Managing, Learning and Sending

Abstract

This article investigates the material lives and journeys of eight women who migrated to Britain from Poland during the time of the socialist regime. Although the state created obstructions to emigration, it was viable for women with family overseas to travel to the West as visitors, sometimes turning temporary stays into permanent settlements through marriage. For others, westward travel was made possible by professional employment opportunities. These journeys of migration not only crossed political divides, but also forced a fundamental shift in the material lives of the migrants, transporting them from a shortage economy supported by black market activities to a relatively affluent consumer society. Based on in-depth interviews, this article considers three aspects of the telling of this change in these women's material lives: how they related their material experiences of socialist Poland; how they framed their encounters with their new consumer environment; and how they reconfigured their material relationships with those left behind.