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Stakeholder Identities in Britain’s Neoliberal Ethical Community: Polish narratives of earned citizenship in the context of the UK’s EU Referendum

Authors
Affiliations

Derek McGhee

Keele University

Chris Moreh

Athina Vlachantoni

University of Southampton

10.1111/1468-4446.12485
Abstract
This article examines the narrative strategies through which Polish migrants inthe UK challenge the formal rights of political membership and attempt to rede-fine the boundaries of ‘citizenship’ along notions of deservedness. The analysedqualitative data originate from an online survey conducted in the months beforethe 2016 EU referendum, and the narratives emerge from the open-text answersto two survey questions concerning attitudes towards the referendum and theexclusion of resident EU nationals from the electoral process. The analysis identi-fies and describes three narrative strategies in reaction to the public discoursessurrounding the EU referendum – namelydiscursive complicity,intergroup hostil-ityanddefensive assertiveness– which attempt to redefine the conditions of mem-bership in Britain’s ‘ethical community’ in respect to welfare practices.Examining these processes simultaneously ‘from below’ and ‘from outside’ thenational political community, the paper argues, can reveal more of the transfor-mation taking place in conceptions of citizenship at the sociological level, and thearticle aims to identify the contours of a ‘neoliberal communitarian citizenship’ asinternalized by mobile EU citizens.

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Citation

BibTeX citation:
@article{mcghee2019,
  author = {McGhee, Derek and Moreh, Chris and Vlachantoni, Athina},
  title = {Stakeholder {Identities} in {Britain’s} {Neoliberal}
    {Ethical} {Community:} {Polish} Narratives of Earned Citizenship in
    the Context of the {UK’s} {EU} {Referendum}},
  journal = {The British Journal of Sociology},
  volume = {70},
  number = {4},
  pages = {1104–1127},
  date = {2019},
  doi = {10.1111/1468-4446.12485},
  langid = {en},
  abstract = {This article examines the narrative strategies through
    which Polish migrants inthe UK challenge the formal rights of
    political membership and attempt to rede-fine the boundaries of
    “citizenship” along notions of deservedness. The analysedqualitative
    data originate from an online survey conducted in the months
    beforethe 2016 EU referendum, and the narratives emerge from the
    open-text answersto two survey questions concerning attitudes
    towards the referendum and theexclusion of resident EU nationals
    from the electoral process. The analysis identi-fies and describes
    three narrative strategies in reaction to the public
    discoursessurrounding the EU referendum – namelydiscursive
    complicity,intergroup hostil-ityanddefensive assertiveness– which
    attempt to redefine the conditions of mem-bership in Britain’s
    “ethical community” in respect to welfare practices.Examining these
    processes simultaneously “from below” and “from outside” thenational
    political community, the paper argues, can reveal more of the
    transfor-mation taking place in conceptions of citizenship at the
    sociological level, and thearticle aims to identify the contours of
    a “neoliberal communitarian citizenship” asinternalized by mobile EU
    citizens.}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
McGhee, Derek, Chris Moreh, and Athina Vlachantoni. 2019. “Stakeholder Identities in Britain’s Neoliberal Ethical Community: Polish Narratives of Earned Citizenship in the Context of the UK’s EU Referendum.” The British Journal of Sociology 70 (4): 1104–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12485.