Lifestyle Migration: Expectations, Aspirations and Experiences

Relatively affluent individuals from various corners of the globe are increasingly choosing to migrate, spurred on by the promise of a better and more fulfilling way of life within their destination. This way of life can be distinguished from that sought by other migrants, such as labour migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, in its emphasis on lifestyle choices specific to individuals of the developed world who present their individualized migrations as anti-modern, escapist, self-realisation projects, part of an ongoing lifestyle trajectory. Nevertheless, despite its increasing scale, this phenomenon has received scant scholarly attention. This volume thus constitutes a novel and timely contribution to the study of migration, consolidating and establishing lifestyle migration as a subfield of theoretical enquiry, offering a dynamic and holistic analysis of contemporary lifestyle migrations, and laying the groundwork for further intellectual enquiry. Lifestyle Migration explores the expectations and aspirations which inform and drive migration alongside the realities of life within the destination, while also recognizing the structural conditions (and constraints) which frame lifestyle migration. Through rich empirical case studies, this volume engages with a variety of themes relevant to contemporary social science, such as globalization, mobility, transnationalism, identity, social cohesion and integration, community and belonging. Drawing upon theoretical insights from a range of disciplines, including geography, sociology, and social anthropology, this volume addresses an important and increasingly common form of migration in a manner that will interest scholars of mobility, migration, lifestyle and culture across the social sciences."