Conceptualisations of Welfare Deservingness by Polish Migrants in the UK

Abstract

The issue of reconciling ethnic diversity with the welfare state is a subject of long-standing theoretical debate. In particular, it remains unclear to what extent a shared national identity is necessary for endorsing claims to welfare at the individual and societal levels. Surveys show that migrants are seen as the least deserving category of welfare recipients. Yet migrants’ own views are rarely considered. Based on a qualitative study, this paper explores how Polish migrants residing in London conceptualised their deservingness to British welfare benefits and social housing. It finds a strong preference for conditionality of welfare predicated on contributions through work, payment of taxes and law abidance. Such conditionality applied to both in-group and out-group members thus transcending identity-based claims. These contributions were seen as both necessary and sufficient for laying claims to the British welfare system. Solely needs-based claims were seen as problematic.

Stakeholder identities in Britain's neoliberal ethical community: Polish narratives of earned citizenship in the context of the UK's EU referendum

“…However, our analysis also concurs with earlier research showing how Polish migrants tend to root the moral validation of their active engagement with EU free movement rights ‘in their contributions to the British society and not merely in the legal framework of the EU’ (Osipovič : 741). What we observe in our data, therefore, is not a rejection of ‘nationhood’, but a permutation in the meaning attributed to the ‘nation’ as primarily a contribution‐based ethical community.…”

“…As such, we discuss our participants’ statements as reflecting a combination of ‘communitarian’ and ‘neoliberal’ elements in their vision of ‘citizenship’ and ‘belonging’. Our analysis and findings tie in with other recent research on Polish ‘migrants’ in the UK, which has already highlighted a surprising alignment between Poles’ attitudes towards welfare deservingness and those of the majority population (Osipovič ), finding that ‘some of the aspects of post‐socialist subjectivities dovetail unexpectedly with the neoliberal project’ of the host country (Matejskova : 984).…”

“…However, one theoretically plausible narrative reaction – namely, the defence of ‘free movement’ ideals on post‐national ethical grounds and of EU citizenship as an entitlement – was conspicuously absent. This also chimes with earlier research focusing specifically on the question of Polish migrants’ attitudes to welfare deservingness, where ‘participants perceived some of the rights conferred by the EU as normatively dubious’ (Osipovič : 741). Instead, what we find are different strategies of positioning oneself in respect to an ethical community defined through work, economic contribution and self‐management, values that we have earlier described as stemming from more general principles of neoliberal ‘social ordering’ (Masquelier ).…”

“…The political strength of defensive assertiveness as an ethical positioning strategy has two sources: on the one hand, it can be rhetorically mobilized as seen in various campaign groups’ attempts to organize general migrant strikes to demonstrate the importance of the migrant workforce (see Day and Bingham ); on the other hand, its underlying ethical narrative can be shared with a segment of the core national community. The stereotype of the ‘hard‐working Pole’ in particular has permeated public consciousness in Britain and elsewhere (Anderson, Ruhs, Rogaly and Spencer ; Friberg ; Krings et al ; Osipovič ; Spigelman ), providing Polish workers not only with a source of self‐esteem, but also valuable political capital. As Daniel Kawczynski – the Polish‐born ‘pro‐Brexit’ Conservative MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham – contended in a House of Commons debate soon after the EU referendum: ‘I dare to venture that if we wanted the ideal sort of immigrant, it could possibly be a Pole?…”

“…We could see such attitudes reflected in the positioning strategies discussed above, and so while Hansen and Hager (: 124) remained sceptical ‘that this citizenship model will be “internalised” by EU citizens’, our bottom‐up analysis from the perspective of a group of ‘migrants’ who ‘proactively engage’ their EU citizenship (cf. Osipovič : 741) is an illustration of how a certain vision of ‘neoliberal communitarian citizenship’ has become internalized.…”