Brexit Brits Abroad Podcast Episode 8: ABOUT THE BRITISH IN MAJORCA First broadcast 8 th September 2017 About the episode In this episode, Michaela catches up with Dr. Joel Busher about his research with Britons living in Majorca. Focussed on Brexit as an ongoing and drawn out process, they discuss how these migrants make sense of Brexit in the context of their lives, how they manage talking politics in their daily lives with other Britons, and what the emergence of political campaigns around the rights of these populations reveals about how they feel about being British and European in a time of Brexit. You can download this episode of the podcast at http://brexitbritsabroad.libsyn.com/ep008-politics-talk-politicalmobilization-and-the-british-in-majorca. Transcript MB Welcome back to the Brexit Brits Abroad podcast. My name is Michaela Benson, and today I ve invited Joel Busher from the University of Coventry to talk to me about his research with British people living in Majorca and Alicante. So Joel I thought I would just start by asking you on the basis of your prior academic research expertise which around radicalisation, around politicisation and social movements how is it that you ve come to looking at the British in Majorca and Spain? Well I suppose in large part because I am a British person who happens to be living in Majorca in Spain. I have been living here now for three years full time, and coming up to five years part time, and living here during the period of the run first to the referendum and then post referendum I was having a lot of conversations primarily with Spanish friends, but also with a number of British friends who live here, or people who I meet on my journeys backwards and forwards to the UK, and it s an issue that had real personal salience to me as well as I think being an interesting area for investigation for academic research. 1
MB Of course, obviously I m going to agree with that given that s exactly the work that I ve been trying to do for a long time. So do you want to just describe a little bit about the project and what you were trying to set out to do with the project and what your approach is? Yeah, so I think one of the things that got me particularly interested in this was when I see the general coverage particularly in newspapers about British people living in Spain, and I often had a sense that there s more stories to be told than the stories of people on bowling greens or bars on the beach and so forth, and so one of the things that I was particularly keen was to spend time with people from really a cross section of the British community and British communities really on Majorca, and also in part of mainland Spain. In terms of the approach that I take, it s a longitudinal study in some respects, I suppose there are elements of ethnography in that I am attending meetings, social gatherings here, which is obviously fairly easy to do as I m based here, through English speaking language networks on the island, and also doing interviews, repeat interviews with a cohort of people who have been kind enough to give me time, share their experiences with me. I m just coming towards the end of the first wave of interviews at the moment, and then picking up again in four/five/six months time and again a few months further down the line to really see what their journey is through this Brexit experience. MB So in a way it s very similar to some of the ambitions that Karen and I have set out to do in the project in terms of tracking as it unfolds I suppose the practice of how people are responding to things, reacting to things, what impact it s having as it s live, I guess that s something that we share in common as an interest? Absolutely, and I think one of the challenges as ever with an event that really takes place over a number of months or even years, is that if we rely on doing retrospective research about people s experiences, they re often we recreate our own paths, we develop our own narratives that we then relate back to perhaps to researchers who come to speak to us about them, and I was very keen like yourself and Karen to actually be able to explore with people as this is unfolding, and I think one of the things that s really fascinating is about the way that uncertainty plays out in people s lives, and that s very hard to capture retrospectively. MB I think you re absolutely right. Quite often Karen has well it s in Karen s work that which is always been very clear that often when people are talking about their migration for example, moving to Spain in the case of her work, that actually the stories that you get about those migrations are posthoc rationalisation. So what that means is essentially that you re not capturing that live quality things, you might get some of the uncertainty that goes along with that, but it s there s something it doesn t give you the same information as being there when something is happening I suppose is the point, and those stories do different work for people at a later stage in their life as well, and I guess that Brexit might be one of those things that now 2
has a very particular pertinence to peoples lives and later they might reinterpret it differently. Absolutely, and this is you asked before about linkages to some of the work that I ve done previously, and one of the interesting things about people s journeys into political activism is that often there s a retrospective smoothing of those journeys, so explanations of the logic. So for example people often say well I got involved because I was concerned about a particular issue when perhaps actually they weren t particularly if you like ideologically engaged or didn t know a great deal about that issue at the time, but gradually as they become more involved with that group that issue starts to take greater prominence in terms of the way that they think about themselves and their past. So it s that thing about the smoothing out of these journeys that we do once we start to narrate them. MB But that I guess links to your approach towards interviewing which follows