Chapter 4 focuses on the adaptation of Ukrainian migrants in Poland captured as a process from drifting to anchoring. It argues that the concept of anchoring allows for understanding of the simultaneity, temporality and flexibility of Ukrainian migrants’ attachments as well as the complexity and changeability of their ‘settlement’. It helps to capture their dynamic identities and the complex mechanisms of settling down. The adaptation and settling of Ukrainian migrants is discussed here in relation to their ‘lasting temporariness’, linked to the nexus of legal constraints (lack of an established legal status – with only three interviewees holding a permanent residence permit), cultural and geographical proximity enabling individuals to cross identity and cultural boundaries, as well as spatial circulation and the maintenance of various simultaneous attachments and links with the country of origin and the host state. The complex and dynamic processes of adaptation and settling are also influenced by Ukrainian migrants’ multiple and fluid identities and ambiguous position in Poland, constructed and perceived by Poles as neither strangers nor the same; neither on the move nor settled. The SAST study showed the Ukrainian migrants’ different layers of anchoring in Poland, from external footholds related to the legal and institutional framework and work, through more complex anchors embedded in social networks and to deeper internal footholds, linked to high competencies in Polish language, familiarity and the constructed cultural closeness, as well as European aspirations, which could coexist with the revival of Ukrainian civic activism in the face of the political developments and the military conflict in Ukraine.

Chapter 1 includes a critical review of the theoretical field and the established concepts in migration studies such as integration, identity and settlement, arguing that they are insufficient to conceptualise the adaptation and settling processes among contemporary migrants. This chapter crosses disciplines in order to better understand the studied processes, particularly highlighting previously underestimated psychological contributions that strongly informed the approach presented in the monograph. These contributions include the selected theories of acculturation and adaptation, Maslow’s theory of needs, Ager and Strang’s (2008) framework for integration and the conservation of resources theory by Hobfoll (2001). Chapter 1 develops the argument referring, on the one hand, to such notions as individualisation, social cohesion, transnationalism, superdiversity, and on the other hand to more specific concepts trying to conceptualise the process of migrants’ adaptation and settling such as belonging, emplacement, embedding.

Chapter 3 explains the methodology of the research. The empirical analyses presented in the book are based on the material gathered in the author’s research, conducted in 2014–2015 within the Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship ‘Social Anchoring in Superdiverse Transnational Social Spaces’ (SAST) at the University of Birmingham. The processes of anchoring were examined and theorised through research with post-2004 Polish migrants in the UK and Ukrainian citizens residing in Poland. The two case studies represented the major recent migrant groups respectively in the UK and Poland. The research, based on grounded theory, included: 80 in-depth interviews and questionnaires with Polish migrants in the UK and Ukrainian migrants in Poland, ethnographic and autobiographical research, and an analysis of Internet blogs and forums.

Whereas the previous parts of the monograph focused on the positive functions of anchoring – that is, recovering the feeling of safety and stability – Chapter 7 also considers negative aspects of certain anchors that disadvantage or disable migrants, producing insecurities and reinforcing exclusions. It demonstrates some possible disadvantaging anchors, particularly those of an involuntary and aggravating character such as those related to illnesses or substance abuse. This part shows ambiguity in establishing certain footholds and countereffects of maintaining some anchors, including new types of insecurities produced, for example, by too strong grounding in the ethnic community and closest family circles. In contrast to Chapter 6 underlining migrants’ agency, this part concentrates on constraints and inequalities in the processes of anchoring. Drawing on Cooper’s (2008) work on the inequality of security, the SAST research displayed how individuals’ positionality influenced both their levels of exposure to risk and uncertainty as well as migrants’ capacities for agency, ability to navigate, deal with challenges and make use of opportunities.

The introduction explains the overall goals of the monograph, outlines the context of the research, presents its main arguments and provides an overview of the whole book. The main goal of the book is to theorise complex, multidimensional and flexible adaptation processes and settling practices among migrants through the lens of the author’s original concept of anchoring. The working definition of anchoring refers to the process of establishing significant footholds which allow migrants to satisfy their need for safety and restore their socio-psychological stability in new life settings. The monograph argues that the established categories employed in migration studies such as ‘integration’ and ‘settlement’ are not sufficient for us to understand and examine the ways of accommodation, functioning and experience of contemporary migrants. It is argued that the concept of anchoring, developed through research with Polish migrants in the UK and Ukrainian migrants in Poland, might provide a more integrative and comprehensive, transdisciplinary approach to analysing the processes of migrants’ adaptation and settling, by linking the existing notions while overcoming their limitations, as well as by underlining psychological needs for safety and stability and the additional value of capturing the processuality and multi-layeredness of the analysed processes.

The chapter reconstructs the emergence and formulation of Karl Polanyi's central research question: How is responsible freedom possible in a complex modern society? The origins of this question in the time before the First World War and the confrontations with the challenge of neoliberalism and fascism are discussed. It is shown that Karl Polanyi's concept of freedom has four dimensions. Polanyi connects negative, positive, substantial and social freedom with each other and formulates a highly innovative research programme which forms the basis for The Great Transformation and later works.

