Abstract
AbstractBuilding upon extensive literature on the concept of home, this article uses narrative interviews to argue that home can be (un)settled. The process of (un)settling home can occur in relation to various circumstances such as widowhood, ill health, or geopolitical changes. This article presents (un)settling home as a process constituted by three intertwined dimensions; practical and material, emotional, and temporal. This article explores how the Brexit process is (un)settling home for older British migrants, a population of lifestyle migrants, living in Spain. This geopolitical event has an ongoing destabilising and unsettling effect upon individual's sense of home and belonging. Brexit is a process experienced simultaneously by older British migrants living across the European Union. Consequently, this article provides useful insights into how these relatively privileged migrants negotiate an unprecedented shift in their status, their uncertain future as lifestyle migrants, and their understandings of home in this shifting geopolitical context.
Highlights
The recent referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union (EU), or “Brexit,” has become an unanticipated consideration in the lives of older British migrants in Europe
By focusing on older British migrants living in the Costa del Sol during Brexit, this research has an opportunity to highlight the importance of individuals' sense of home and belonging in the context of a significant geopolitical process, how these concepts are shaped by the implications of such a process, and how they are negotiated daily
Often understood as relatively privileged migrants, older British migrants are experiencing an unprecedented shift in their status and are facing an uncertain future
Summary
The recent referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union (EU), or “Brexit,” has become an unanticipated consideration in the lives of older British migrants in Europe. This article builds upon this extensive work by developing an understanding of the ways that home is experienced and negotiated by older British migrants living in the Costa del Sol, Spain, during the Brexit process This region is popular with British lifestyle migrants, seasonal migrants and tourists (see Benson & O'Reilly, 2009a; O'Reilly, 2000; King, Warnes, & Williams, 2000). By focusing on older British migrants living in the Costa del Sol during Brexit, this research has an opportunity to highlight the importance of individuals' sense of home and belonging in the context of a significant geopolitical process, how these concepts are shaped by the implications of such a process, and how they are negotiated daily. Through the narratives below, unsettling home will be explored and will contribute to understanding how home responds to, or is shaped by, external and personal circumstances
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