‘And then one day they all moved to Leicester’: the relocation of Somalis from the Netherlands to the UK explained

Abstract Since 2000 it is estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 Somali immigrants have left the Netherlands for the UK. This exceptionally high level of intra‐European Union (EU) mobility is in contrast with the general trend of very low levels of intra‐EU mobility. Based on 33 in‐depth interviews with Dutch Somalis in London and Leicester this paper tries to explain the relocation of Somalis from the Netherlands to the UK. The presence of a large Somali community in the UK, economic and educational opportunities in the UK, and differences in integration policies have influenced Dutch Somalis' decision to relocate. It is argued, however, that the wider context in which these movements take place should be taken into account as well. Immigrants may (initially) not always be in a position to move where they want to move. As such, Somalis' relocation from the Netherlands to the UK could also be seen as a follow‐up to an earlier movement that was interrupted along the way. Dutch Somalis' narratives about their onward move provide us with a comparison of the Netherlands and the UK as countries of settlement. At the same time, these stories also challenge the binary oppositions that have tended to inform how we think about migration in a static and often linear way. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.