Lead by Professor Sara Jones (University of Birmingham), Post-Socialist Britain?: Memory, Representation and Political Identity amongst German and Polish Immigrants in the UK was an AHRC-funded research project that explored what happens to the connection between collective memory and political identity in the process of migration. Focussing on countries with an experience of state socialist rule, the project examined how the popular notion that political extremism in post-socialist countries is underpinned by collective memory of authoritarianism is based on the assumption that those remembering authoritarianism do so in their country of origin. Post-Socialist Britain? broke out of this national mould to study if and how memory is linked to political identity when the individual moves to a new national context. It is often assumed that memory informs political behaviour and identity, but we don’t know exactly if and how that connection works. Post-Socialist Britain? explored this question from a unique perspective. As a Co-Investigator on the project, Jenny Wüstenberg lead the research strand on Networks.

A key output of this project – the special issue on “Post-Socialism in Britain and Beyond” – was edited by Charlotte Galpin & Jenny Wüstenberg and appeared in Memory Studies Review in Spring 2026.