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Gender, Place & Culture
A Journal of Feminist Geography
Volume 25, 2018 - Issue 6
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Gendered, spatial and temporal approaches to Polish intra-European migration

Tacit differences, ethnicity and neoliberalism: Polish migrant mothers in German cities

Diferencias tácitas, etnia y neoliberalismo: madres migrantes polacas en ciudades alemanas

默认的差异、族裔与新自由主义:德国城市中的波兰裔移民母亲

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Pages 899-915 | Received 10 May 2016, Accepted 03 Feb 2017, Published online: 05 Jun 2017
 

Abstract

This article presents an inquiry into which tacit differences are relevant for how people make sense of encounters with others in urban settings, and how, if at all, they are translated into ethnic categories understood as ‘basic operators’ in everyday life. Drawing from our interviews with twenty Polish mothers living in Berlin and Munich, we argue that what our research participants distinguish as ‘typically Polish’ or ‘typically German’ is not necessarily connected to some ethnically specific ways of working or mothering, but, rather, significantly structured by locally specific forms of neoliberalism. By asking what kind of difference becomes understood as ethnic difference and how this process of demarcation occurs, this article adds to the strand of intersectional approaches that theorise the notion of difference, recognise heterogeneity of individual categories and render them suspect.

Resumen

Este artículo presenta una investigación sobre cuáles diferencias tácitas son relevantes en cómo la gente entiende sus encuentros con otros en escenarios urbanos y cómo, si es así, se trasladan a categorías étnicas comprendidas como “operadoras básicas” en la vida cotidiana. Basándonos en nuestras entrevistas con veinte madres polacas que viven en Berlín y Múnich, sostenemos que lo que nuestras participantes distinguen como “típicamente polaco” o “típicamente alemán” no está necesariamente conectado a algunas formas étnicamente específicas de trabajar o de ser madre, sino que está, más bien, significativamente estructurado por formas localmente específicas del neoliberalismo. Al preguntar qué tipo de diferencia se llega a entender como una diferencia étnica y cómo ocurre este proceso de demarcación, este artículo se suma a la corriente de enfoques interseccionales que teorizan la noción de diferencia, reconocen la heterogeneidad de las categorías individuales y las vuelven cuestionables.

摘要

本文探问人们如何理解城市每日生活中与他人的偶遇,以及如果有的话,这些偶遇如何转化为被认为是“基础操作”的族裔类别的方式中,哪些默认的差异具有意义。我们运用对二十位生活在柏林与慕尼黑的波兰裔母亲的访谈,主张我们的研究参与者对于“典型波兰人”或“典型德国人”的区别,并不必然连结至特定族裔的工作或从事母职的若干方式,而是明显由地方上特定的新自由主义形式所建构。透过质问什么样的差异被理解为族裔差异,以及此一区别过程如何发生,本文对于理论化差异之概念、承认个人范畴的异质性,并视其为可疑的相互交织性方法做出贡献。

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the European Research Council under Starting grant number 313369 awarded to Prof. Dr Magdalena Nowicka.

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