There and Back again: How young people from Spain perceive mobility

Freedom of movement in the EU is a unique construction which enables EU citizens to travel, live, study, work, and retire anywhere in the member states. However, debt crises in various countries as well as uneven economic development increased the inequality between different European countries. In Spain, the difficult economic conditions, among other factors, led many young people to emigrate. Immigration from economic weaker countries nurtured discontent with such an open-boarder policy in the economic more stable member states. This discontent became explicit when Great Britain decided to leave the Union via Brexit. It is under these circumstances – between the endless possibilities to live anywhere in the EU and the evermore critical opinions – that this thesis is set in. More concretely, this study aims to find out how young people from Spain, who have moved to the UK and back, perceive mobility. The focus is primarily on the personal experiences and feelings of such young movers about leaving Spain, living in Great Britain, returning after some time abroad and belonging, and how their way of talking about their movements fits into the wider discourse of mobilities.