Beyond shared heritage: Unpacking the intersection of class and migration in the lives of Polish scholars in the United Kingdom and the United States

This article argues that class positions attained or inherited in one society cannot be easily transferred to another, and migration experience is inevitably linked to the process of re-classing. Drawing on Weiss’s analysis of social positions in the world society, Parreñas’s theory of ‘contradictory class mobility’ and Kelly’s fourfold definition of class, this article offers new insights into the impact of migration on scholars who moved from Poland – a semi-peripheral country, often considered a buffer zone between East and West – to the United States and United Kingdom. The empirical material, consisting of 36 biographically oriented in-depth interviews, suggests Polish scholars in the United Kingdom followed two main trajectories. The first trajectory (‘rollercoaster mobility’) involves educational migration, typical for middle- and upper-class individuals who plan their migration early in life. The second trajectory (‘uphill mobility’) encompasses the transition from a Polish secondary school or university student to a manual worker abroad, who eventually becomes an academic scholar.