“And So I Just Left . . . ”
In 1985 Florian Znaniecki’s disciple, prof. Jerzy Zubrzycki, had a guest lecture at the University College London entitled : “Soldiers and Peasants : The Sociology of Polish Migration”. The concepts used in the lecture are an example of a dominant discourse on migrations specific for Polish culture. It can be seen as dominant, shaped by a methodological nationalism and by symbolic structures that conceptualize spatial movements beyond the territory of the state and the imagined community. The function of that discourse is a reproduction of the notion of the border, which defines the community. This article, influenced by Gerd Baumann’s writings on the relationships between the dominant and demotic discourse, explains how and why some Polish contemporary migrants contest that meta-narrative.
Keywords
- migration
- nationalism
- contestation
- dominant discourse
- Poland