migration, diasporas and citizenship series · the migration, diasporas and citizenship series...

Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship Series

Series Editors: Robin Cohen, Former Director of the International Migration Institute and Professor of Development Studies, University of Oxford, UK and Zig Layton-Henry, Professor of Politics, University of Warwick, UK

Editorial Board: Rainer Baubock, European University Institute, Italy; James F. Hollifield, Southern Methodist University, USA; Jan Rath, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship series covers three important aspects of the migration progress. Firstly, the determinants, dynamics and characteristics of international migration. Secondly, the continuing attachment of many contem-porary migrants to their places of origin, signified by the word ‘diaspora’, and thirdly the attempt, by contrast, to belong and gain acceptance in places of settle-ment, signified by the word ‘citizenship’. The series publishes work that shows engagement with and a lively appreciation of the wider social and political issues that are influenced by international migration.

Also published in Migration Studies by Palgrave Macmillan

Bridget Anderson and Isabel Shutes (editors)MIGRATION AND CARE LABOURTheory, Policy and Politics

Rutvica AndrijasevicMIGRATION, AGENCY AND CITIZENSHIP IN SEX TRAFFICKING

Floya Anthias and Mojca Pajnik (editors)CONTESTING INTEGRATION, ENGENDERING MIGRATIONTheory and Practice

Michaela Benson and Nick OsbaldistonUNDERSTANDING LIFESTYLE MIGRATIONTheoretical Approaches to Migration and the Quest for a Better Way of Life

Gideon Calder, Phillip Cole and Jonathan SeglowCITIZENSHIP ACQUISITION AND NATIONAL BELONGINGMigration, Membership and the Liberal Democratic State

Michael CollyerEMIGRATION NATIONSPolicies and Ideologies of Emigrant Engagement

Huub Dijstelbloem and Albert Meijer (editors)MIGRATION AND THE NEW TECHNOLOGICAL BORDERS OF EUROPE

Martin Geiger and Antoine Pécoud (editors)THE POLITICS OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION MANAGEMENT

John R. Hinnells (editor)RELIGIOUS RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH ASIAN DIASPORASFrom One Generation to Another

Catrin LundströmWHITE MIGRATIONSGender, Whiteness and Privilege in Transnational Migration

10.1057/9781137328670 - Understanding Lifestyle Migration, Edited by Michaela Benson and Nick Osbaldiston

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Amanda Klekowski von KoppenfelsMIGRANTS OR EXPATRIATES?Americans in Europe

Marie Macy and Alan H. CarlingETHNIC, RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS INEQUALITIESThe Perils of Subjectivity

George Menz and Alexander Caviedes (editors)LABOUR MIGRATION IN EUROPE

Laura Morales and Marco Giugni (editors)SOCIAL CAPITAL, POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND MIGRATION IN EUROPEMaking Multicultural Democracy Work?

Aspasia Papadopoulou-KourkoulaTRANSIT MIGRATIONThe Missing Link Between Emigration and Settlement

Prodromos PanayiotopoulosETHNICITY, MIGRATION AND ENTERPRISE

Dominic PasuraAFRICAN TRANSNATIONAL DIASPORASFractured Communities and Plural Identities of Zimbabweans in Britain

Shanthi RobertsonTRANSNATIONAL STUDENT-MIGRANTS AND THE STATEThe Education-Migration Nexus

Olivia SheringhamTRANSNATIONAL RELIGIOUS SPACESFaith and the Brazilian Migration Experience

Evan Smith and Marinella MarmoRACE, GENDER AND THE BODY IN BRITISH IMMIGRATION CONTROLSubject to Examination

Vicky SquireTHE EXCLUSIONARY POLITICS OF ASYLUM

Lucy WilliamsGLOBAL MARRIAGECross-Border Marriage Migration in Global Context

Migration, Diasporas and CitizenshipSeries Standing Order ISBN 978–0–230–30078–1 (Hardback)

978–0–230–30079–8 (Paperback)(outside North America only)

You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above.

Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England


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Understanding Lifestyle Migration Theoretical Approaches to Migration and the Quest for a Better Way of Life

Edited by

Michaela Benson Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

and

Nick Osbaldiston Federation University, Australia


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Selection and editorial matter © Michaela Benson and Nick Osbaldiston 2014 Individual chapters © Respective authors 2014

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries

ISBN: 978–1–137–32866–3

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.


