My talk extended to discuss some of the uncertainty many of my respondents felt regarding the Brexit outcome and how it might affect their future migration decision-making. British Sociological Association Conference 2017 held at the University of Manchester between April the 4th and the 6th. The conference was focused on multiple themes within the discipline of sociology. My paper focused on contributing to the discussion on ‘how race and ethnicity contributed to the residential decision-making of Polish people?’. The discourse around the role that race and ethnicity have played in migrant decision-making has largely focused taiwan rcs data on non-white racial groups and linked residential decisions to discrimination and racism in multiple domains. However, my work attempted to expose the changing nature of whiteness and what this meant for Polish people living in Britain.
I previously described that my initial impact idea was focused on interviewing Polish people to find out how last summers’ referendum vote had contributed to their future residential decision-making. My previous employment has been within the asylum and refugee sector and therefore elements of participation and researches tangible benefit to the study’s participants and the wider community were essential. Whilst from a research perspective conducting additional interviews with Polish EU nationals appeared to be the logical progression to my research on residential decision-making before Brexit, working closely with a number of gatekeepers within the local Polish community across Greater Manchester, illustrated the tentative and insecure nature that Brexit had impacted on the Polish population. Brexit had placed Polish migrants in a precarious position where their legal rights and position in the UK was fragile and uncertain and therefore it has become even more important to create a piece of impact work that was dually beneficial.