'Brexit’: Qualitative researchers respond

On 23 June the UK voted, against most expectations, to leave the European Union, following a referendum campaign characterized by divisive, threatening, unedifying rhetoric and an increasingly febrile atmosphere. Since the outcome of the vote, many leading politicians have, for various reasons, left the scene. Much remains uncertain, both for the UK and for the rest of Europe; and, meanwhile, our continent – and the wider world to which we are of course all connected – continues to face multiple pressures and threats.

There has been some media attention given to the financial implications for higher education of the UK’s decision to leave the EU, including questions about future UK academic involvement in collaborative EU-funded projects and the concerns facing both individuals and their UK universities about the future of EU nationals both studying and teaching at UK universities.

But what does this referendum decision mean for qualitative research and for qualitative researchers? How does it affect the way we think and write and carry ourselves within our institutions, amongst our scholarly communities and in relation to our work? How might it inform how we theorise and produce knowledge?

This session invites qualitative researchers from both within and beyond the UK to begin to inquire into the impact of ‘Brexit’ – a catchy, diminutive term we might wish to trouble – upon us and our work, and to find ways to articulate this impact in more nuanced, embodied, complex ways than have so far been in evidence.

Up to ten qualitative researchers will present for no more than 7 minutes each in response to these three questions:
 
1. What impact is the referendum process and outcome having upon me? Where is it leaving/taking me? What is it evoking?
2. How am I thinking about, or re-thinking, my own inquiry in the light of the referendum result and its implications?
3. What are my thoughts and feelings about where we go from here? What does the community of qualitative researchers – in Europe in particular but also globally – do now?
 
We will speak in turn, then pause and in the time remaining gather others' thoughts, responses, echoes.