The present text is an attempt to describe the phenomenon of the mass emigration of Poles to Great Britain, whose particular increase took place after Poland’s accession to the European Union in May 2004. The material presented therein is a quality study z in the field of social ethics, in which conclusions are reached on the basis of the results of empirical research carried out by a few teams in various regions of Great Britain. An important role is fulfilled by the biographical factor which embraces a two-year work of the author among post-accession immigrants in Aberdeen (Scotland). The logic of the whole discourse is embedded around the problem of the identity of the people who have decided to emigrate in the recent years despite living and working within the European Union. Does such an ultimate decision as the decision to emigrate introduce any essential, new component in an immigrant’s hitherto identity, does it change anything in their identity? What is the immigrants’ reality perception perspective? How do they combine the immigrantpresent time with what constitutes their past? Last but not least, what defines postaccession emigrants, can any common denominator be discerned?
Key words: emigration, European Union, Great Britain, paid work, social situation, Europe,
community, family