ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on Polish migrants who participated in the Shared History project in 2006, a project that intended to stimulate good relations between the minority and majority populations of Northern Ireland. The analysis explores the emotional dimensions of the interaction within the Polish group, and examines how emotional motives informed their representational politics in a context of increasing public and media attention to racial intolerance and anti-migrant feelings. The Shared History project was initiated as a consequence of anti-racist and reconciliation politics, and was shaped by both positive and negative emotional experiences. Feelings of dissatisfaction with and anger about racism and xenophobia were the driving factor. The project coordinators intended to create a framework in which a more positive dialogue between indigenous and incoming groups could develop. The Polish sessions allowed the Polish participants to share good and bad experiences and created a social context in which their identity as migrants was emphasized and negotiated.