945, there was even a Polish Social Club, which with the declining numbers of Poles was turned into a British senior citizens club. Even though Polish migrants could encounter people with Polish roots whose ancestors came around 1945, the sense of continuation was absent. According to Tadeusz (who also participated in Alina’s event),

Here on the left from own house, there is a neighbour – his father was a Polish soldier during the Second World War. He had to stay here, he could not return to Poland because the KGB would capture him. I have also worked on a building site around here and there was a man with a typical Polish surname – Jankowski. There are a number of such people from that wave of migration, but they are dying out. That one is dead or the father of this is one is dead. But now there is a new generation who arrived here, like our family

In this institutional vacuum and in the context of new wave migration, new arrivals from Poland could use the Catholic Church not solely for religious practices but leisure related activities as well. The events which they organised also depended on their voluntary unpaid labour rather from any formal employment in recognised community organisations.