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, iden...
Apr 26, 2019•25 min
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 Moveme...
Apr 12, 2019•25 min
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 fr...
Mar 22, 2019•25 min
What comes to mind when you think of being European? This is one of the questions that comes up time and again in our interviews for the Brexit Brits Abroad project. It probably doesn’t surprise you that there are range of different answers. In this episode, Michaela offers some insights into what it means to people—from rights and a set of common values to an identity and a sense of belonging—drawing from her interviews with Britons living in the EU-27. And she speaks to Roger Casale, the found...
Mar 08, 2019•27 min
If you have been listening to us for a while, you may have noticed our perennial preoccupation with the question of what’s the British in British migration and as luck would have it, there is a new book that takes this question as a starting point. In this episode Professor Pauline Leonard (University of Southampton), one of the leading sociologists working in this field of research, and the co-editor of the new book British Migration joins Karen and Michaela in troubling the orthodoxies in how ...
Feb 15, 2019•29 min
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 tha...
Feb 01, 2019•23 min
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.
Jan 18, 2019•26 min
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 Brit...
Jan 04, 2019•37 min
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 B...
Dec 14, 2018•20 min
This episode focusses on narrative and storytelling, focussing on the question of how we do justice to the what people have told us in the way we write and communicate the findings of the project. We focus on the importance, for us, of locating accounts of Brexit within the context of people’s lives, a concern that is at once about the ethics and politics of representation. As we discuss, these reflections are all the more important on a project that has used multiple methods, where people have ...
Nov 30, 2018•25 min
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 balanc...
Nov 16, 2018•19 min
In this episode, the project team come together to talk through their experiences of working on the project and reflect back on the project design. In particular, we talk about what we mean when we say the project is a piece of qualitative research and the value of this approach to doing social research. In particular, through our reflections on our research into what Brexit means for British citizens living in the EU-27, we highlight how qualitative research aims to develop a rich and complex u...
Nov 02, 2018•19 min
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...
Oct 19, 2018•25 min
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 proje...
Sep 07, 2018•24 min
In her early research with Britons living in Spain, Karen O’Reilly drew attention to the prevalence of a ‘Bad Britain discourse’ in the way they explained their decision to leave the UK and settle in Spain. Her key point was to highlight what this revealed about how these Britons understood themselves, particularly how they understood Britishness. Fast forward to Brexit and ‘Bad Britain’ takes on a renewed significance for Britons living in the EU27. Indeed, this is a common trope in how those w...
Aug 24, 2018•18 min
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 B...
Aug 10, 2018•32 min
There are certain themes that repeatedly arise in the project, and which we have been keen to examine in more detail through the podcast. The spectre of expatriate life—the shaded verandas, the spatial segregation, the Gin and Tonics—is one of these themes. In this episode, Michaela and Chantelle are joined by Sarah Kunz to discuss her PhD research about how the category of expatriate has been employed and mobilised, and with what effects. Taking us to Cairo and Nairobi, Sarah describes the how ...
Jul 27, 2018•32 min
In this episode, Michaela speaks with Clio O’Flynn. Based in Adeje, Tenerife, Clio works in communications at the local Mayor’s office, in this role acting as a liaison between the English-speaking community and the local council. She talks to Michaela about the work she does and why she thinks it is important. As she makes clear, her role is caught up in the council's proactive approach to fostering relationships with Adeje’s foreign residents and their efforts to make the local community open ...
Jul 13, 2018•30 min
In the final installment of our three-part series recorded at the event From Mobile Citizens to Migrants , the panel locate questions of citizenship, identity and belonging brought to the fore by Brexit within longer genealogies of who is a citizen. They talk through processes of inclusion and exclusion and the workings of migration governance and citizenship rights within this. And they consider the prospect and challenges of global free movement for challenging contemporary migration regimes t...
Jun 29, 2018•34 min
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 t...
