Migrant Lives and the Dynamics of (Non)belonging in the Polish-British Works of A.M. Bakalar, Wioletta Greg, and Agnieszka Dale

Abstract

Migration exposes such givens as home and belonging to be more than national or ethnic categories; instead, they emerge as complex affective affiliations which fluctuate in the emotionally volatile situation of relocation. Such “ambivalent dynamics of (non)belonging” feature prominently in the works of three Polish-British authors discussed in this chapter: A.M. Bakalar, Wioletta Greg (Grzegorzewska), and Agnieszka Dale. The migration literature produced by these authors exploits the productive potential of the emotional ambivalence inscribed in the migrant condition. Fuelled by the authors’ first-hand experience of migration, their works offer a nuanced reflection on how Polishness, particularly in its female, post-2004 incarnation, is inhabited, represented, and negotiated in the UK, while at the same time responding to the broader anxieties which contemporary migration engenders.