Recasting 'us & Them': EU Families in Brexiting Britain

The UK has been a member of the European Union for 40 years. Throughout this time there has been intermingling of institutions and people,which can be clearly seen in the growing number of bi- and mixed-nationality EU families in the UK and their children, many of whom born in the UK and holding a British passport. In fact, data from recent birth statistics show that almost 12% of children born in England and Wales in 2015 had at least one EU-born parent (the figure rose from 8.1% in 2009). This is a growing, and yet understudied and underreported, segment of the British society. In post-EU referendum Britain the rhetoric about curbing EU immigration has permeated political, media, and popular discourses, producing a stark ‘us and them’ narrative. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with EU parents and their adult children, the paper casts light on the role of the family as locus for negotiating and mitigating the impact of Brexit on family members but also as a place where the tensions between belonging (micro) and the politics of belonging (macro) are articulated and accommodated.