I don't mean to sound racist but... Transforming racism in transnational Europe

Thinking of racism through the lens of its geographies and temporality - a transnational lens, as I understand it - is productive for our understanding of the current process of social integration of immigrants in European cities. I argue that an interactive model of racism can help us understand the spread (and revival) of racism in Europe, and develop a new take on intersections of racism and immigration. Using the example of the Polish post-enlargement immigration to England, I scrutinize how racism is altered through social networks spanning localities within and across national borders. I demonstrate how the research participants incorporate, reproduce, and transform racism present in the British multicultural public space into a cultural repertoire (habitus) they internalized before migration. I argue that racism is a transnational outcome of ongoing negotiations between past and current experiences, and between parties in two or more geographical locations.