very much that idea of the biographical longitudinal interview model? Absolutely, and that s part of the idea of allowing people the space to narrate their journey through Brexit really as they choose to narrate it, because it enables them to explore some of their uncertainty, some of their doubts, and to really reflect on those moments where perhaps it leads them up as like as a narrative dead-end but nonetheless that s interesting in terms of understanding how they re making sense of this particular period of time in their lives. MB I think that s a really good way of putting it, how people make sense of Brexit and its impact on their lives, or Brexit as it interplays with their lives, and just to clarify what you re doing is you re actually doing repeat interviews with people aren t you over the course of the project? Yeah that s correct. So at the moment I ve got a cohort of 30 people, and I ve got a few more people lined up to do interviews with as part of this first wave, and then we will be interviewing again later on. So I ll say hopefully get that sense of where they move to between now and four or five months time, and obviously with the negotiations going on some of the uncertainties might change and there might be certain bits of information become more available, but there might also be new uncertainties that come up on the horizon. MB That s certainly as I said before the citizens panel s element of our project is very much oriented towards trying to capture that ongoing way in which people are trying to make sense of things, both as things happen when they happen, and in terms of how they adjust and react to those. I just wanted to go back to something that you said a bit earlier, you said that you are really keen to make sure that the diversity of the population is captured through the research, so I suppose my question would be if you had to characterise the British in Majorca how would you describe that population? 3
Well that s a difficult question really, and I think the point is there s a lot of variation within that population, so you have people who moved here later on in their lives, but you get a lot of people who have moved here to work. Majorca currently has a thriving yachting industry where you get people coming over for example to teach, lots of people involved with teaching English. There s quite a big English speaking community in a couple of towns in Majorca but actually the British citizens are a reasonable spread across the island. A number of the people who I have been interviewing live in villages where there s maybe two/three at most other households of British citizens in the village. MB So it s quite a different image than we get of as you said yourself you re quite keen to breakdown those stereotypes that we ve got of these British populations. But this is Spain, it might be one of the islands, but it is a Balearic island, but it is in Spain and yet we ve got already a very different settlement pattern I suppose of British people living there than we might have in some other parts of Spain that have been targeted to British populations, do you think that s a fair evaluation? To be quite honest my knowledge of other areas of Spain perhaps isn t quite good enough to be able to make a full assessment of that, but what you don t have here really is you don t have the large concentrations by and large that you do for example in parts of the Costa Blanca and parts of the Costa del Sol. MB It sounds very similar to me to what happens in rural France as well, where you ve got this scattered population, and yet I suppose my question would be having just come back from France and observing that dispersed community, that scattered community and how it functions as a community given the geographical spread. What does this dispersal do to the formation of British community in Majorca if indeed you think there is a British community in Majorca? I think it s a really important question this idea about actually to what extent is there a community and it s often tempting when we think about a specific population to think of it in terms of a community, but sometimes that s as much projection coming from the researcher as it is with a lived experience of the people within this so called community. I think there are however a number of ways in which if you like people produce community here, and some of that is through networks, things like Lions clubs, in some of the areas where there is a denser British population more neighbourhoods and schools and what have you. I know that you ve got a number of international schools on the island, also through networks there s an English speaking residents association which isn t exclusively British I should say, there s Dutch members, Swedish members who are part of that, but it s a place where people come together who happen to speak English I suppose, and they organise things like coffee mornings and so on and so forth. What s interesting going back to your point is that so for example if you attend the coffee morning for the Majorca central part of ESRA there are people who 4
have maybe travelled 45 minutes/an hour from different parts of the island, and they come to meet up somewhere to catch up. So it is quite dispersed but there is this production of communities through those sorts of activities. MB I think that s really fascinating to see how and it s moments of community as well rather than I imagine rather than just always British people socialising with other British or English speaking people? Yeah, absolutely, and I think it s important probably to say as well that my experience has been that by and large people are part of diverse communities, so for example some of the people I have been interviewing are very involved with cycling on the island, so cycling is a big thing in Majorca, it s known as a real haven for cyclists, and they re part of the cycling community, and that cycling community is very cosmopolitan, and I suppose they do link up sometimes with British people and to some extent there s a form of British