Brexit Brits Abroad

British migration to the Spanish coastline is only part of the story about British emigration to Spain. In this episode Michaela is joined down the line by Michael Harris, British in Europe steering committee member, founder of Eurocitizens, who has been living in Madrid for close to 40 years. He shares his migration story, from fleeing Thatcher’s Britain to living in Spain in the 1980s, the conditions and circumstances which shaped this. He draws out his understanding of what it means to be European and how this overlaps with other identities, and the importance of campaigning for and defending the rights of European citizens.

A lesser known story of British migration to the EU is how it interplays with social mobility. In this episode, Michaela is joined by Fiona Godfrey, co-chair of British in Europe, a resident of Luxembourg to bust the myth that British citizens living in Europe are wealthy and originate in the south England. They discuss her migration biography from Barnsley to Luxembourg, an intimate family history of the precariousness of citizenship rights, and the multiple challenges of advocating for the rights of British citizens living in the EU.

Recorded earlier this year, in the episode Michaela talks with Lisa in France. In her thirties and married to a French man, she talks about what the EU has meant for her and her life. Moving within Europe as a student and in the first stages of her career, she eventually settled in France with her husband. But this was never the firm plan, just the outcome of changing jobs and personal circumstances. And there were moments when moving to the UK might also have been on the cards, including in the lead up to Brexit. Living in Europe post-Brexit, Lisa explains that her British identity remains important to her but despite Britain no longer being in the EU, she will always feel European. 

*We had some technical difficulties recording this episode, and so the sound quality is not up to our usual standards!

In the wake of the Brexit referendum, British citizens living across Europe started to come together in an unprecedented way, concerned about what Brexit might mean for their future legal status. In this episode, Michaela is joined by Jane Golding, co-chair of British in Europe to talk about the grassroots legal advocacy work on the future rights of British citizens living in the EU26 that they have been doing since the Brexit referendum. They discuss the movements pan-European journey from the Referendum to the present, the struggles for citizens’ rights and ongoing concerns about the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement.

Recorded in Berlin in November 2019, in this episode Michaela is joined by Christy Kulz, Technical University Berlin and Christine Barwick, Centre Marc Bloch, to talk about the migration of British citizens to Berlin. We disturb some of the reductive narratives about the British in Berlin, in particular, understandings that see them solely as the young, creative industry workers. We question instead what the migration of these younger Britons reveals about contemporary urban and economic transformations in Europe. Further, we reposition these migrations in a longer history and the context of Berlin as a city past and present.

Our first episode of 2020, and it’s a throwback to a live recording of presentation that Michaela and Karen gave to colleagues at a conference in Umeå, Sweden. They offer some reflections on the practice of doing research with British citizens living in the EU27 over the course of the Brexit negotiations. As they draw out the complex picture of how these Britons navigate protracted uncertainty, they reflect on a set of key themes emerging from the project. In particular, they discuss the sociological importance of the observation that these Britons living in the EU27 seem to be nobody’s responsibility but their own, left to take matters into their own hands by their own government and the EU.

Read more from Adrienne about the removal of EU citizenship in this article for The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/britons-shouldnt-get-their-hopes-up-about-keeping-eu-citizenship-after-brexit-91501)

In this episode, Michaela is joined on the line by Christine Barwick (Centre Marc Bloch, Humboldt University) to talk about her and her students’ recent research with British citizens living in Berlin. They focus in particular on how working with British citizens who live in cities opens up our understandings of who the British citizens are who live in Europe, how lifestyle interplays with other reasons for migration, and the absence of a British community. And as they discuss, Brexit has further strengthened their sense of identification with Berlin.

Returning to a familiar theme of European and Europeanness, Michaela talks with guest Hannah White. Over the past two years, Hannah has been cycling around Europe on her bike, talking with ordinary Europeans about what being European means to them for the her project Outsider: journey through a changing Europe (URL: https://www.theoutsider.blog/about). We talk about how this has challenged her taken for granted understanding of European belonging. From Europe as a political project, to understanding it as a political and social identity that intersects also with up local and national politics of belonging, it emerges as a complex identification that means many things too many people. And while Brexit may have challenged this sense of what it means to be European among British citizens, from the Greek debt crisis to the rise of far right political parties in several European countries, Hannah reminds us that there is a need to understand how the questions of what it means to be European is also shaped by other political transformations in Europe. Find out more about Hannah’s project here https://www.theoutsider.blog/about

In this episode Michaela is joined by Helen McCarthy, a researcher at MPI Europe and PhD candidate at Middlesex University. Recorded in the week that Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, they revisit Helen’s work about how Spanish officials were preparing for Brexit’s impacts on British retirees, draw out the different conditions and circumstances that support British lives in Spain and consider how these variously may shape the outcomes of Brexit—including in the case of No Deal—for individuals. We talk pensions, healthcare and taxation … and consider all the different actors and stakeholders caught up in securing the post-Brexit lives of Britons in Spain (and indeed, elsewhere). But we also talk about the parallel case of Spanish nationals living in the UK, the topic of Helen’s PhD research. Her reflections on the role of the European debt crisis in bringing about (some) migration to Britain and differentiation within this population, which includes naturalised Spanish citizens originating in Latin America, offers complex insights into how these intra-EU migrants respond to Brexit.

