Post-Brexit cultural interactions of Polish and German nationals in the UK: the intersections of language and space in the Leeds City Region

This multilingual doctoral research analyses the reactions of Polish and German nationals to Brexit through the lenses of language and space, highlighting the importance of linguistic interaction and sociocultural diversity in shaping their lived experiences of Brexit in the Leeds-York region.
Twenty participant-guided, multilingual, walking interviews were conducted across the region, from the city centres of York and Leeds to outlying towns and villages. Participants were invited to guide the interviewer through spaces important to them and their everyday routine, allowing in-depth analysis of participants' micro-level interactions with space. These were supported by three stakeholder interviews.
Bourdieu's notion of the habitus is used to elucidate novel research on the impact of language and culture on participants' interpretations of hostilities and their approaches to everyday placemaking. Micro-level interactions between participants and their local communities are explored through language and space, highlighting the differences in lived experiences between localities across the Leeds City Region. Each national community is demonstrated to have unique place-making strategies in terms of integration, highlighting the importance of treating EU nationals as separate cohorts in integration and migration research in the UK.
This thesis argues for greater acknowledgement of the impact of language and culture on everyday placemaking practices, demonstrating a greater need for local research and more community-focused responses to political ruptures such as Brexit. It builds upon the Bourdieusian ideas of the habitus from a linguistic perspective, highlighting the potential for the habitus to help explain linguistic, sociological and geographical phenomena in the field of migration. Germanophobia is demonstrated to be particularly salient and governmental hostilities post-Brexit are systematic, through both the hostile environment and the management of the EU Settlement Scheme. This research establishes the knowledge gap of local government and academia alike which surrounds the German community in the UK.