Belonging in Brexit Britain: Central and Eastern European 1.5 generation young people's experiences

In this paper, we examine the experiences of young people born in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) who are part of the 1.5 migrant generation living in “ Brexit Britain. ” We focus on two key themes: (a) young people's feelings of belonging to Britain, their countries of birth and Europe, and the ways in which these have been impacted by the EU Referendum result; (b) young people's future plans, in an inter-generational context, with particular regard to their feelings of belonging and the rup-tures of migration and Brexit. Britain's decision to leave the EU caused uncertainty for CEE 1.5 generation young people at a time when many of them were consciously reflecting on their beings, becomings, and belongings. The majority of young people asserted a sense of belonging to Britain whilst simultaneously feeling a sense of “ in ‐ between ‐ ness. ” Many young people wanted to remain living in Britain, at least in the short term, and felt a sense of belonging to Britain. Our focus on the potential intergenerational impact of Brexit suggests that CEE young people and parents may view possibilities for the future differently; we examine some of the key reasons for these differences from the young people's perspectives.

The anti-immigration rhetoric and the message of re-gaining power and control from the EU over national affairs were clearly determining aspects of the Brexit vote, whilst public attitudes to immigration and the EU were shown to turn increasingly negative as the referendum campaign progressed (Clarke, Goodwin, & Whiteley, 2017). The sharp increase in the number of hate crime and online "xeno-racism" incidents recorded by the police in the month after the referendum was another clear sign of racist hate, with many White migrants, especially Polish, reported as victims (Burnett, 2016).
Recent population statistics (ONS, 2017b) show that UK net migration has seen a significant decrease since the Brexit Referendum, with lower numbers of EU nationals arriving in the United Kingdom (about 19% fewer), and a significant increase (29%) in the number of EU nationals leaving the United Kingdom when compared with the previous year (2016). Whilst the referendum vote was clearly linked to the increasing rate of net migration Britain has experienced since EU enlargement in 2004 and2007, the (non-British andnon-Irish) EU citizens residing in the United Kingdom were cast as "the others" in the referendum debate, with a clear denial of their voice or scope for active citizenship through voting rights. Unlike local, and in some cases national, elections, where EU nationals with settled status could vote, the Brexit Referendum was constructed as a "British-only matter," an issue of British national identity. As most EU nationals residing in Britain do not have British citizenship (ONS, 2017a), either by choice or because of the costly and complicated process of securing it, they found themselves powerless spectators in the vote which decided their future-as EU nationals living in a soon-to-be non-EU country. This paper examines the experiences of CEE-born young people who arrived in the United Kingdom as children, mainly as a result of their parents' (defined as first generation) decision to take advantage of free movement within the EU, and have lived here for 3 years or more. Whilst it is difficult to get an accurate estimate of the number of CEE-born young people currently living in the United Kingdom (defined as the 1.5 generation), ONS (2017a)  A person's age at the time of a key life transition-such as migration, and now Brexit-is crucial to understanding the ways in which they become involved in new regimes and societies (Fulbrook, 2011 In this paper, conceptual understandings of belonging relating to migrant children are deepened as the uncertainty caused by the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU has occurred at a time when many CEE-born young people are consciously reflecting on who they are (their beings), who they can be (their becomings), and where and who they do/will feel attached to (their belongings). For CEE-born young people who have spent much of their childhood in the United Kingdom, have experienced a large proportion (if not all) of their education in the British education system and cannot necessarily remember living in their origin countries (even though they might often visit them), the multiple impacts of Brexit are highly significant. Population geographers have emphasised the importance of life course transitions and overlapping (family) life courses (Tyrrell & Kraftl, 2015), and in this paper, we show how Brexit may cause a significant and unexpected rupture (Coe, Reynolds, Boehm, Meredith Hess, & Rae-Espinoza, 2011;King, 2018) in CEE migrant young people's life courses-their beings, becomings, and belongings-which will have lasting impacts.
The ways in which Brexit will impact upon their decision-making in a whole host of areas-education, employment, migration, family lifehave yet to be played out. By focusing on CEE young people's opinions and experiences in the period between the referendum result and the United Kingdom's exit from the EU, this paper provides some illumination on the question many people living in and beyond the United Kingdom are considering-"What next?" We examine young people's feelings of belonging to Britain, their countries of birth, and Europe and the ways in which these have been impacted by the EU Referendum result. We then take an intergenerational perspective to explore the future plans of the young people, with particular regard to their feelings of belonging and the ruptures of migration and Brexit.

