In this article, we look at the role of time and temporalities in migrant responses to the result of the 2016 EU referendum in the UK, i.e. Brexit. While some attention has been paid to affective 'first reactions' to Brexit, less is known about how it is negotiated in a longer perspective. Here, we recognise that responses to Brexit are dynamic and prone to change. Therefore, it is crucial to explore practical rationalising alongside emotional reactions as two different, but equally relevant, responses. Using the example of Finnish and Polish migrants to Scotland, we show that time is central to making sense of Brexit and is used to negotiate uncertainty about legal status and the right to remain. In doing so, we revisit a wider gap in geography scholarship, which continues to underappreciate the temporal dimension in migration research.

The European Union membership referendum (i.e. the Brexit referendum) in the United Kingdom in 2016 triggered a process of introspection among non-British European Union citizens with respect to their right to remain in the United Kingdom, including their right to entry, permanent residence, and access to work and social welfare. Drawing on interview data collected from 42 European Union nationals, namely Finnish and Polish migrants living in Scotland, we explore how European Union migrants’ decision-making and strategies for extending their stay in the United Kingdom, or returning to their country of origin, are shaped by and, in turn, shape their belonging and ties to their current place of residence and across state borders. In particular, we draw on the concept of embedding, which is used in migration studies to explain migration trajectories and decision-making. Our key argument is that more attention needs to be paid to the socio-political context within which migrants negotiate their embedding. To this end, we employ the term ‘politics of embedding’ to highlight the ways in which the embedding of non-British European Union citizens has been politicized and hierarchically structured in the United Kingdom after the Brexit referendum. By illustrating how the context of Brexit has changed how people evaluate their social and other attachments, and how their embedding is differentiated into ‘ties that bind’ and ‘ties that count’, we contribute to the emerging work on migration and Brexit, and specifically to the debate on how the politicization of migration shapes the sense of security on the one hand, and belonging, on the other.

Tiina Sotkasiira: YTT, tutkijatohtori, yhteiskuntatieteiden laitos, Itä-Suomen yliopisto Janus vol. 26 (4) 2018, 292-308 tiina.sotkasiira@uef.fi Artikkelissa tarkastellaan erilaisten asiantuntijuuden ulottuvuuksien rakentumista turvapaikanhakijoiden ja vastaanottokeskuspaikkakuntien paikallistoimijoiden kohtaamisissa. Kohtaamiset voivat olla viranomaiskohtaamisia, erilaisia asiakassuhteita sekä epämuodollisia, vapaaehtoisten ja turvapaikanhakijoiden välisiä vertaissuhteita. Artikkeli perustuu turvapaikanhakijoiden kanssa toimivien ammattilaisten ja vapaaehtoisten kanssa tehtyihin yksilöhaastatteluihin. Haastatteluista löydetään tietävän, tulkitsevan, neutraalin sekä kriittisen ja taistelevan asiantuntijuuden ulottuvuudet. Artikkelissa esitetään, että vastaanottokeskusten kaltaisissa tiloissa, joissa valtion kontrolli on vahvasti läsnä, on vaarana, että asiantuntijoiden työotteessa sosiaalisen kontrollin ylläpitäminen ylittää merkitykseltään eettiset sitoumukset muukalaisen asemaan paikantuviin turvapaikanhakijoihin. Taistelevan asiantuntijuuden merkitys on siinä, että se tässä jännitteisessä ympäristössä vahvistaa turvapaikanhakijoiden toimijuutta sekä kriittistä ja kollektiiviseen toimintaan suuntautunutta asiantuntijuutta.

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This article examines our on-going attempts to operationalise a critical qualitative research approach – drifting, which we have adopted from the feminist collective Precarias a la deriva, – in order to conduct research with people who have arrived in Finland as asylum seekers and refugees, as well as with the civic activists who work by their side. Our research focuses on the everyday bordering practices that exclude asylum seekers and refugees, and the activities of de-bordering. The article claims that drifting combines the advantages of mobile research methods with the critical and collective praxis of activist research, which allows the upsurge of non-hegemonic knowledge. Drifting holds great promise for exploring everyday borders and their consequences, which usually remain hidden to the majority of native residents. In drifting, the injustices that occur at borders within countries in Europe are not only exposed for research and the wider public, but they are also challenged with research-based interventions.