The share of British naturalization applications by EU citizens increased in the
aftermath of the 2016 EU referendum. This article offers unique insights into
the range of motivations informing decisions to become British or not among
EU families from new and old EU member states. It contributes to scholarship
on migrants’ lived experiences of naturalization by adopting a family-centred
approach to explore intergenerational and intersectional dynamics in
citizenship decision making. Naturalization involves personal and collective
reckoning with a sense of loss of status and imagined future. We argue that
rather than a “premium”, naturalization is framed by many EU citizens as a
response to a perceived loss of status (defensive narrative) and threat
(protective narrative). This process is mediated and negotiated within the
household, and the narratives of naturalization are embedded in participants’
social positioning and shaped by their social statuses and senses of entitlement. Originally published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, DOI:
10.1080/01419870.2021.1981964
Authors
- Published in
- United Kingdom