| MULTIPLE BELONGINGS AND RUPTURES: EXPERIENCES OF CEE 1.5 GENERATION MIGRANTS
The life stage of childhood, with its blurred boundaries, is often considered as highly significant for psychosocial development-composing of a dialectic of "being" and "becoming" (Tisdall & Punch, 2012;Worth, 2009). Recently, greater consideration of young people's social relationships in different contexts has led to some researchers moving beyond the commonly accepted duality of young people as "being" and "becoming" (James & Prout, 1997) to an extended typology that includes "belonging" (Sumsion & Wong, 2011;Tisdall & Punch, 2012). Drawing on theoretical work on identity and belonging, child migration researchers have emphasised the need to recognise young people's experiences of migration in the "here and now" and how it is intertwined with their feelings of identity and belonging (Ní Laoire, Carpena-Mendez, Tyrrell, & White, 2010;Tyrrell, White, Ní Laoire, & Carpena-Mendez, 2012;White, Ní Laoire, Tyrrell, & Carpena-Mendez, 2011). Migration during childhood, particularly in Europe, often has been viewed as a rupture in young people's lives-a rupture in the perceived norm of residential fixity, disturbing young people's social networks, and interfering with their educational pathways. CEE young people's experiences of migration as rupture (Coe et al., 2011), overlaid by Brexit uncertainty, are interrogated further in this paper, with a focus on their feelings of belonging and plans for the future within an intergenerational context. The 1.5 generation occupy a unique place of "in-between-ness" that first and second generation migrants do not have (Vildaitė, 2016). Where the literature broadly suggests that first generation migrants identify more with their country of origin and second generation migrants identify more with their country of destination, 1.5 generation migrants tend towards more complex identities that may include multiple conceptions of home and belonging (Gardner, 2012;Kim & Duff, 2012;Ní Laoire et al., 2010;Zubida, Lavi, Harper, Nakash, & Shoshani, 2013). This sense of in-between-ness often felt by 1.5 generation migrants may take several forms: (a) in-between origin and destination; (b) in-between youth and adulthood; and (c) in-between majority and minority cultures in the host society (Bartley & Spoonley, 2008: 68). In-between-ness leads to multiple feelings of belonging and unbelonging and can have a significant impact on the settlement process itself and on the outcomes of settlement, at a critical stage in the psychosocial development of young people.
Prior to Brexit, the continuum of belonging-unbelonging sometimes had been overlooked in research with adult migrants within the EU (see Ryan, 2018), perhaps due to the assumption of unproblematic belonging being inherent in free movement. Studies of child migrants in Europe, however, have focused explicitly on these issues because of the immediacy associated with "integrating" young people into schools and communities. They have explored young migrants' feelings of belonging, social construction of identities, and their reflexivity in social positionings (see Forbes & Sime, 2016;Moskal & Tyrrell, 2016;Ní Laoire et al., 2010;Ross, 2015;Sime & Fox, 2015;Tyrrell et al., 2012).
Recent research that has focused on EU migrants' experiences since Brexit has highlighted the disruption to the belongingunbelonging continuum for young adults. For example, Lulle, Moroşanu, and King (2018), in a recent study of EU-born youth aged 18-35 living in London, showed the affective impact of Brexit and how they experienced "othering" in the referendum. With the prospect of losing their privileges as EU nationals, many said Brexit has made them consider their settlement plans more seriously, by thinking about securing citizenship or moving on to other countries.
Drawing on Bauman's (2000) concept of "liquid migration," Lulle et al. show that for many young adults the characteristics of liquid migration, such as temporariness, unpredictability, and openness to new experiences and places, have been undermined by Brexit as political rupture. Brexit was also seen by many EU migrants as a destabiliser to their sense of belonging in the United Kingdom. Whilst for the first generation migrants in their study the possibilities for work and unrestricted mobility were the main concerns, there were also emotional consequences, expressed as anger, consternation, and rejection experienced postreferendum.
Many of the young people in our study had migrated to Britain to join parents who had migrated first, that is, they experienced reunification with family members in the United Kingdom, and as such can be called 1.5 generation migrants. Some of their parents may have begun their moves to the United Kingdom engaged in Bauman's (2000) "liquid migration", but family attachments, the desire to live with their children and provide them a better life in Britain (rather than sending remittances home for them) led to the reestablishment of daily family connectivity in the United Kingdom. Once stable employment and housing had been secured in the United Kingdom, sometimes a process which took several years, young people joined their parents and the family was re-unified. In some families, only some of the children moved to the United Kingdom, leaving siblings in their birth country for reasons such as age or stage of education. In other families, the intention had been that the migration period would be short, but as circumstances changed, they had decided to stay.
Parents' concern for children's education and well-being-fear that they would not settle back into the school system in the home country or that their education and employment prospects were better in the United Kingdom-and children's own expressed desire to remain in the United Kingdom often influenced these familial decisions. These processes of family migration from CEE countries to Britain can be succinctly summed up in the wider definition of "lifestyle migration" that King (2018) (King, 2018). For CEE family migrants, it is about a better quality of family life that Britain offered them. The result of these migration decisions and processes has been that in spite of migration flow predictions, CEE parents and children are one of the largest migrant groups living in communities across Britain.

