Brexit and the Classed Politics of Bordering: The British in France and European Belongings

Abstract

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) in their bids to secure their future rights to stay put in France. However, not everyone is well placed to secure their own future. Foregrounding Brexit as bordering – the social and political process through which judgements are made about who is ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ of the privilege of (European) belonging – I question who among these Britons is newly bordered through Brexit and with what impacts? As I argue, Brexit is unevenly experienced, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and generating new fault lines of belonging among the British in France as they are repositioned in relation to hierarchies of European belonging.