(In)visibility, privilege and the performance of whiteness in Brexit Britain: Polish migrants in Britain's shifting migration regime

This intervention explores the experiences of Polish nationals in Britain in the context of the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership (Brexit vote) campaign and result.

Using the testimonies of Polish nationals in Britain we reflect on how whiteness is lived and felt in circumstances of raised anti-immigrant sentiment, before connecting these experiences to wider discussions concerning mobility privilege and the broader structural racisms and legacies that shape the discourse and governance of migration. Ultimately, we show how the Polish case study, in light of Brexit, illuminates the human, complex, often contradictory and always racialised contexts of Britain’s migration regime.