Capturing the flexibility of adaptation and settlement: anchoring in a mobile society

Abstract

Drawing on interviews with 40 Polish migrants in the UK, ethnographic and autobiographical research, the article applies the concept of anchoring to theorise the flexibility of migrants’ adaptation and ‘settlement’. Simultaneity, multidimensionality and changeability of anchoring and the reverse processes of un-anchoring are examined here to bridge the divide between the ‘sedentarist’ and the mobility perspectives. The paper particularly focuses on anchors overlooked in the adaptation and integration literature, such as: performing gender; daily practices; spirituality; leisure activities; attachment to nature; material objects and technology; as well as constraining illnesses and addictions.

Keywords:

• Adaptation
• security
• anchoring
• integration
• migrants
• settlement
• sedentarist vs mobility perspectives

Acknowledgments

The author wish to express her gratitude to Professor Marek Okolski and Professor Jenny Phillimore who offered insightful comments on the draft of this paper as well as the journal’s editors and reviewers for their useful suggestions.

Notes

1. The project was funded as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship ‘Social Anchoring in Superdiverse Transnational Social Spaces’.

2. ‘Wm’ stands for West Midlands, ‘w’ for woman, ‘y’ for years, ‘m’ for months.

3. Names and other details have been changed.