So-called ‘pendulum migration’ between new and old EU member states has been a significant phenomenon in Europe since the 1990s. This phenomenon has spurred a re-evaluation of many theoretical issues connected with migration, but has also been dealt with by classic migration analysis. The question of the changes in the social identity of migrants is of paramount importance in this discussion. I have no doubt that the reconstruction of identification in pendulum migration is different from that in ‘classical’ migration. The main difference lies in that pendulum migrants try to retain the values, norms, and patterns of behaviour of their root societies, while at the same time enriching their cultural competencies with new cultural elements characteristic of the host society. This cultural hybridization and amalgamation implies new forms of identity also from the theoretical point of view. In this paper, I will focus on the civic components involved in the reconstruction of Polish migrants’ social identity in Belgium. My analysis is of a qualitative nature and indicates tendencies rather than furnishing a full quantitative discussion.

Social identity comprises a set of relatively durable features characterizing ways of self-perception and the perception of others formed among members of a community and derived from a culture typical of the community in question.Reference Bokszański¹ It is the result of classifying and ordering the world that surrounds us. Social identity is constructed in action, or rather in interactions, in the course of sending, receiving and interpreting information.^2, Reference Mach³ A general frame for these processes is provided by the culture to which members of an interaction belong. Consequently, identity may be treated as a dynamic, process-driven and contextual phenomenon, as we use different levels of our identity in any concrete social situation. We are fathers, brothers, children, bosses, neighbours, a member of an ethnic minority, a European, etc, depending on our partner or partners in interaction. Thus, it is difficult to maintain that identity is something that one ‘possesses’. I agree rather with Edwin Ardener that we should speak of a continuous process of ‘identifying’, or at least restrict ourselves to that which is discernible in the ways in which individuals are identified (a passive aspect of identity) and in which they identify themselves (an active aspect of identity).Reference Ardener, Mach and Paluch⁴ Of course, the interaction in which identity is being constructed is not solely determinant. The historical and biographical life circumstances of individuals in a concrete culture likewise influence the latter’s construction of identity.⁵

Social identity, as I argued before, is an interactional, changing, and contextual phenomenon. What is more, the social identity of any individual or collective is always based on interaction with others. Different relations between ‘Me’ and ‘You’, or ‘Us’ and ‘Them’, are always social in nature in any real-life circumstance. In crisis situations affecting the individual and/or his or her social surroundings, identity is reconstructed in fundamental ways.Reference Burke⁶ Migration most often confronts people with discordances between two or more identities, along with a lack of cultural resources to allow ready interpretation of reality, and therefore almost inevitably leads to identity reconstruction.

Migration means facing a world in which neighbouring families and surrounding actors represent completely different cultures with different customs, traditions and lifestyles. The natural environment and cultural organization of the new place often varies considerably from those of the familiar native land. Confronted with the reality of an alien culture, migrants experience shock, fear of the new and, in effect, disintegration of their social identity. The reconstruction of identity is an essential condition for adaptation and assimilation in their new place of settlement. It requires migrants to define their own situation in new circumstances in which their culture of origin, in which they formed their ways of self-perception and their perception of others, has to be supplemented by elements taken from the new reality.

Social identity reconstruction via the enlargement of one’s cultural basis may be promoted by a mediator between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ reality. This aids the promotion of change and harmonizes the process of cultural amalgamation. In countries where great migration processes are taking place, specialized government agencies are usually created for this purpose. Their task is to reach out to the immigrant population and to provide it with all the help it may need. The situation is more complicated in the case of people working on the black market, as is the case with many Polish pendulum migrants in Belgium, as such people tend to avoid contact with all official institutions of the receiving society.

The identification of pendulum migrants appeals to elements belonging to both the receiving society and their own native society. This is an effect of their interactions at the place of migration and the remaining ties with their society of origin. We can say that they are somewhere between the ‘old’ (before migration) and ‘new’ (after migration) cultural worlds they find themselves in. Their identity could be described as a liminal one, supported by values, norms, patterns of attitudes and behaviour belonging to different cultural systems. In other words, in essence they never fully accept the change of their place of living or the loss of their original patrimonies, as they have not given up on the idea of sometime returning to their former homes permanently. The social and cultural situation of pendulum migrants pushes them to break with their own stereotypes, to regard the social and cultural world as plural and, what is more, to tolerate this.