| METHODOLOGY
This paper draws on findings from the "Here to Stay? Identity, citizenship and belonging among settled Eastern European migrant children and young people in the UK" 1 project. The project used multiple methods to explore the lives of young people (aged 12-18) who arrived in the United Kingdom as migrant children from CEE countries and have lived in the United Kingdom for at least 3 years. The data discussed in the paper are from an online survey of over 1,100 CEEborn young people who had lived in the United Kingdom for 3 years or more, interviews with adult stakeholders and 20 focus groups with young CEE-born migrants aged 12-18 in England and Scotland. 2 The online survey took place between October 2016 and April 2017, a few months after the June 2016 EU Referendum. In total, 1,120 young people participated in the survey, with 806 full completions. 3 Advertised through schools and social media, the survey attracted mainly young people aged 16-18 (68%), whereas 32% of respondents were aged 12-15. There were more female respondents (60%) than male (38%), and the vast majority of respondents (97%) identified as White (n = 1,062). Over half of the respondents were Polish (56%), followed by Romanian (10%) and Lithuanian (9%) nationals.
The other 25% of the respondents were originally born in other EU and non-EU countries to Eastern European parents. Most respondents lived in England (71%) and some in Scotland (19%), whereas 10% did not give their current location. Over a third said they had lived in the United Kingdom for 10 or more years. Data from the survey were analysed using descriptive statistics.
In-depth semistructured interviews were carried out with stakeholders from a range of organisations working with CEE-born migrant young people across the United Kingdom. These included senior representatives and frontline staff such as English as an additional language managers and teachers (7), education managers (5), social work, health and psychological services (4), police (2), and voluntary sector and diaspora organisations (9). All interviews were transcribed and coded using a thematic analysis approach.
In addition to the interviews with stakeholders and the survey, 20 focus groups were carried out with young people who met the inclusion criteria (born to CEE parents and had lived in the United Kingdom for 3 years or more). These focus groups took place in schools, community and diaspora groups across the United Kingdom and explored in detail some of the emergent issues from the survey, focusing on feelings of identity and belonging, access and use of local services, and the implications of Brexit. In total, 122 young people (55 female and 57 male participants), all aged 12-18, were involved in the focus groups which took place between May and November 2017 across the United Kingdom in urban (11), semiurban (3), and rural (6) areas.
The focus groups used a toolkit for creative engagement called Ketso (www.ketso.com) to allow all of the young people to fully participate in the group discussions. The Ketso toolkit was used by participants to express ideas on issues posed to them by writing or drawing on "leaves", which are then displayed by group agreement in creative ways to represent the range of ideas on the topics posed to the group.
During the activity, new issues emerged and all individuals had an equal chance to contribute, as the activity allowed participants to contribute through written or spoken words and visuals. The issues we used to structure the focus groups included relationships, places, belonging, citizenship, and identities.
All focus groups and interviews took place in English and were recorded and transcribed in full, in order to allow in-depth thematic analysis. To develop the analytical framework, three interview transcripts were coded independently by the research team, who then agreed on a framework for analysis to be applied to the remaining interview data. The same process was used in the analysis of the focus group data. Separate coding frames were developed for the interview and focus group data sets to reflect their different foci and contexts.
The remainder of the paper discusses the findings in relation to two key themes which emerged from the analysis: (

