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 impleme ..read more

It’s the second of this week’s double-bill to mark the release of our latest reports! Michaela and Karen discuss the report drawing across three years of researching Brexit in the lives of Britons living in France. They talk about making sense of the ongoing uncertainty that Brexit has introduced to the lives of many Britons in France, and what this might tell us about how the negotiations and their impacts on the human lives at the core of citizens’ rights might have been managed differently. They explore personal experiences of Brexit from the relationships that these Britons have with frien ..read more

This week we’re bringing you a double-bill to mark the release of our latest reports. In this first episode, Michaela is joined by Karen to talk about her report drawing across three years of researching Brexit in the lives of Britons living in Spain. They discuss the importance of locating Brexit within the context and conditions of British migration and settlement in Spain over time; the ongoing confusion about what Brexit means for their lives and futures; and the ever-present spectre of stereotypes about these British citizens and their lives in Spain. As their experience of Brexit makes c ..read more

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 B ..read more

Since the recording of this podcast, the election returned a majority Conservative government in Westminster which has since passed the Withdrawal Agreement for leaving the EU. A transition period, lasting at least until the end of 2020, should mean British citizens in EU countries will retain their current rights until at least that period. If you are worried about your situation, you can get advice from independent organisations such as the Immigrant Council of Ireland (https://www.immigrantcouncil.ie/contact). We’re back to Ireland in today’s episode. Joined by Luke Butterly, a journalist w ..read more

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 respon ..read more

This episode sees Michaela joined by Adrienne Yong, lecturer at City Law School (https://www.city.ac.uk/people/academics/adrienne-yong), to talk legal perspectives on Brexit and citizens’ rights. Adrienne offers her analysis of what case law reveals about shifts within legal understandings of EU citizenship. She charts the trajectory of EU citizenship from its base in market citizenship—where the rights of citizenship are in the service of economic integration within the Union—towards an approach more grounded in fundamental rights which takes as a starting point the citizen. Discussing settle ..read more

In this episode, Michaela is joined by Lorenza Antonucci (University of Birmingham) and Simone Varriale (University of Lincoln). They discuss the conclusions of their recent paper Unequal Europe, Unequal Brexit ( https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/portal/files/69623578/Antonucci_Varriale_Unequal_Europe_Current_Sociology_2019.pdf ). In particular, they focus on their call to recognise that an understanding of the inequalities at the heart of Brexit need to account for Britain’s position within the European project and the different stakes of member states within the European project. F ..read more

What does Brexit mean for young British citizens living in the EU who have never known anything other than being European? In this episode, Michaela is joined over the Internet by Molly (in Spain) and Naomi (in Germany), campaigners for Young European Voices (https://twitter.com/youngeuvoices). Both in their twenties, they describe what Freedom of Movement has done for them and their families, their emerging sense of themselves as European in response to Brexit and their increased interest and concern about politics across Europe. As they highlight, Brexit has already had an impact on their li ..read more

This episode sees Michaela and Chantelle return to understanding the racialised exclusions at the heart of Britishness and other European national identities. They talk with Bel Parnell-Berry (https://project-parnell.com) who lives in the Netherlands. Drawing on the work she does as the programme manager for the European Race and Imagery Foundation (https://erifonline.org), Sinterklass and other practices of blackface across Europe, she talks about the exclusion of people of colour from imaginings of who counts as European. Turning to Brexit, she highlights how campaign groups for the rights ..read more