Poles arrive in Belgium equipped with social stereotypes that can be understood as simplified pictures of reality. These stereotypes constitute specific forms of collective self-perception as well as the perception of others, and the ways how these perceptions influence human behaviour and thinking.Reference Hahn and Purchla⁷ It is obvious that Belgian stereotypes are completely different since nation states, as well as regions and local societies, construct stereotypes based on their own cultural, economic, political and social specificity. Different cultural factors such as common traditions, customs, habits, morals, and specific experiences in contacts with ‘others’, result in common stereotypes and attitudes to people from ‘outside’. Stereotypes are not the simple result of the actors’ direct experiences. Rather, they derive from traditions, transmission, and mediation inside society. The result is that, when stereotypes are sufficiently firmly anchored in the collective conscience, they are very resistant to experiences that do not fit the pre-established images. Stereotypes form barriers to social interaction, and they constitute the specific preconditions of the social interactions determined by the ways people communicate. In this paper, I will focus on such barriers in the process of cooperation between different regions. In a sense, they form a certain kind of border of a given society in communication and delimitation.

Stereotypes are an important integrative element of society, the motivations of social actions, and the structure of ideologies and of everyday political life. They often exist as un-premeditated elements of conscience that sprout spontaneously, without intellectual control, in every social group. Often they arise from a natural desire for orientation, the creation of order in reality, and the classification of the social and cultural environment. This stems from the necessity to make the world clearer thanks to the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and involves often highly emotional elements such as language, religion, customs, tradition, etc. In effect, stereotypes are not neutral statements. They consist of elements that are loaded with negative emotions or positive evaluations. They posit that we are not only different from others but better and, what is more, that we have to be better than the others.

A stereotype constitutes a negative or positive judgement that leads people to form attitudes towards ‘our’ intimate, friendly, and familiar culture and ‘their’ distant, alien and unfamiliar one. We treat ‘them’ as more or less valuable, more or less highly developed, or undeveloped, and more or less civilized. ‘Their’ culture is more or less abnormal, incomprehensible and barbarian. We do not believe that it is possible to achieve the desired results of an activity by following their rules and norms. By using stereotypes we understand culture in a distributive way, namely that it is a specific attribute of different groups that helps us to classify people and societies. Thanks to stereotypes we can make cultural typologies, but often forget that culture is a human attribute and a significant factor of humanity.

There is no doubt that stereotypes form part of group identification. The concept of social identity is both complex and highly abstract and, indeed, the multiplicity of cultural identities, both now and in the past, is mirrored in the multiple dimensions of our conceptions of social origins and ties. The concept of national, regional, and local identity is dependent on national, regional, and local stereotypes. As these identities are social constructions that permeate the social life of a group, they are dependent upon stereotypes both related to the group and to others, particularly to their national, regional and local neighbours. Stereotypes are, in this respect, functional: they help to articulate and delimit the main characteristics of the group which, being socially structured, cannot be sustained by facts. Pendulum migrants find that they have to change those elements of their identification that have a conservative character, and that first of all they have to break with two important functions played by stereotypes. The first is the integrative function of the old stereotype acquired in the process of socialization in Poland, breaking with which allows the pendulum migrant to construct new social ties with Belgians, with other non-Poles living in Belgium, and with other Poles living in Belgium but hailing from different regions. Breaking with the second, defensive function of a stereotype allows pendulum migrants to accept new values, norms, patterns of attitudes and behaviour existing in the new land. This enables them to effectively participate in the economic, cultural and social circumstances of their new life.

This process of identity reconstruction, based on changes in stereotypes, is connected with the acceptance of pluralism as an important feature of the pendulum migrant’s new socio-cultural reality. Pendulum migrants have to recognize that their migrant world is pluralistic not only in the objective sense (which is obvious) but also in the subjective sense. To begin with, this means that they have to accept life in a socially pluralist world. Consequently, they construct many new social ties with others who belong to different social groups and play different social roles. Their new partners in interaction occupy different positions in the social structure, based on economic as well as cultural and ethnic factors. Polish pendulum migrants meet Belgians whom they identify as white and Catholic, according to the stereotypes possessed. At the same time, they make contact with Belgians of colour, and with white people who live in Belgium yet are not citizens of that country. Generally, the new sphere of migration is more socially complex than that of the pendulum migrant’s group of origin. His or her place in the social structure is the effect of many different social, cultural, economic and political factors often absent in the groups of origin.