| " IT'S COMPLICATED" : BREXIT UNCERTAINTY AND RUPTURED BELONGINGS
In this section, we explore how 1.5 generation CEE young people living in Britain felt about Brexit during the period immediately after the EU Referendum result. We pay particular attention to their feelings of belonging to Britain, their countries of birth, and the EU in the context of their previous migrations. Brexit has been described as "rupture" (King, 2018), and for the majority of the young people in our study, the rupture that Brexit represents in their lives has been layered on top of the experience of migration to the United Kingdom as a rupture in their childhood.
Many of the young people in the study perceived Brexit to be sig- Many young people occupied an in-between space that has been identified in other research with 1.5 generation young people (Bartley & Spoonley, 2008;Gardner, 2012;Ní Laoire et al., 2010), a space that they had been prompted to both reflect upon and experience more since the EU Referendum result. The vast majority of the participants in the study (92%) had retained citizenship of their country of birth, even though many of them had been in the United Kingdom for more than 5 years. Research has shown, however, that some young people do not choose to express one particular national identity or assert a sense of belonging to an individual nation; instead, young people may live out multibelonging, with feelings of attachment being felt and expressed in different ways at different times and scale (Ní Laoire et al., 2010).
This was the experience for some of the young people in our study during the period of Brexit uncertainty. Many of them had been shocked by the result of the EU Referendum, and in our survey, 81% of young people did not feel hopeful about their futures because of the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU. The EU Referendum result and the uncertainty caused by the Brexit political discourse had prompted many of our survey respondents to consider (or reconsider) their sense of belonging to the United Kingdom. For example, the majority of respondents said that they felt a sense of belonging to the United Kingdom: 29.4% said they "definitely" felt that they belonged in the United Kingdom, 33.2% said that they felt they belonged "most of the time," and 20.1% said they felt that they belonged "a little." For them, Brexit had not meant that they had stopped feeling this sense of belonging, but it had prompted them to explore their social positioning-how they are viewed by those external to themselves-and in some cases, to question their right to belong in Britain as non-British EU citizens. The future lives they had planned were now perceived as being less influenced by their own decision-making than they had thought prior to the referendum and, therefore, as more precarious. There has been some concern regarding whether I want to stay in this country in the future due to the political changes happening in the UK. I am considering moving to the EU after finishing university, despite the fact I enjoy living in this country. (Survey Respondent,male,18,from Latvia) In summary, in our study a small number of CEE 1.5 generation young people felt a very strong sense of belonging to Britain and called Britain "home." A small number of young people felt the opposite-their country of birth was their "home," and they did not feel any sense of belonging to Britain. The vast majority of young people did express some feeling of belonging to Britain but also felt a sense of "in-between-ness." These findings support other research with 1.5 generation migrants and the idea that migration during childhood is an experience of rupture. However, our research also shows that, for some CEE young people, Brexit has ruptured their developing sense of belonging to Britain because their right to belong (as EU citizens) has been called into question at a time when they were planning their futures. As they were overcoming the rupture of childhood migration itself, Brexit has introduced another rupture in their lives, one that was unexpected, but is highly significant for their future plans. These multiple ruptures go some way towards explaining why so many CEE 1.5 generation young people expressed worry about what Brexit might entail for them (and for others), and uncertainty when planning for their futures.

| " WHAT NEXT?": YOUNG PEOPLE'S BREXIT PLANS IN INTERGENERATIONAL CONTEXT
The vast majority of young people in our study expressed a desire to remain living in Britain, at least in the short term, despite Brexit. About 75.2% of survey respondents said they were "likely" or "very likely" to continue living in the United Kingdom. Given that the majority of CEEborn young people in our study expressed some degree of feeling that they belonged to the United Kingdom, it is perhaps not surprising that the majority of them would like to continue to live in the United Kingdom. However, the expressed desire of many of the CEE young people to stay living in Britain needs to be considered within the context of both their everyday lives and the life course. For some young people, the familiarity of their everyday routines and networks provided security in the midst of Brexit uncertainty and rupture; it was the stability of their everyday lives that they were seeking to preserve by wanting to remain in Britain. This is similar to the findings of research with young migrants in other contexts, where "the everyday" is crucial to their experiences of, and plans for, migration (see Coe et al., 2011).

