Intergenerational narratives of citizenship among EU citizens in the UK after the Brexit referendum

Bibliographic Data

ID19002298
AuthorsMarie Godin (0000-0003-1050-6673, University of Oxford), N Sigona (0000-0001-7882-1851, University of Birmingham)
Year2021
Volume45
Issue6
Pages1135-1154
Publication date2021-09-30
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnic and Racial Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9870 • E-ISSN: 1466-4356
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01419870.2021.1981964
OpenAlexW3204342476
LanguageEN
Citations received24
References cited44

The share of British naturalization applications by EU citizens increased in the aftermath of the 2016 EU referendum. This article offers unique insights into the range of motivations informing decisions to become British or not among EU families from new and old EU member states. It contributes to scholarship on migrants’ lived experiences of naturalization by adopting a family-centred approach to explore intergenerational and intersectional dynamics in citizenship decision making. Naturalization involves personal and collective reckoning with a sense of loss of status and imagined future. We argue that rather than a “premium”, naturalization is framed by many EU citizens as a response to a perceived loss of status (defensive narrative) and threat (protective narrative). This process is mediated and negotiated within the household, and the narratives of naturalization are embedded in participants’ social positioning and shaped by their social statuses and senses of entitlement

Brexit · Citizenship · Economics · Entitlement (fair division) · European union · Narrative · Naturalization · Political science · Referendum · Scholarship · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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