Secondly, the Polish pendulum migrants’ world in Belgium is culturally pluralist. It is evident that Belgians are not Polish, as they have other lifestyles, norms, attitudes, and behaviour. This is often underlined in interviews. ‘I have to say that Belgians, I know them, are well organised…, they know what to do today and tomorrow…, they know how to plan their everyday life…’. Belgians, for instance, usually celebrate common family meals. ‘You know I am delighted how it is important for them to have a common dinner…, and especially breakfast on Sunday…’. Belgians have friendly attitudes towards family members, in the opinion of Polish pendulum migrants. ‘I like it very much that parents treat children as partners… They very often talk with them…, discuss all of their problems, even unimportant matters’. Belgians are rather closed in regard to others, tending to keep others at a distance. ‘You know, it is impossible to drop in on a neighbour or friend just like that, without calling earlier, without making an appointment… they do not open their doors…’. Seen this way, Belgians may seem unfriendly towards others. What is more, Belgians do not constitute a single, dense cultural group, and are perceived as different from the Polish pendulum migrants’ point of view. First of all, they divide Belgians into patrons and the rest of society. A Belgian who gives a Pole work is a patron and this usually means that he takes care of his Polish worker, often to a considerable extent. The most spectacular example of assistance derived from the interviews was that of the Belgian who transported the furniture of Poles from The Hague (in the Netherlands) to Leuven in his own car, free of charge. It often happens that Belgian patrons treat Polish workers as members of their extended family.

The second line of division separates Belgians into Flemish and Walloons, yet Polish pendulum migrants have little knowledge of this differentiation. They know that these two groups speak different languages: ‘I only know that these people here speak as the Dutch do but it is French used in the south of Belgium, and in Brussels’. In general the Flemish are perceived as more distant in comparison with others in interviews with Polish pendulum migrants. Walloons are found to be more open towards other people, and this often means that they are more similar to Poles in the migrants’ opinion. The third division distinguishes between Belgians and others in Belgian society. First of all, Polish pendulum migrants highlight Moroccans among the others. They are regarded as aliens for Belgians, as well as for Poles. ‘You know they are different…, they do not want to work…, they have strange customs… and behaviour…’. Summarizing, they are generally considered as dirty and dangerous people in the opinion of Polish pendulum migrants. What is more, this judgement is mostly based on stereotypes or information obtained from Belgians. The majority of interviewers had not had any direct contact with Moroccans, or any other form of interaction with them.

Poles usually point to Russians as a noticeable group among migrants in Belgium. Generally, they regard them as being the worst category of workers within Slavic ethnic groups, and this is probably connected with an existing negative stereotype. The last categorization of Belgian society has a special dimension. Polish migrants discover that the Belgians are ordinary people. As a result, they become individuals for them: they have their own personality, customs, unique attitudes and behaviour. This humanistic point of view is very important when analyzing the opinion of the Poles with regard to the Belgians. It is thanks to this that Poles perceive the Belgians to be normal people. ‘I could not believe that some Belgians work on the “black market”, I was surprised, really… believe me it is true…’. Consequently, some Belgians are perceived as having a so-called ‘Slavic spirit,’ which means that they are able to express their emotions, they are sincere, like to have fun, etc.

Thirdly, migration pushes the Polish pendulum migrants to think about the world as more complex than they originally thought. This realization is sometimes extreme; we have to remember that Polish migrants come primarily from small local societies – villages and small towns in the rural areas of Poland. Their native place was socially and culturally coherent, whereas their new everyday world of migration has a multi-dimensional nature.

Polish pendulum migrants meet Belgians as well as people from all over the world. Consequently, the social and cultural mosaic of this society is sometimes experienced as too complex and dangerous. ‘You know… I do not know…, there are so many different people here in Belgium, what for? They often do not understand each other’. Polish pendulum migrants also notice that Poles themselves are more culturally diverse than they thought. Why? Because in Brussels, Leuven, or whatever their place of migration, they meet Poles that come from many different regions of Poland. Many of them do not look like neighbours from their own familiar society. They think and act in different ways. On the other hand, for many migrants these other Poles are natural partners in establishing a new common life. For instance, they try to establish a joint Polish society in Leuven, not on the basis of a local culture within Poland, but rather based on wider elements belonging both to their native society, in general, and partly also on those of the receiving group. This acceptance of social and cultural pluralism affects the migrants’ feelings of national identity. In effect, pendulum migrants are sure that it is possible to maintain a Polish identity not only in Poland, but also in Belgium, or anywhere else in Europe. ‘I feel Polish and it is not important that I am here because what is most important is that I speak and think in Polish… I can do that everywhere…, among other nations, here in Belgium or in Germany…’.