Find out more about Helen and her work here (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Helen_Mccarthy9), and you can read Helen’s report The End of the Retirement Dream here (https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/end-retirement-dream-british-pensioners-european-union-after-brexit)

In this conversation with Sean Rowlands, who was born and brought up abroad, moving to London to attend university, Michaela discusses the family ties between Britain and the EU. Through his perspective drawn from moving between countries, living in the EU and beyond, they discuss Brexit and what this means for his family. They discuss how his sense of belonging is informed by his relationship to people and places in Britain and beyond, zoning in on questions of Britishness and Europeanness. And through reflections on global migration regimes, they question what work Brexit may and may not do to disrupt the privileges of being British within hierarchies of mobility.

In this episode Michaela reflects back on the Brexit Brits Abroad research project, drawing out some of its key take away messages. She talks through the different factors that shape how Brexit has been experienced by British citizens living in the EU-27: the terms and conditions on which their lives rest, their place of residence, their local and international connections and relationship, their social position, and their physical and mental health. As she explains, the case of what Brexit means for British citizens living in the EU-27 offers a lens onto the values and assumptions that underpin legal frameworks guiding migration and free movement and into broader questions about who counts as European and who is a citizen.

Michaela welcomes back Aliyyah Ahad (Migration Policy Institute Europe) to talk about her recent Policy Briefing about the issues Brexit presents for British families living in the EU-27. This is a population about which there is very limited knowledge and understanding. She starts by explaining the significant evidence gaps in understanding the scale of this demographic, and the diversity of family arrangements that exist among them—including those in relationships with third-country nations; separated and divorced families with complex child-care relations; those in same-sex relationships. Deal or no deal, Brexit presents a range of issues that will likely impact disproportionately on some families and children, because of what this means in respect to residency, livelihoods, and transnational care arrangements as well as how this changes the transnational legal structures which support people’s lives.

Michaela is joined by Djordje Sredanovic, Newton International Fellow at the University of Manchester. They talk about his recent research into the impact of Brexit on the experiences and orientations toward naturalisation in particular, the meaning and significance placed on this by British citizens living in Belgium. He describes how discussions over whether to apply for naturalisation are complex, at once pragmatic and caught up in deeper questions about Britishness, Europeanness, identity and belonging.

This week, we’re bringing you something a bit different. Recorded at the recent British Sociological Association conference, Michaela and Chantelle present their recently published work on what Brexit means to British People of Colour living in the EU27. This shifts focus to their experiences of Brexit and how this is located in personal histories of institutional, structural, state and everyday racism. As they argue, placing these narratives centerstage deepens understandings of the relationship between Brexit and racism, permitting a view into how it is caught up in longer histories of racism in Britain but also in Europe.

We’re thinking about Ireland again this week in an episode devoted to thinking about Free movement between Britain and Ireland and the long history of migration between the two countries. Ever wondered what the Common Travel Area actually is? Michaela talks to Professor Imelda Maher (https://people.ucd.ie/imelda.maher) about what it is (and isn’t), and what Brexit might mean for the future of this agreement. But what does this long relationship mean for migrations between to the two, lives, identities, and a sense of belonging? From her conversation with Professor Mary Gilmartin (https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/mary-gilmartin) about the lesser-known story of the second largest minority population in Ireland, British citizens to her conversation with Hannah, a dual Irish-British citizen, Michaela explores questions of citizenship, identity and belonging through the lens of the British-Irish relationship.

In this episode, we talk about migration, daily life and Brexit for Britons living in the EU27 who have complex health and social care needs. In conversation with Roy and Jayne in France, and Millie in Cyprus, Michaela challenges common sense understandings about the ease with which people can pick up their lives and settle elsewhere in the world. She discusses the challenges that migration presents for the parents of children with special needs, and what Brexit and the loss of Freedom of Movement might mean for people in these circumstances. And she highlights how uncertainties about future rights and access to health and social care impact on the lives of these families and individuals.

We’re back with an episode that let’s you hear what Brexit means to British citizens living in Europe in their own words. Michaela is in conversation with Terri Beswick, who runs her own consultancy company focussed on peace and conflict in foreign policy. They talk about how the moment that Terri realised that there was a different life on offer in Europe, her experiences of living and working in other EU countries. She makes clear that she has built her around Europe and the ability to move freely; she talks about how this flexibility has been crucial to her being flexible and adaptable in the changing economic circumstances of Europe. And then Brexit came along … take a listen to find out how she makes sense of Brexit and its impacts on her life.