I very much feel like a part of the UK, which is why
Many of the young people were ambitious for their futures and were considering the next stage in their life course when deciding whether or not they wanted to remain in Britain. Often, they wanted to finish their education in Britain (70.2% of survey respondents) and make the most of the educational opportunities that they thought living in Britain offered them, but Brexit had introduced uncertainty into their plans.

14, from Poland)
The status and rights of non-British EU citizens living in the United Kingdom have retained a high profile since the Brexit negotiations between Britain and the EU began. British citizenship is costly and the detailed arrangements of "settled status" for non-British EU nationals are unclear (see Roulet, 2018). Although the majority of the young people had retained the citizenship of their birth country and had not become British citizens, more of them were making citizenship applications and some families were prioritising children's applications: I am worried about the legal safety of people like me. My parents are currently sorting out legal documents (permanent residency, British citizenship etc.) to ensure that we are completely safe from any changes to laws that may happen after leaving the EU. It is an uncertain time, and despite promises that EU citizens living here already will be safe and will not be deported etc., it leaves us in a vulnerable and uncomfortable position. (Survey Respondent,female,17,from Hungary) It's unfair that we need to apply for British citizenship and spend a lot of money, when a lot of people can't afford it, but have become part of the British community. (Survey Respondent,male,16,from Poland) During the period of Brexit uncertainty, CEE young people and their families were experiencing personal insecurity about their future lives, and this was having an immediate and deeply felt impact. The young people in our study often discussed the intergenerational differences that were occurring within their families with regard to their plans for the future in the context of the EU Referendum result. Strategies for overcoming the uncertainty that the Brexit rupture has caused-specifically rights to remain living, being educated and working in the United Kingdom-were not always perceived similarly by parents and children (from the young people's perspectives). Drawing on recent migration studies that have highlighted the importance of intergenerational relations and overlapping life courses (Sime & Pietka-Nykaza, 2015;Tyrrell et al., 2012), it is important to consider the wider ramifications of Brexit uncertainty for CEE young people in the context of their family lives. As many of these young people are transitioning from childhood to youth and adulthood, they are also experiencing transitions associated with migration changed by Brexit. Some young people felt that their parents had always considered returning to their country of origin as an option, but that Brexit had made it more of a possibility than before. This discussion from a focus group gives an interesting account of the intergenerational decisions that were being discussed in some CEE families in Brexit Britain, within the wider context of their migration experiences: The uncertainty for CEE-born 1.5 generation young people, and their families, caused by Britain's decision to "Leave" the EU occurred at a time when many of them were consciously reflecting on who they are (their beings), who they can be (their becomings) and where and who they do/will feel attached to (their belongings). For CEE-born young people who have experienced the rupture of child migration, have spent much of their childhood in Britain, have experienced a large proportion (if not all) of their education in the British education system, and cannot necessarily remember living in their countries of birth (even though they might often visit them), Brexit is a source of anxiety and fear. Although a small number of young people in our study felt a very strong sense of belonging to Britain and called Britain "home" (and only a very small number felt the opposite), the majority of the young people asserted a sense of belonging to Britain, whilst simultaneously feeling a sense of in-between-ness that has been observed in other studies of migrant children-they did not feel that they entirely "fitted in" to society in Britain (where they lived) or their birth country (often that of their citizenship). For some young people,

My parents want to move out [of the UK], but I started school here and don't want any complications
Brexit uncertainty had ruptured their developing sense of belonging to Britain because their right to belong (as EU citizens) had been called into question at a time when they were planning their futures in the United Kingdom. As they were overcoming the rupture of childhood migration itself, Brexit has introduced another rupture in their lives, one that was unexpected and highly significant for their future plans. It remains to be seen whether Britain will retain the young CEE 1.5 generation migrants who have been educated here, often developed a sense of belonging to Britain, and had planned prosperous futures there, or whether they will engage in liquid migration-leaving an ageing parent population who feel uncertain about post-Brexit Britain.