Practising the Good Life (PDF)

This edited collection adds to the growing body of research on lifestyle migration with empirically grounded explorations focusing on a wide range of practices involved in living 'the good life'. The volume brings together a variety of socio-geographical contexts—from Swedish 'lifestyle movers' in Malta, retired Britons and Germans in Spain, and seekers of the 'rural idyll' in the Iberian Peninsula, to expats in Nepal, North Americans in Ecuador and 'utopian' lifestyle migrants in Patagonia—to provide a broad spectrum of studies that provide insights into how the practices of lifestyle migration are (re-)produced and performed. Adopting a variety of methodological approaches, the contributions also reflect the interdisciplinary nature of current research into migration, with groundings in sociology, anthropology, human geography, cultural studies and linguistics.The practice-based approach taken in this book explores a range of aspects and issues surrounding lifestyle-oriented mobilities by considering how these mobilities materialise in people's everyday engagements, imaginations, identities, institutional articulations and international dynamics. The practices that are highlighted include: mobility practices; community-building practices, particularly as enacted in the new 'cultural arenas' provided by destination places; identity practices, including racialized practices and on-line practices; language practices; home-ownership practices, practices of home-making and belonging; alternative lifestyle and 'spiritual' practices; active ageing practices; leisure and work-related practices in rural contexts; and the (often mediated) practices sustaining what can be called a 'lifestyle migration industry'.