In this episode, Michaela Benson and Karen O’Reilly talk with Sophie. Brought up in Belgium, attending one of the European Schools, Sophie reflects on being educated to be a European citizen. Brexit has made people question taken-for-granted identities, and while what it means to be British has taken centerstage in public debates, for many of those taking part in our research this exists alongside questions of what it means to be European. For some people, this is very deeply felt, revealing that being European extends beyond its rights basis, shaping identities and supported by value systems. Brexit then, is experienced as a fundamental challenge to ways of being and belonging as they find that their identifications as British and European are made incompatible.

Hosted by Chantelle Lewis, in this episode Michaela is in the hotseat the project team ask her their burning questions about Brexit and the project. Recorded before Christmas, Michaela reflects on the current state of play in respect to what Brexit means for British citizens living in Europe; how the project sits within the wider context of Britain as an emigration nation; and the future of social science research on Brexit.

In our first episode of 2019, the project reflect back on the lessons learned from working on the project over the last year. Take a listen to us as we get a few things off our chest (and as Michaela gets on her soapbox about the pervasive stereotypes of British people living in Europe). From talking history and Britain’s relationship with Europe, to the mistrust of experts and how to do research on Brexit, listen to us talk about our year in the life researching Brexit and what it means to Britons living in Europe.

Brexit has made many people pause to reflect on what it means to be British at this point in time. This is prominent theme in the interviews we have conducted with Britons living in the EU-27. In this episode, the project team reflect further on these conversations about Brexit, Britishness and belonging, highlighting how these reveal people’s changing relationship with the place they were born, how this relates to their feelings about the places they now live, and their sense of themselves as British. As Britons across the EU-27 narrate losing their sense of belonging, being told that they are traitors for leaving Britain, they offer profound reflections on the role of national identity within citizenship, identity and belonging in contemporary Europe.

This episode brings the project team together again to talk through the experience of doing a sociological research on Brexit while the withdrawal process if unfolding. They reflect on what it is like to do sociology on a topic that is so highly politicised, political and where the stakes are constantly shifting. They talk through their relationship and responsibilities to the people taking part in the research, people for whom this has real life impact. And talk through the challenges of balancing being responsive, engaging with multiple publics, and being attentive to the themes emerging from a large bedrock of original empirical research. In laying bare their experiences, they offer unprecedented insights into the doing of social research on a live and lively issue. 

Freedom of Movement is one of the four fundamental freedoms at the heart of the European project, permitting citizens of European Union member states the freedom to live and work on other European Union countries. It is the legal mechanism that facilitated the migration and settlement of many British citizens currently living in the EU-27, a right that British citizens will no longer enjoy following Brexit. In this episode, Michaela is joined by the rest of the project team to talk about loss of freedom of movement and what it means to those taking part in the research. As they discuss, freedom of movement has significance to people beyond the ability to move freely; reflecting on responses from those taking part in the research, the team discuss its meaning as an individual and social good the loss of which is signifies much more than a lost.

Throughout the series, we have talked the sociology of Brexit and British citizens living in the EU-27. And today is no different. Focusing on the project, Michaela reflects on the challenges of doing research in a context where the rights and entitlements, the legal and political premises that underscore how the people at the heart of the research live their lives, are in flux. With Chantelle Lewis asking the questions, Michaela reflects on the headline findings that are emerging from the project, and to talks through our responsibilities as researchers and how this aligns with a critical sociological perspective. It explains the priorities of this sociological project on Brexit while also reflecting on what the project might offer to the way that we, as sociologists think about researching issues in real time and question who our research includes and excludes.

When we think about British populations in Spain, our attention is most often drawn to the stereotypical images circulated by the media: pensioners living their retirement in the sun. But what about younger UK citizens living in Spain? What does Brexit mean for the terms on which they live their lives? Terms framed not so much by settlement, but by the ability to move; where Spain is home for today, but perhaps not for tomorrow.

This episode of the podcast focuses on the lives of these younger Britons living southern Spain as Michaela welcomes Mike Danby, into the studio to the latest Brexit Brits Abroad report ‘Talking Brexit with 18-35 year-old UK citizens living in Southern Spain’. Unsettling understandings of migration as a permanent one-off move, and talking about how Mike and his interviewees navigate the changing demands of the European labour market they highlight how Brexit is just one challenge in their lives.

In the second installment recorded at our event From Mobile Citizens to migrants, the expert panel—Aliyyah Ahad (Migration Policy Institute), Michaela Benson (Goldsmiths), Nadine El-Enany (Birkbeck), Omar Khan (Runnymede Trust), and Nando Sigona (University of Birmingham)—consider previous transformations in the rights of non-citizen populations, and how these might inform our understandings about the transformation of citizens’ rights through Brexit. Part of the broader ambitions of the event to locate this contemporary transformation within the longer history and broader politics of migration and citizenship, we talk empire, race, geopolitical inequalities, and the hostile environment; how changes to such rights interplay with practices of settlement and acquisition of citizenship; and the prospects for leveling up rights for all migrant populations.