Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers the agency of local actors and the ways in which they participate in global dynamics. It explores how global influences help to structure power relations and interactions between natives, immigrants and non-residents. The book shows how a specific hierarchy of citizenship statuses or an accurately tailored institutional semi-autonomy can be mobilized as a collective and individual resource. It details the certain changes that have been made to the political arrangements in place between the territories, their respective metropolitan powers, and the European Union (EU). The book focuses on the EU and also considers how developments initiated by the metropoles now often overlap with a process of Europeanization. It addresses the process of Europeanization from a different view – that of Britain's decision in June 2016 to leave the EU.