Rebordering Britain & Britons after Brexit
Reimagining, Repositioning, Rebordering: Intersections of the Biopolitical and Geopolitical in the UK's Post-Brexit Migration Regime (and Why It Matters for Migration Research)
Abstract
This article examines the emergence of a new immigration regime in the United Kingdom, following its exit from the European Union, to uncover the entanglements and intersections of biopolitics, geopolitics and ideology in migration and migration governance. It draws a clear line between Brexit as a political and geopolitical rupture, the ideological project of “Global Britain” that emerged from it, and the forms of migrant and citizen subjectivity that these paired projects produced as the body politic was re-modelled in this image. It demonstrates this through a critical analysis of recent immigration data and trends that consider who is coming to the UK, through what routes and under what conditions, and of recently introduced changes to the immigration system, including the curtailment of asylum and the emergence of new humanitarian routes. Building on scholarship that has shown the impact of migration on the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum, our analysis of migration and migration governance after Brexit offers unique insights into how migration continues to play a central role in the ideological reimagining and geopolitical repositioning of the UK on the global stage and develops the concept of rebordering to capture the nexus between ideological and geopolitical transformations and the making — through migration and migration governance — of a new body politic and its “others” that embody and can serve their purposes. © The Author(s) 2024.
You might also be interested in :
Brexit and the Classed Politics of Bordering: The British in France and European Belongings
This article considers what Brexit means for British citizens living in France. Drawing on empirical research I examine the emotional and material impacts that uncertainties about their futures have had on their lives. The article documents the measures they take (or anticipate)…
Reflexive practice in live sociology: lessons from researching Brexit in the lives of British citizens living in the EU-27
This paper brings reflexivity into conversation with debates about positionality and live sociology to argue for reflexivity to be reimagined as an enduring practice that is collaborative, responsible, iterative, engaged, agile and creative.
EU Children in Brexit Britain: Re-Negotiating Belonging in Nationalist Times
This article contributes to debates on identification, home and belonging by focusing on EU children in Brexit times.(1) The article combines attention to the emotional and affective side of integration with a focus on the effects of the discursive practices of the state on these processes.
The impact of intersecting crises on recent intra-EU mobilities: The case of Spaniards in the UK and Germany
This article contributes to two interconnected fields of study: recent literature on intra-EU migration, specifically South–North flows; and scholarship into the impact of intersecting crises on (im)mobilities.