Rebordering Britain & Britons after Brexit
(Un)settling home during the Brexit process
Abstract
Building upon extensive literature on the concept of home, this article uses narrative interviews to argue that home can be (un)settled. The process of (un)settling home can occur in relation to various circumstances such as widowhood, ill health, or geopolitical changes. This article presents (un)settling home as a process constituted by three intertwined dimensions; practical and material, emotional, and temporal. This article explores how the Brexit process is (un)settling home for older British migrants, a population of lifestyle migrants, living in Spain. This geopolitical event has an ongoing destabilising and unsettling effect upon individual's sense of home and belonging. Brexit is a process experienced simultaneously by older British migrants living across the European Union. Consequently, this article provides useful insights into how these relatively privileged migrants negotiate an unprecedented shift in their status, their uncertain future as lifestyle migrants, and their understandings of home in this shifting geopolitical context.
You might also be interested in :
“Where are we going to go now?” European Union migrants' experiences of hostility, anxiety, and (non-)belonging during Brexit
This paper examines the impact of the 2016 European Union (EU) referendum and its aftermath from the perspective of European migrants living in Wales. Drawing on interviews conducted with EU nationals in 2016 and 2017…
Analysing migrants' ageing in place as embodied practices of embedding through time: 'Kilburn is not Kilburn any more'
There is growing attention to how people navigate and make sense of particular places through the ageing process. Against this backdrop, there is increasing research on ageing in contexts of migration. Although much of this research focuses on retirement and return migration…
And then came Brexit: Experiences and future plans of young EU migrants in the London region
This paper investigates the potential rupture that the United Kingdom's Brexit referendum of June 23, 2016, might bring about in intra-European Union youth mobilities, with a specific focus on the London region. In many respects, and counter-intuitively given the Brexit result…
Spanish nationals' future plans in the context of Brexit
This paper examines the future plans of Spanish nationals resident in the United Kingdom following the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union, commonly referred to as Brexit. Drawing on the literature on migration decision-making…