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v

Contents

List of Figures vii

Acknowledgements viii

Notes on Contributors x

1 New Horizons in Lifestyle Migration Research: Theorising Movement, Settlement and the Search for a Better Way of Life 1

Michaela Benson and Nick Osbaldiston

Part I Constraints and Opportunities

2 Lifestyle of Freedom? Individualism and Lifestyle Migration 27

Mari Korpela

3 Negotiating Privilege in and through Lifestyle Migration 47 Michaela Benson

Part II Revisiting Assumptions

4 Theorising the ‘Fifth Migration’ in the United States: Understanding Lifestyle Migration from an Integrated Approach 71

Brian A. Hoey

5 Jumping Up from the Armchair: Beyond the Idyll in Counterurbanisation 92

Keith Halfacree

Part III Spaces of Imagination

6 Migrating Imaginaries of a Better Life ... Until Paradise Finds You 119

Noel B. Salazar

7 Britons in Berlin: Imagined Cityscapes, Affective Encounters and the Cultivation of the Self 139

David Griffiths and Stella Maile


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vi Contents

Part IV Stillness and Sedentariness

8 Beyond Ahistoricity and Mobilities in Lifestyle Migration Research 163

Nick Osbaldiston

9 No Man Can Be an Island: Lifestyle Migration, Stillness, and the New Quietism 188

Phillip Vannini and Jonathan Taggart

Part V Looking Onwards and Outwards

10 The Role of the Social Imaginary in Lifestyle Migration: Employing the Ontology of Practice Theory 211

Karen O’Reilly

Index 235


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vii

List of Figures

3.1 Map of administrative divisions in France, with the Lot marked up 54

3.2 Map of Panama, indicating the location of the field site, Boquete 55

9.1 A rather un-crowded beach, near our cabin 189 9.2 Judy and two of her friendly goats 190 9.3 ‘Walter’, as we have decided to call him 193 9.4 Jim shows us how he monitors his water use 204


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viii

Acknowledgements

The shape of the volume is very much the product of the dialogue between Nick and me. His acute understanding of social theory and how this can be put to work in understanding lifestyle migration inspired the original idea for the volume and continues to inspire my own under-standings and interpretations of this social phenomenon. I thank him wholeheartedly for being such a great co-editor and author, in what has been a truly collaborative project.

Throughout this process, the contributors have been excited and enthusiastic about the project, sentiments that clearly come across in the pages of the project. While I am grateful to all of our contributors for bringing this energy to the table, I am particularly thankful to Karen O’Reilly, who has not only written a thoughtful and engaging conclu-sion to the volume, but has provided insightful and constructive advice to Nick and me on our own contributions and the co-authored intro-duction. In the construction of my own chapter, and in particular the development of the theoretical framing, I wish to thank Dave Beer for lending a listening ear, and Laurie Hanquinet for her careful and critical reading of my Bourdieusian interpretations. I also thank my partner, Dimitrios Theodossopoulos for being an initial sounding board for my ideas.

From the outset, Phillipa Grand at Palgrave MacMillan has been supportive and encouraging of the project. I would also like to thank the editors of the series, Robin Cohen and Zig Layton-Henry, for including our volume in their excellent series.

Michaela Benson, Goldsmiths College

I first wish to express my gratitude to my co-editor Michaela for initially suggesting the idea for this book and then for shaping it with her experience and detailed understanding of not just Lifestyle Migration as a phenomenon but also the literature surrounding it. It has been a pleasure to work with her and hopefully this experience will lead to other opportunities. I would also like to thank our contributors who have been excellent and professional in the delivery of their mate-rial, especially Karen O’Reilly who has provided advice and guidance


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Acknowledgements ix

in the development of the book. It would be remiss of me also not to acknowledge Palgrave Macmillan for their willingness to take on board this project, especially Naomi Robinson and Philippa Grand. I would also like to extend a personal thank you to people who have assisted me personally as this book has come to fruition including Peta Cook, Fabian Cannizzo, Felicity Picken and David Inglis for taking time out of his schedule to explore his ideas with me. Lastly to my family, Bianca, Scarlett, Ollie and Henri, I’m once again indebted to your patience and encouragement during the editing of the book.

