Paper short abstract:

Almost half of the Somali refugees who came to the Netherlands, moved on to the UK after they had obtained Dutch citizenship. I show how Somali-Dutch women and men in the UK construct "Europeanness" through race, gender, and class experiences in the UK and in relation with the "Dutch homeland".

Paper long abstract:

The UK has a large (postcolonial) Somali diaspora. Less known are the European-Somali communities in the UK. From 2000 onwards, almost half of the Somali migrants who came to the Netherlands as refugees, moved on to the UK after they had obtained Dutch citizenship, because they experienced exclusion, isolation, and racism in the Netherlands. An estimated 20,000 Somali-Dutch people are living now in the Midlands, especially in Birmingham and Leicester. Having Dutch passports, Somali heritages, and English education and jobs, this group has become a vulnerable community in Brexit times and they increasingly need to rely on their Dutch citizenship and on the Dutch embassy for consular issues. This presentation, based on preliminary fieldwork research with the Somali-Dutch grassroots organisation Eurosom/Ducom, explores how Somali-Dutch women and men construct "Europeanness" between Brexit and racialized citizenship in both the Netherlands and the UK. Using insights from studies on postcolonial Europe and whiteness (Essed and Hoving 2015; Ponzanesi and Colpani 2016; Wekker 2016), the presentation first shows how in the Netherlands, a racialized and culturalised construction of citizenship is at the basis of the reasons of many Somali-Dutch to move on to the UK. Second, I discuss how a "European" and "Dutch" identity is still of main importance in the UK for many Somali-Dutch, especially in Brexit times. I show how such a "European" identity is constructed and negotiated through race, gender, and class experiences in the UK and in the relations with the Dutch embassy and with the "Dutch homeland".