community. But it s not necessarily an exclusively British community. MB I suppose so my question would be you ve been in Majorca living on and off as you said for I think you said five years, so you were there I imagine when the results of the referendum were announced, and I d wondered if you d seen any changes in those networks, in that what we might call community formation or not depending on which approach you want to take, whether you d seen a different consolidation or crystallisation of being British in Majorca I suppose might be one way of putting it? It s quite difficult for me to say in a way because to be quite honest prior to Brexit I haven t actually had much contact with British networks on the island. My partner is Spanish, and most of our friends we didn t really think very much of terms of nationalities of who we spend time with, so I haven t particularly sought out British networks. I knew a couple of people via various bits of work, so I to some extent depend on the stories that I m now hearing as I speak with people who are part of this research. I think one of the things that I have found interesting is people talking about the extent to which Brexit has or has not figured within those communities as a topic of conversation, and it s obviously it s an important and obviously has been present but it s also an issue that my understanding is that sometimes people have been quite cautious to talk about particularly in more political or politicised terms, sometimes for reasons of being anxious about upsetting people within what ultimately is a relatively small community. MB Okay, so can you give us an example of that? Yeah, so for example people who have perhaps had quite a strong feelings about Brexit either one way or the other, but have decided that it s better not to if you like broach the topic with people who they think they might have very different views to, because perhaps they socialise with them around another issue, so the cyclic is one of the examples. So one of the respondents 5
that I met with was describing how they had been in favour of remaining, they had a couple of friends in the cycling community who they were pretty certain had been in favour of leaving, and they had chosen really just not to have that conversation, that being a conscious decision that they didn t want to have that conversation because they valued these people in a way that was nothing to do with Brexit and just didn t want to have that conversation that could perhaps if you like colour their relationship going forward. MB Yeah, I think that s something that Rebecca Miller pointed to when she was talking to us as well, is the fact there s been almost a decision that they just won t, let s not talk about Brexit, and that becomes a way of maintaining community a particular way. I also noticed while I was in France that there are people who will argue with one another about it, but still remain on relatively friendly terms, so there is also that prospect. But I think it s also points to the fact that there s diversity within those British populations about their attitudes towards Brexit, just as there is diversity in terms of their socioeconomic characteristics, their household circumstances, all of those types of things, and so when you start to look more closely I suppose you get a much more complicated picture than you might do at first sight. One of your areas of expertise is on political mobilisation and social movements, and I know that you re really interested in how people come together to do things, that come together in order to maintain solidarity and build that, so I know this might not necessarily be just about your research in Majorca but have you a sense of obviously there are a variety of campaigns that have come to the fore in light of Brexit that are organised around the British communities of Europe or the British communities of particular countries, so I just wondered if you had any sense of what s going on there in terms of this politicisation, these social movements? Yeah, I think it s a fascinating time for people with an interest in social movements, and interesting in collective action, in part because for the last few years a lot of the time there s been a growing interest in if you like nationalist movements, and what I think is quite interesting is the extent to which some of the movements come as a result of Brexit are actually had a very cosmopolitan focus in some ways on this product of transnational identities, which I think is something that sociologically is extremely interesting and raises all sorts of questions about how people produce solidarities and the types of events that are required and the types of networks that are required in order to produce those solidarities. 6
MB Do you think you could explain to the non-sociologists what you mean when you say about these more cosmopolitan movements and these transnational solidarities? Yeah, so part of that is the reaching for the ideas of being European and what that means, and in some ways I think that s partly this response to Brexit. So I think some of the work that yourself and Karen have done previously explored these interesting identities that British people living outside the UK can have where they continue to be British but they re also different from British people because they have absorbed bits or see themselves as having absorbed elements of the places in which they live. But I guess there s maybe it s a question as much then I think is there a difference between that and actually then taking on if you like a transnational identity and saying well actually it s not just I m a British person who lives here and therefore I m British, but actually a bit different to being British to saying I m actually European. And I think some of the movements, so take groups like the Remain in Spain movement, you actually get these articulations of Europeaness, and one of the questions I always ask people is about nationality. So one of the questions is about well would you take Spanish nationality and would you be