This chapter provides a critical investigation of the concepts of ‘sexism’ and ‘patriarchy’ that emerged from ‘consciousness-raising groups’ in the late 1960s. It finds that ‘sexism’ remains a useful part of feminist vocabulary, but that it is sometimes misused. The chapter argues that ‘patriarchy’ is a more fruitful concept, but that it too must be handled with care. It highlights the concept’s critique of male ‘normality’, its expanded notion of ‘the political’ and its ability to ‘join the dots’ to expose the interconnected nature of apparently unrelated aspects of male power. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of newer terms such as ‘mansplaining’, and a general assessment of the political role of feminist language.

This chapter begins by identifying affinities between socialist and feminist goals and ways of thinking, before outlining the historical development of socialist feminist ideas. It argues that even limited calls for reform should be welcomed as steps in the right direction, and that feminists should build on both grassroots activism and the increased presence of feminist women in positions of power in order to develop effective feminist policies. The next section discusses what these policies might involve, focusing on issues around work, care, welfare and the relationships between them; it also argues that, although the Nordic countries are far from perfect, we can learn from their experience. The chapter concludes that different forms of feminist activism can have complementary and cumulative effects, but that if we want to achieve radical change we should start not with elite women but with those who are multiply deprived.

This chapter starts with the story of San Precario, patron saint of precarious workers, a design intervention that mobilised counter-precarity activism in 2004. Here, San Precario introduces the theme of the book: design activism in the context of precarity in Italy. While other anti-precarity activists adapted modes of protests already part of labour movements’ contentious repertoire, such as strikes, pickets, rallies and marches, San Precario as a campaigning artefact and redirective practice brought into play designerly elements, recoding the public discourse. The introduction lays out the reasons for a book on activism and design and presents current debates on cultural and design activism. It also lays out debates on precarity as a concept and contextualises it in contemporary Italian history. The Introduction defines precarity as a type of governmentality that impacts on all aspects of life; that (in addition to labour) regulates the production circulation of a wide range of material and immaterial effects; and that functions as a defuturing force that invests social and material life. Finally, the outline describes the three microhistories that constitute the book’s cases.

The Conclusion explains that the framework of design activism provides a vocabulary to understand how design objects and practices address precarity as political, social and material conditions. It also clarifies how the three microhistories presented in the book enable a shift between different scales of observation, remixing close-ups on the localised realities in Italy and long shots on global issues brought about by precarity. In detail, the first chapter explores the invention and use of designed objects in parades. The second chapter provides an example of an activist design intervention in the fashion industry that embedded some of the defuturing elements of precarity in the designed objects, and prefigured a different way to produce fashion with the invention of the ‘metabrand’. The third chapter offers examples of design as redirective practices grounded in activist experiences. Lastly, the Conclusion outlines the four threads running through the book: the throwntogetherness of local and global elements; the attention to build collectivities and alliances; the biographical elements; and finally the idea of ‘laboratory Italy’, arguing that the case of precarity, Italy has been a laboratory of early work reforms, mass precarisation and the erosion of workers’ rights, but also of experimentation in design activism.

Visual and material artefacts are central to the organisation of the EuroMayDay parades in Milan, the Mayday celebrations of precarious workers. This chapter argues that the objects designed for the parade, and the processes they engendered, generated spaces where new political subjectivities emerged, and calls these ‘spaces of political affect’. This chapter leans on Doreen Massey’s definition of space as ‘throwntogetherness’, or the coming together of different elements and trajectories, and Ash Amin’s suggestion that the throwntogetherness of humans, non-humans and material and visual cultures in a shared physical space produces social effects. Drawing on activists’ archives, this chapter shows how objects, defined by activists as media sociali (media generating sociality), created a funky visual identity of counter-precarity activism and social relations. Two parades in which designed objects prompted participants to play games are analysed as examples of the role of orientation devices in mobilising a common imaginary and sensorium and in creating a collective form of urban public culture. The chapter argues that the EuroMayDays produced self-representations of precarity and new political subjectivities.

This chapter focuses on fashion design in the context of precarity, drawing from literature on creative labour and Milan as a fashion city. It does so by exploring the making of the fictitious fashion designer Serpica Naro, and of Serpica Naro’s sophisticated intervention in the guise of a fashion show at Milan Fashion Week 2005. The analysis is threefold: first it builds on the literature on the tradition of tactical media, guerrilla communication and multiple-use naming to connect making practices to other genealogies of cultural activism. Second, drawing on literature on biopolitics, this chapter provides a discussion of Serpica Naro’s collection in reference to precarity as an embodied, everyday experience. Third, analysing the activists’ archive, it investigates the theoretical production of Serpica Naro as a social medium: a medium that produces relations and subjectivities, and as a ‘metabrand’, or an open-source brand. The chapter argues that the significance and power of Serpica Naro goes beyond the value of the hoax, disruption and creative conflict produced by their intervention in Milan Fashion Week. Instead, the chapter argues, its significance lies in the articulation of the geometry of power engendered by Fashion Week and of the crucial role of precarious workers in it, and in the critical reconfiguration of the flows of goods and imaginaries generated by Fashion Week.