Leading scholars in the sociology of migration, Michaela Benson and Karen O’Reilly, re-theorise lifestyle migration through a sustained focus on postcolonialism at its intersections with neoliberalism. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the interplay of colonial traces and neoliberal presents, the relationship between residential tourism and economic development, and the governance and regulation of lifestyle migration. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken by the authors among lifestyle migrants in Malaysia and Panama, they reveal the structural and material conditions that support migration and how these are embodied by migrant subjects, while also highlighting their agency within this process. This rigorous work marks an important contribution to emerging debates surrounding privileged migration and mobility. It will appeal to sociologists, social theorists, human and cultural geographers, economists, social psychologists, demographers, social anthropologists, tourism and migration studies specialists.

This book takes an intimate look at the lives of British migrants in Sitges, an affluent coastal tourist town in Northern Spain and investigates ideas of gender, sexuality, and national identity as they are brought to life through the voices of British lifestyle migrants. Situating Sitges as a specifically affluent and "middle-class" location representing a particular form of "lifestyle migration," this rich and detailed study explores how the experiences of British migrants re-inscribe culturally specific understandings of the relationship between space, place, culture and identity. What ultimately emerges is an account of the complex structural constraints of identity, as British migrants find themselves stuck within the stereotype of badly-behaved Brits Abroad and entangled in highly conservative conceptualisations of gender and sexuality, that leave them unable to live the kind of cosmopolitan lifestyles that they so purposefully sought. This is a fascinating study suitable for researchers in gender and sexuality studies, tourism, sociology, and anthropology.

This authoritative Handbook provides an interdisciplinary appraisal of the field of return migration, advancing concepts and theories and setting an agenda for new debates.

This open access textbook provides an introduction to theories, concepts and methodological approaches concerning various facets of migration and migration-related diversities. It starts with an introduction to migration studies and continues with an introductory reading of migration drivers, migration infrastructures, migration flows, and several transversal topics such as gender and migration. It also covers politics, policies and governance as well as specific research methods. As an interactive guide, this book develops an innovative format that brings a connection with various online sources. This means that whereas the chapters bring together literature in a coherent way, they are also connected to IMISCOE's online interactive Migration Research Hub for further reading and for more empirical material on migration and diversity. As such, this textbook provides a very useful introductory reading for undergraduate and graduate students as well as for policymakers, policy advisors, and all those interested in studies on migration and migration-related diversities.

A telling look at today’s “reverse” migration of white, middle-class expats from north to south, through the lens of one South American city Even as the “migration crisis” from the Global South to the Global North rages on, another, lower-key and yet important migration has been gathering pace in recent years—that of mostly white, middle-class people moving in the opposite direction. Gringolandia is that rare book to consider this phenomenon in all its complexity. Matthew Hayes focuses on North Americans relocating to Cuenca, Ecuador, the country’s third-largest city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Many began relocating there after the 2008 economic crisis. Most are self-professed “economic refugees” who sought offshore retirement, affordable medical care, and/or a lower–cost location. Others, however, sought adventure marked by relocation to an unfamiliar cultural environment and to experience personal growth through travel, illustrative of contemporary cultures of aging. These life projects are often motivated by a desire to escape economic and political conditions in North America. Regardless of their individual motivations, Hayes argues, such North–South migrants remain embedded in unequal and unfair global social relations. He explores the repercussions on the host country—from rising prices for land and rent to the reproduction of colonial patterns of domination and subordination. In Ecuador, heritage preservation and tourism development reflect the interests and culture of European-descendent landowning elites, who have most to benefit from the new North–South migration. In the process, they participate in transnational gentrification that marginalizes popular traditions and nonwhite mestizo and indigenous informal workers. The contrast between the migration experiences of North Americans in Ecuador and those of Ecuadorians or others from such regions of the Global South in North America and Europe demonstrates that, in fact, what we face is not so much a global “migration crisis” but a crisis of global social justice.