willing to give up British citizenship in order to do so? MB Because that s a requirement isn t it in the case of Spain and Britain, you can t have passports of both is that right? That seems to be the case yeah, and I think that s as far as I know and as far as most people who I ve sought guidance on that have been able to tell me that s the case. I am aware of at least one person who is exploring possible ways around that, and again I think that s there s something really interesting about the way that events like Brexit prompt innovation, really creative, and we find ways to make our lives work regardless of the context in which they re unfolding. MB That s a really fascinating point from the point of view of thinking with what the British in France are doing, because that arrangement around dual nationality is possible, so they don t have to give up their British passports in order to become take up French ones. And what s really useful about thinking with that is then you ask them well what would you do if you did have to give up your British passport, would you still want to become a naturalised French citizen? And that I think is also a useful talking point when I m talking with them. Because one of the things that comes up in the case of Spain is that in order to apply for citizenship you have to do things like you have to take a language and there s a cultural test, the same citizenship requirements that you have in the UK. So again that s quite an interesting thing, I know of at least two people who are currently doing their citizenship tests, and some of the other people who I interviewed they said well actually they would be quite interested in doing the citizenship test but don t feel that they fulfil the 7
language requirements, so it s quite interesting people weighing up those options. There s also other stuff in there about this more visceral sense of who you are, so some people saying well I could never give up my British citizenship, I don t want ever to leave Spain because I ve come here, I ve made my life here, people who have been living outside the UK now for 15/20 years, but a very strong sense of attachment to Britain and feeling British. MB I think what it s as I found as well it s in these even in these very early days of the Brexit negotiations those ideas around identity and belonging and home are really coming to the fore quite strongly in a way that I suppose was we could have anticipated but it also highlights the complexity of the ways in which people think through these things and how they make sense of it through these various potential strategies or considerations or innovations as you ve described them there, it s really interesting to see that unfolding. I m not sure that interesting is actually the right word when you re talking about something that s so difficult for so many people in many ways. But I think that you ve also pointed out how localised things might be in terms of the way, so in the case of Majorca, Majorca is a very different case perhaps to the rest of mainland Spain, just from the point of how its own economy has develop, its own geography works, and issues around development and things might play into that, and I think that in a previous conversation that we ve had you also pointed out that you can turn up in Majorca and you could speak fluent Castilian Spanish and you might still struggle because the language that some of the people speak on the island is not the same as Castilian Spanish? Yeah, depending on where you want to live. So one of my respondents had really thrown herself into learning Spanish until she realised that it wasn t actually getting her far because [inaudible 23.08] because of the particular village that she had chosen to live in. I think one of the things that s interesting in Majorca when we re talking about life decisions that are affected by things such as buying properties, seeing properties and so forth is that Majorca is one of the parts of Spain where house prices have been going up, property prices have been increasing very sharply, particularly in Palma but also in other desirable areas, and that s been largely driven or at least partly driven by investment coming from other European countries. The British population on Majorca is not the largest non-spanish EU population, actually Germans, and you ve got a growing Scandinavian population as well, in fact just down the road from where I live there s a Swedish church and all sorts of there s a French school and so forth. So again I think that s a slightly different context, talking about in a couple of towns near to Alicante saying well they ve been really affected by the drop in house prices, which changed their context, and again one of the organisers of ESRA in Majorca was telling me that people who they have been friends with living on the island who have actually moved to the mainland now because rental prices have increased so much in Majorca that they re concerned that depending on what happens with their pension that they won t actually be able to afford 8
carry on living in Majorca and so they have moved to the mainland actually to the Costa Blanca area as well. MB So again it s really important to pay attention to those articulations, how the constraints and conditions and circumstances of the places that people find themselves in might also be impacting on what s possible for them going forwards. I think that s a really useful note to end on. So thank you very much Joel, that s been really great, and it s good to see the different ways in which similar themes emerge through the research, so thank you very much. Thank you for spending time talking to me, it s been a pleasure. MB No problem at all. Thank you for listening to the Brexit Brits Abroad podcast. If you have enjoyed what we ve been talking about today and want to find out more check out our website www.brexitbritsabroad.com, or you can follow us on social media via Twitter at brexpatseu and on Facebook, and don t forget to subscribe to our podcast on itunes, and I ll speak to you again soon. 9