Jun 15, 2018•39 min
This episode is the first of three recorded at our recent event From Mobile Citizens to Migrants. The event sought to relocate the discussions around citizens’ rights and what Brexit means for UK citizens living in the EU27, and EU migrants living in the UK back into the politics of migration and citizenship, migration governance and policy. In this first intervention, the panelists—Aliyyah Ahad, Michaela Benson, Nadine El-Enany, Omar Khan and Nando Sigona—talk through the distinction between mo...
Jun 01, 2018•47 min
In this episode, Michaela rewinds to look back at the question of what brings about British emigration and its complicated! Talking through a few alternative accounts of migration decision-making among UK citizens, she highlights how choice is misleading as way of explaining migration, and how even for UK citizens who have relocated elsewhere in the EU27, that this decision is influenced by a range of factors, that include their personal circumstances, but also wider contexts of social, economic...
May 18, 2018•26 min
In this episode, Michaela is joined by Aliyyah Ahad, Associate Policy Analyst at Migration Policy Institute Europe, to reflect on the report Next Steps: implementing a Brexit deal for UK citizens living in the EU-27, co-authored by the project team and colleagues at Migration Policy Institute. Talking through the findings of the report, they highlight the diverse lives of these UK citizens, but also the concerns that government official and agencies—at both national and local levels—have about w...
Apr 27, 2018•19 min
Ireland is the thrid most popular destination for UK citizens choosing to migrate and settle in other EU member states, and yet, we rarely hear about Ireland as a destination of the Britons who have made their lives there. To discuss why this is the case, Michaela is joined by Professor Mary Gilmartin, an expert in Ireland and migration. They talk through the UK-Ireland relationship and how this plays out through migration; the politics of migration in Ireland; and the lived experiences of Briti...
Apr 06, 2018•25 min
**IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THIS EPISODE** This episode was recorded before the agreed legal text relating to the withdrawal agreement was published on 19th March 2018. The text, particularly relating to healthcare provision—which she discusses in this episode—has been significantly been modified since then. Professor Hervey has amended and updated her evaluation of this element of the withdrawal agreement accordingly—which she discusses in this episode—since then, and you can read all about i...
Mar 23, 2018•24 min
Chantelle joins Michaela in the studio to disucss who cares about UK citizens living in the EU27? They focus on when and how UK citizens living in the EU27 are represented in UK parliamentary debates and proceedings. They reveal the limited representation of these populations and highlight how, through the focus on issues that lie within the UK governement's responsibility—franchise, pensions, healthcare and exportable benefits—produces a particular figure of UK citizens living abroad emerges: a...
Mar 09, 2018•23 min
Michaela is joined in the studio by Chantelle Lewis to talk about her research for the project talking Brexit with UK citizens of colour. While the public perceptions of the UK citizen population overseas focus on a White British subject, we disturb this through our focus on the ethnic diversity within this UK citizen population. Talking Brexit with UK citizens of colour who have made their homes and lives elsewhere in the EU, we reveal how Brexit intersects with longer personal histories of rac...
Feb 23, 2018•19 min
In this episode, Michaela talks with Karen about her paper from the early 2000s that identified the contradictory ways in which Britons in Spain related to their new place of residence and the Spanish population. Such contradictions—on the one hand, the decidedly colonialist narratives, and on the other the openness to difference—were mirrored also in the ambivalence of the British and Britain towards Europe. Fast forward to Brexit, and these contradictions, in all their complexity, come once ag...
Feb 09, 2018•17 min
With the new year we thought we would turn things up a notch and introduce some of the sociological themes from the project. In this episode, Michaela reflects on her research talking Brexit with UK citizens in France to turn attention onto questions of belonging. She focuses in particular on how Brexit has raised questions for them about their sense of themselves as British. It asks the question of what it means for them to be British in Europe in a time of Brexit. You can find out more about M...
Jan 26, 2018•23 min
In our final micro-podcast for our 12 days of Brexit Brits Abroad feature we talk about UK citizens living in the EU27 and dual nationality.
Jan 05, 2018•7 min