This book assesses the drivers and impacts of new international residential mobilities by considering a range of mobilities in different countries across the globe from investment, amenity and retirement mobilities to those of the new global middle class and the transnational elites. It examines the intersection of these mobilities with the increase in the volume of global tourism, the advent of the sharing economy and peer-to-peer platforms, and the effects of transnational property investment. The consequent transformations are considered in urban environments where tourism pressure coexists with gentrification, increasing house prices and processes of social and ethnic segregation. By offering a broad perspective based on different case studies, the book portrays the contradictory consequences of international residential mobilities both favouring local opportunities for development and disrupting housing markets through the disassociation from local demand. As a result this book is a great resource for academics and students in tourism, urban and migration studies as well as policy-makers and practitioners involved in urban planning, social affairs and tourism management.

Around 5.6 million British nationals live outside the United Kingdom: the equivalent of one in every ten Britons. However, social science research, as well as public interest, has tended to focus more on the numbers of migrants entering the UK, rather than those leaving. This book provides an important counterbalance, drawing on the latest empirical research and theoretical developments to offer a fascinating account of the lives, experiences and identities of British migrants living in a wide range of geographic locations across Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia. This collection asks: What is the shape and significance of contemporary British migration? Who are today’s British migrants and how might we understand their everyday lives? Contributions uncover important questions in the context of global and national debates about the nature of citizenships, the ‘Brexit’ vote, deliberations surrounding mobility and freedom of movement, as well as national, racial and ethnic boundaries. This book challenges conventional wisdoms about migration and enables new understandings about British migrants, their relations to historical privileges, international relations and sense of national identity. It will be valuable core reading to researchers and students across disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, Politics and International Relations.

This book examines the increasing evidence of international retirement migration (IRM) to countries of the Global South. IRM to countries of the Global South points to the increasing global interconnectedness of aging in relatively affluent countries and raises critical questions about its interrelations with global inequalities. This book provides a critical analysis of these global interrelations and their intertwinements with global inequalities and addresses the complex and multi-layered dimensions and implications of this development. It highlights the (ambiguous) everyday lives of retirement migrants in the countries of destination, and the severe impacts on the destination countries that are marked by processes of recolonization, and the reproduction, enhancement and reconfiguration of social inequalities. The growing retirement industry that capitalizes on retirement migration exploiting global differences and structural disadvantages of countries in the Global South is another integral part of this book.

An ethnography of “silver backpackers” that offers a feminist perspective on what makes a good retirement in contemporary societies The moniker “silver backpackers” refers to Japanese couples who, in their mid-fifties to seventies, move to Malaysia to enjoy their retirement. Much has been written in the scholarship on Japan about the gendered division of labor and how it has affected the lives of young or middle-aged workers and their families in a period of high economic growth. After Work, however, focuses on what comes next, after work, and how the values, practices, and relations forged under a particular postwar capitalist labor regime live on when middle-class professional people retire. Based on fifteen months of fieldwork in Kuala Lumpur and employing a transnational feminist framework, After Work investigates moments of difference in the experiences of older women and men to examine patriarchal conversations that dominate ideas about contemporary retirement. Shiori Shakuto argues that anxiety around self and belonging in retirement are instigated by the capitalist labor regime and the discourse of successful aging, both of which devalue nonremunerated activities conducted at home. What is needed instead, she contends, is a re-valuation of key domestic activities—from caring for children to pursuing individual hobbies—so that “life” can be appreciated in its entirety. Shakuto also takes into account the fact that this transnational retirement is set in Malaysia—a nation that Japan occupied during World War II and thereafter subject to decades of economic investment and resource exploitation by Japanese corporations. Highlighting how historical, cultural, and racialized complexities entangle with intimate relations in increasingly connected Asian countries while simultaneously acknowledging how the boundaries between work and life blur ever more in contemporary society, After Work complicates our perceptions of aging and a “good” retirement as well as our understandings of gender, migration, and the future of work as we know it.

This book is the first comprehensive ethnographic study of the diversity of living and ageing experiences of three groups of older migrants – return, lifestyle and ageing-in-place labour migrants – from a comparative perspective. It explores the motivations, ageing experiences and aspirations of transnational ageing migrants in the context of the Portuguese islands of the Azores and situates the research within debates of the ageing-migration nexus. The book’s interdisciplinary approach to transnational embodied and emplaced experiences of ageing facilitates a dialogue between various fields concerned with ageing and mobilities, including geography, anthropology, sociology, social gerontology, social work, and studies of health and wellbeing.