We analyze the relation between naturalization, mobility, and security through 50 in-depth interviews with migrants of different origins living in two Italian regions. We show how migrants pursue naturalization both to protect themselves against bureaucracy and deportation and to move to a third country. The second migration is motivated by improving one's conditions, forced by the economic crisis, or completes the original migratory project once a strong passport is obtained. We argue that citizenship is not essentially linked to either stability or mobility and that mobility should be understood as neither exceptional nor always chosen.
In this article, using in-depth interviews with EU27 citizens residing in the UK and Britons residing in Belgium, I analyse the role of the Brexit process as both a trigger of and an obstacle to onward and return migration. Brexit implicates a reduction in the freedom of movement and settlement for both groups, and has been linked to the increase of xenophobia and potential economic instability in the UK. In this context, both EU27 citizens in the UK and Britons in Belgium can consider onward or return migrations. However, the Brexit process introduces also obstacles to such migrations, including the loss of EU freedom of movement for UK citizens and complications for transnational and citizenship-divergent families. I argue that the realization of migration plans is mediated both by individual resources and by imaginations on the future of the UK and the EU.
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: "Brexit as a Trigger and an Obstacle to Onwards and Return Migration", which has been published in final form at
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