Is it embarrassing to be an expat? Brits living abroad are distancing themselves from the term after
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Is it embarrassing to be an expat? Brits living abroad are distancing themselves from the term after Brexit
Ross Bennett-Cook, University of Westminster
Of the 5.5 million British people living outside of the UK, many have long considered themselves expatriates – people living outside their country of birth, often with plans to return home. For a long time, I didn’t think twice about using the word “expat” to describe Brits who move to Spain to retire, or businessmen relocating to Hong Kong.
A 2015 article by journalist Mawuna Remarque Koutonin caused me to think more carefully about the connotations of class, race and privilege associated with the term expat.
Koutonin asked why we use words like “immigrant” to describe some groups of people who move countries, and reserve “expat” for those who are white, western and wealthy. Koutonin suggests that the word expat allows Europeans to distance themselves from other migrant groups and therefore avoid the negativity often (unfairly) as...
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