Migration Dynamics and Identity in Post-Brexit Europe

Since the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, migration flows, legal entitlements and the sense of belonging among EU nationals have been fundamentally reshaped across Europe. The end of unfettered free movement has introduced new bureaucratic frameworks, visa requirements and rights-based uncertainties for both long-established migrant communities and more recent arrivals. Amid these structural changes, individuals negotiate complex strategies of settlement, return and onward mobility, often balancing economic imperatives against emotional attachments to place. The referendum outcome has also intensified processes of othering, exposing migrants to heightened experiences of xenophobia and racialisation. Young people and families in particular have faced ruptures in identity formation and intergenerational tensions over future prospects. In parallel, migrant-sending societies and host communities grapple with demographic shifts, labour shortages and the politics of integration. As migration scholars adopt rights-based, transnational and intersectional lenses, the field is moving towards a more nuanced understanding of how policy reform, social relations and individual agency intersect to shape post-Brexit mobility and identity across the continent.

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Migration Dynamics and Identity in Post-Brexit Europe publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in migration dynamics and identity in post-brexit europe across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Free movement: The EU principle allowing citizens to live, work and study across member states without a visa or work permit.

Return migration: The process by which migrants go back to their country of origin, either permanently or temporarily, after a period abroad.

Othering: The social and political process of defining and marginalising individuals or groups deemed outside the normative in-group.

Xenophobia: Hostile attitudes, prejudices or discriminatory actions directed at people perceived to be foreign or “other”.

Racialisation: The practice of ascribing racial identities to a relationship, social practice or group that did not identify itself as such.

References

1. Between settlement, double return and re-emigration: motivations for future mobility of Polish and Lithuanian return migrants. Comparative Migration Studies (2023).
2. Performing whiteness: Central and Eastern European young people’s experiences of xenophobia and racialisation in the UK post-Brexit. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2022).
3. From the state of the art to new directions in researching what Brexit means for migration and migrants. Migration Studies (2022).