The acceptance of a pluralist world also leads migrants to a wider tolerance of diversity. In fact, in interviews, they often emphasize that migration itself is a school of tolerance for them. Why? In the first place this is because pendulum migrants usually feel tolerated by the receiving society. ‘I do not remember a situation when somebody shouted at me or even told me that I am stupid or something like that…, never…’. Polish migrants and their lifestyle are generally tolerated in Belgium, even though they may be lacking in certain cultural competencies, such as for example the knowledge of a foreign language. ‘At the beginning I had a problem with my English…, but it was nothing because the patron repeated the same thing many times…, and we used gestures to try to communicate by hands…’. Interviewers stress that Belgians are very tolerant; they are careful to explain their expectations at work, and they patiently repeat things to avoid misunderstandings connected to lack of knowledge or language competencies. They are also tolerant in informal discussions. ‘Sometimes I was anxious because everybody at the table was waiting for my answer… They did not eat but waited and it was stressful for me… on the other hand it was nice…’. Belgians speak very slowly and wait for an answer for as long as is necessary – they are generally patient people. In effect, the majority of interviewers are fully conscious of the tolerance in their adopted social environment.

Second, the Polish pendulum migrants appreciate that economic and social behaviour in a receiving society determines tolerance. ‘We live here partly as in Poland … and we have to live like people here…’. They have to tolerate other lifestyles, norms and patterns of attitudes and behaviour. If not, the migration process may be unsuccessful and may force migrants to return to Poland. Indeed, lack of tolerance would not permit migrants to reconstruct their social identity and to enrich their cultural base of identification with elements from the receiving society. Tolerance is a necessary condition to such processes because it is only under these circumstances that one can supplement one’s own cultural supplies with other elements. First we have to tolerate something, next we can accept it, then we can appropriate it.

Third, pendulum migrants try to organize their social life in a new world with Poles from various backgrounds in the home society. These new ties with Poles lead them to a greatly enhanced sense of tolerance. ‘They speak Polish a little strangely… but I got accustomed to that…, and Christmas Eve is a little different… but it is nothing…’ New interacting partners, neighbours, eventually friends are made under different circumstances than at home. These new friends have specific habits and customs that have to be tolerated as a condition of common social life.

The acceptance of socio-cultural pluralism and tolerance of otherness proves that the reconstruction of Polish pendulum migrants’ identity in Belgium includes civic components. One can say that pendulum migration may be a process that leads people to the reconstruction of social identity based on civic values. These civic components of Polish pendulum migrants’ identity have to be referred to different interpretations of civil society. It can be analysed from two theoretical perspectives based on traditional sociological thought: the liberal doctrine of individualism (Hobbes, Locke) and republican civic humanism (the Greek Polis, Machiavelli). The former confines the concept of civil society to protecting the rights of individuals. In this approach, the community is an obsolete and dangerous social ideal, possibly impinging on the individual’s liberty and property. The latter approach offers greater research opportunities, as proactive citizens play a key role in the communal activities of such a society.

An alternative understanding of civil society from the angle of the constitutive features of the community is also possible. In this case, we have to consider three different perspectives on civil society, namely structure and forms, procedures and ethics.

1. (1) The structural perspective. This means an approach to civil society as a set of organizations, associations, social movements etc. Their distinctive feature is the fact that they were created from the bottom up, at the grass roots level. They remain beyond the direct control of the state institutions. They are controlled indirectly, through the legal system.

2. (2) The formalist and procedural perspective. In this approach the stress is put on the principles on which civil society functions, particularly in conflict situations where attempts are made to solve disputes through mediation and negotiations assuring compromised resolutions. Any public discourse in civil society is conducted in the form of public debates within the socially accepted procedures of expressing one’s beliefs.

3. (3) The ethical perspective. In this context, civil society means that certain values, norms and beliefs as well as the corresponding symbolic actions are respected and approved. Among the most important issues usually mentioned are pluralism, tolerance, trust, responsibility, solidarity and the rule of law.

What can we say about the reconstruction of migrants’ identification from these various perspectives? First, Polish pendulum migrants in Belgium do not organize themselves, therefore they do not realise a model of civil society based on the structural perspective. Alternatively, I do not doubt that the process of changes in stereotypes, the approval of socio-cultural pluralism, and increased tolerance are connected primarily with civil society as understood by the ethical perspective. Pluralism and tolerance are central values in this project – they have to be respected. If not, the realization of civil society is impossible. One can also say that tolerance and pluralism allow people to resolve their problems thanks to negotiations or mediation with others. This also means that such a reconstruction of Polish pendulum migrants’ identity in Belgium creates favourable conditions for the realization of civil society in accordance with the formalist and procedural perspectives.