Suddenly I Felt Like a Migrant: Identity and Mobility Threats Facing European Self-Initiated Expatriates in the United Kingdom under Brexit

Abstract

In recent years, several countries have undertaken political initiatives aimed at reducing immigration. At present, we lack a clear understanding of how self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) living in these countries interpret and respond to such initiatives. The United Kingdom's 2016 "Brexit" referendum decision to leave the European Union presents an example of one such initiative potentially impacting the mobility, UK identification, and future aspirations of European SIEs living in the UK. We draw on 41 in-depth interviews with SIEs from 18 European countries who had voluntarily chosen to relocate to the UK and analyze how they interpreted the Brexit vote, as well as its impact on their identities and migration plans. We identify four types of SIEs based on their perceived mobility and identification with the UK prior to the Brexit referendum, each of which was associated with a distinct reaction pattern related to the outcome of the referendum. Our findings have implications for the study of SIEs, as well as for talent managers charged with their retention. We suggest directions for future research in SIE management.

Relational interdependencies and the intra-EU mobility of African European Citizens

“…Better skilled migrants may likewise have different experiences. Our study also coincides with a challenging historical time when tensions were raised by Brexit, an uncertain spatio-temporal context whose final contours have yet fully to emerge, in which EU migration, citizenship and their consequences are being recalibrated (Jonczyk Sédès et al, 2022). Future studies will be able to ascertain more clearly the effect of this reconfiguration on the challenges facing AECs alongside their prospects for societal and workplace inclusion.…”

“…To encourage low-skilled migration is politically taboo for western governments since it ‘stirs age-old fears about outsiders’ (McGovern, 2007: 217). This has led to a closing down of the topic in political discourse and a consequent focus on self-initiated expatriates and skilled migrants as normative subjects engaging in international mobility to pursue and craft their careers (Groutsis et al, 2015; Jonczyk Sédès et al, 2022; Sarpong and Maclean, 2021). Nevertheless, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that by 2015, over 150 million low-skilled individuals, often bereft of formal qualifications, were living and working outside their country of birth (ILO, 2015).…”

“…It was not until the 2016 Brexit referendum, when tensions were raised by a perceived threat of encroaching ‘Europeanization’ (Burnett, 2017; Virdee and McGeever, 2018), that European migrants were treated as ‘migrants’ in Britain (Jonczyk Sédès et al, 2022; Kamasak et al, 2019; Modood, 2018). East Europeans had previously been deemed ‘regional “free movers” not immigrants’ (Favell, 2008: 703, emphasis added).…”

Self-initiated expatriation: a career perspective through a social chronology lens

“…Certainly the criteria listed do not bear much resemblance to those of Brewster et al .’s definition. In one case a particular subset of SIEs are those who exhibit a high identification with the country in which they are expatriated and feel unable to leave (Sédès et al ., 2022), which does not fit well with the notion of someone working temporarily in another country.…”