Transcript Migration, settlement and identity among English graduates in Scotland

BSPS Annual Conference (Manchester)
September 11, 2008
Migration, Settlement and
Identity among ‘English’
Graduates in Scotland
Ross Bond
School of Social and Political Studies,
University of Edinburgh
(co-investigators: Katharine Charsley,
University of Oxford and Sue Grundy,
University of Edinburgh)
Background to the study
• Research programme on Scotland’s
demography co-funded by ESRC and
Scottish Executive
• Our project specifically concerned with
graduate migration. Why? Political context;
dearth of previous research; Scotland’s status
as ‘importer’ of students (many from England)
but ‘exporter’ of many non-Scottish graduates
Aims and methods
• Illuminate medium-term migration patterns. Who
stays and who leaves? Why?
• Secondary analysis (HESA and Census)
• Case study of graduates from University of Edinburgh
in 2000: diversity of students; balance between
recent and more ‘distant’ graduates
• Postal questionnaire sent to all graduates: 43%
response (see UK Data Archive SN 5456)
• Follow-up interviews with 80 graduates (40 in
Scotland, 40 elsewhere)
Brief summary of some
general findings
• Survey: 70% originally from Scotland still in Scotland 5 years
later, compared to 21% not from Scotland. Balanced minorities
of ‘delayed’ and ‘return’ migrants (c. 1/7 of each). No obvious
‘brain drain’ in relation to England
• Interviews: Motivations shaped by opportunities (principally
career-related), connections (partners, family and friends;
affinity, identity and belonging) and expectations (of staying,
leaving, returning).
• For more detail see:
www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/ViewA
wardPage.aspx?AwardId=4045
Bond et al (2008) in Scottish Affairs no. 63: pp. 31-57
Why study migration and identity with
respect to English people in Scotland?
• Historical trend of net emigration
• Political encouragement of immigration
• Dominance of ‘civic’ conception of Scottishness, but
also evidence of less inclusive attitudes
• English migrants important because: inter-national
but intra-state; Scotland’s largest ‘minority’ (c. 8%);
disproportionately influential and/or disadvantaged?
• Our cohort relatively recent migrants from England
Previous research on ‘the English’ in
Scotland
• Different conceptions of nature and
significance of British/Scottish/English
identities
• Responses: Britishness?; regional identity?;
Scottish identity?. But obstacles to ‘adopting’
Scottishness
• ‘English’ identities may provoke
discrimination, but variations in extent, and
also by class/region. Potentially negative
effect on ‘belonging’
Our data
• Interview data on national identities and
potential influence on migration and
settlement
• Derived from questions on ‘home’, belonging,
personal national identities, experiences of
differential treatment, and other emergent
data
Identification with Scotland
• Non-Scots develop identification with
Scotland. Most prominent among those with
family connections and/or continuous
residents
• Identification developed through a number of
routes
Identification through
‘adult socialization’
‘… I would say I felt more attached to Scotland
in general than I did Yorkshire. Basically I’ve
had most of my adult life here and I intend to
stay here’ (NSIS 11)
‘I would say my own home is here in
Edinburgh. Most of my adult life I’ve been in
Edinburgh’ (NSIS 4)
Identification through institutions
‘No I do identify with Scotland. I do. I work for the
[Scottish institution] so I’m quite involved in, […] well at a
low level I suppose, but you know, on policy and all that
kind of business. So I connect with the country in that
way, through my work anyway’ (NSIS 12)
‘… part of it, the job that I now do working in [Scottish
institution] and all that kind of stuff, it makes you think
about Scotland and identify with Scotland I think’
(NSIS 20)
Identification through ancestry
‘… my parents and their family are all from Scotland, and
in fact, as far as I can tell from the people that have
become interested in family trees and stuff, they’re all
from Scotland as far back as you like to go’ (NSIS 1)
‘I’m probably a little bit different to other people ‘cause I
describe it like my soul place, my parents lived up here for
fifteen years before I was born, just moved down for my
dad’s job, so they’ve always called it home because
they’ve family up here …’ (NSIS 3)
Barriers to Belonging?:
‘claiming’ Scottishness
‘… I never really strongly thought of myself as
English, because both my parents were Scottish so
obviously I was Scottish as well. That seemed
fairly self-evident to me when I was little. Since I’ve
come here I have modified that slightly just
because I think, because of other people’s
assumptions, because when you speak in an
English accent then you’re English’ (NSIS 1)
‘I’d love to call myself Scottish […] My parents are
Scottish, my university was Scottish, I’ve been to
Scotland every year of my life but with this [English]
accent I can’t… it’s a bit distressing’ (NSIS 17)
Barriers to Belonging:
direct discrimination?
• Widespread experiences of anti-Englishness:
majority of those who had left, and substantial
minority of those who had stayed
• BUT: seldom severe; sometimes not experienced; not
typically primary reason for (considering) leaving
• BUT: significant enough to weaken capacity to retain
graduate migrants
‘Well I don’t think you’re going to, as far as English
students go, I don’t think you’re going to hold anybody if
this kind of treatment and attitude towards the English
prevails. I don’t think particularly that I have had a bad—I
have had a bad experience, but I don’t think I’m
particularly unique’ (NSIS5)
‘I used to live down in Leith as well at one point and that was
obviously, you know, it’s a bit more a bastion of Scottishness
and again, it was just that sort of, you felt that barrier came
down and it didn’t matter who you were and what you did, that
was it. They’ve made their minds up about you. […] I didn’t feel
as if it was a place, Scotland didn’t seem to be a place that
opened its arms and kind of said, “listen we really want you to
come here” ’ (NSNIS 17)
Significance of class
and regional origins
‘That’s the one thing that when you were asking about where
you feel more at home, that’s the one thing that slightly holds me
back from feeling completely at home in Edinburgh, and that I
would seriously think about if I was going to move up there.
Because I did feel like, not with everyone at all obviously, but
quite often actually there was a slight antagonism towards
English people. And it might be partly because I’ve got quite a
posh English accent, I don’t know. I think friends of mine who
were from Northern England didn’t have such difficult times’
(NSNIS8)
Crossing borders
• A British as opposed to Scottish/English national
frame of reference
• Little perception of parallel anti-Scottishness in
England
‘… don’t know if I was prepared for as much of it. I
mean, the anti-Englishness was quite novel because
in England you don’t really have anti-Scottishness,
it’s not really a big thing, you don’t really notice it’
(NSIS 11)
‘Any kind of allegiance to Scotland has been kind of
killed by the anti-English feeling of the Scots…’ (NSIS
2)
‘… I can see that if you are English you might think
“actually I don’t need to be somewhere where taxi
drivers think I’m a tosser when they hear me speak”.
I don’t, I don’t really need to do that’ (NSNIS 9)
Conclusions
• Exclusion related to national origins and identities not limited to
migration between states
• But ‘anti-English’ discrimination in Scotland is complex and for
many does not represent a barrier to identification or settlement
• Positive evidence to build on to encourage more non-Scottish
graduates to remain in or return to Scotland
• Migration also substantially influenced by (other) economic and
social factors
• Need further political awareness and action?
• Potential lessons for nations with similar ambitions and issues