Nick Osbaldiston, Federation University


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x

Notes on Contributors

Michaela Benson is a senior lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research expertise is focused on the relation-ship between class and space. On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork in France and Panama, she has written extensively on lifestyle migration, including her monograph The British in Rural France: Lifestyle Migration and the Ongoing Quest for a Better Way of Life (2011), shortlisted for the British Sociological Association’s Philip Abrams Memorial Prize (2012), and the co-edited volume Lifestyle Migration (2009).

David Griffiths spends his time between teaching and writing in the West Country and researching on Britons in Berlin. He is the author of several books on refugees in the United Kingdom and has also co-written various publications with Stella Maile, including an edited collection on public engagement and social science (forthcoming). His research inter-ests span forced and lifestyle migration as well as broader institutional and policy issues affecting higher education and the social sciences.

Keith Halfacree is a reader in geography at Swansea University. His research interests include discourses of rurality, migration and marginal or countercultural geographies. He is renowned for his work on defining rurality and the relationship between rurality and migration, and is an authority on counterurbanisation. He has authored in excess of 50 research articles.

Brian A. Hoey is a associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Marshall University, West Virginia. His research interests encompass a number of themes including personhood and place, migration, narrative identity and life-transition, community building and negotiations between work, family and self in different social, historical and environmental contexts. His publications include Opting for Elsewhere: Lifestyle Migration in the American Middle Class (2014).

Mari Korpela is a postdoctoral research fellow in anthropology at the University of Tampere, Finland. Her research interests include childhood, lifestyle migration, transnational communities, countercultures, gender and travel. Her ethnographic research in Varanasi and Goa has formed


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Notes on Contributors xi

the basis of her publications on lifestyle migration, which include her monograph More Vibes in India: Westerners in Search of a Better Way of Life (2009).

Stella Maile is a senior lecturer in sociology and psycho-social studies at the University of the West of England. She is the convenor of the public seminar series Social Science in the City. In addition to lifestyle migra-tion, Stella’s research and writing is increasingly concerned with issues of identity, the psycho-social dimensions of recognition and of research choice itself. She is also interested in the meaning and role of public social science.

Karen O’Reilly is a professor of sociology at Loughborough University. Her research interests include migration, social class and ethnographic methods. In particular, she is a pioneer in the use of practice stories for conducting research on migration. She has conducted extensive field-work among the British in Spain and is currently working on a project about the British in Thailand and Malaysia. She is the author of several books including The British on the Costa del Sol (2000), International Migration and Social Theory (2012) and Ethnographic Methods (2011), and numerous journal articles.

Nick Osbaldiston is a lecturer in sociology at Federation University, Australia. His research and publications have focused on lifestyle migra-tion, including his monograph Seeking Authenticity in Place, Culture and Self (2012). In particular, his research focus has been on the cultural narratives of lifestyle migration, analysed through the ‘strong’ cultural sociology program. More recently, he has been conducting research on the development of housing issues resulting from lifestyle migration and second home ownership in Australia.

Noel B. Salazar is a research professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. His research interests include anthropologies of mobility and travel, the local-to-global nexus, discourses and imaginaries of Otherness, heritage, cultural brokering and cosmopolitanism. He is the author of Envisioning Eden: Mobilizing Imaginaries in Tourism and Beyond (2010).

Jonathan Taggart is an award-winning documentary photographer and videographer, writer and sometime educator living on Coast Salish traditional territory in Vancouver, British Columbia. Uniquely blending visual narrative with elements of social inquiry, his work has as its central theme the movement of people through postcolonial space, towards isolated communities, and under remote economies.


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xii Notes on Contributors

Phillip Vannini is a professor at the School for Communication and Culture, Royal Roads University, Vancouver. He is an accomplished ethnographer and author who studies subjects such as marine mobili-ties, off-grid energy assemblages and the social aspects of human embodiment. His research interests broadly include material culture, technology and culture, sensory studies and cultural geographies. His publications include Ferry Tales (2011), a hypermedia book that explores mobility and sense of place and time on the British Columbia coast. He is currently studying life off the grid across Canada.


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