Workplaces have become increasingly diverse as a result of migration and other socio-economic changes in Europe. In the light of post-2004 migration, many Polish migrants find themselves in work-places where multiculture is an everyday lived experience. By drawing on narrative interviews conducted with Polish migrant women in Manchester and Barcelona, this paper focuses on the complexities of interaction with other ethnic groups at work, demonstrating various forms of conviviality. The study reveals more and less meaningful forms of contact at work including workplace friendships, light-hearted forms of conviviality characterised by the interplay of language and humour, relations based on care and respect for difference, as well as forced encounters marked by superficial and involuntary interaction. The findings show that while workplace can be a place of meaningful interaction, it can also involve conflict and tensions. The narratives illustrate that workplace relations can be influenced by the dynamics of gender, race, ethnicity, socio-economic circumstances and immigration discourses. The paper contributes analytically and empirically to the understanding of different forms of encounters in the workplace.

This article presents our key arguments about the usefulness of the concept of superdiversity for reimag-ining migration in European societies, based on the example of migration from Poland to the UK. We argue that, despite some criticism of ‘superdiversity’, this concept is beneficial to avoid over-simplifi-cations related to ethno-nationalised homogeneity as the prevailing ascribed feature of Polish migrants, offering a helpful lens through which the complexities and fluidity of contemporary migrant populations and receiving societies may be investigated. Our main point is that such the reimagination might be commenced through applying the concept of superdiversity in research on migrants from Poland in Great Britain. The concept of superdiversity is also beneficial to understand complexities associated with the urban contexts in which migrants settle, their adaptation pathways as well as the intersectional factors shaping migrants’ lives and experiences.

This paper explores how people live together in different places in the context of Brexit. This issue seems more relevant than ever due to the continued attention being paid to immigration, identity and nation and raising questions about conviviality – understood in this paper as a process of living and interacting together in shared spaces. Building on my earlier research in 2012/13 and drawing on qualitative interviews conducted with Polish migrant women after the EU referendum in 2016, this paper explores the complexity of my participants’ everyday interactions with the local population in Manchester in the context of Brexit, viewed by many as a disruptive event impacting on social relations. The paper shows that conviviality is a highly dynamic process influenced by spatio-temporal characteristics, revealing not only tensions but also various forms of conviviality, in some cases sustained over time. It illustrates that, while Brexit poses challenges to conviviality, there are instances of thriving and sustained conviviality that endures despite exclusionary anti-immigration rhetoric. The paper also reflects on the possibilities of maintaining social connections and belonging in the context of Brexit, whereby some migrants become more rooted in their local areas and are likely to be settled on a more permanent basis, contrary to earlier assumptions that post-accession migrants are temporary.