Seminar: Pathological Integration - How East Europeans Use Racism to Become British

UCD School of Sociology – Seminar Series 2017-2018

Pathological Integration: How East Europeans Use Racism to Become British
Dr. Jon Fox – University of Bristol

Thursday 14th September 2017, 1.00PM
D418, Newman Building

For the last decade, East Europeans have been quietly integrating into life in the UK. Part of this process entails learning to get along with their new neighbours, the diverse segments of the British population. But part of it also involves not getting along with certain neighbours. Integration isn’t 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 elements of acculturation it involves necessarily include the adoption of multiple practices and norms, including those deemed less desirable. The aim of this paper 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 one part of the integration equation. We focus on the racist and racialising practices of Poles, Hungarians, and Romanians in Bristol in the UK. These East Europeans are not simply deploying the variants of racism they learned and used in their countries of origin. Rather, they are learning to use new forms of racism that they have been acquiring since coming to Britain. (The paper is co-authored with Magda Mogilnicka).


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