Paper short abstract:

The paper explores aspirational retirement migration from northern Europe to Spain. It considers how belonging is both influenced by prior emotional attachments and ultimately indexed to personal and existential experiences of bodily ageing which affect the extent to which people feel ‘at home’.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the ways that emotional attachments in migration are shaped and developed in responses to changes over the life course. The analysis is based on ethnographic research on retirement migration from Northern Europe to Spain. It explores how migration in this instance is vested with intense emotional significance, laden with hopes and aspirations for good retirement. Seductive place-based images of Spain and attractions of a like-minded migrant community promise desirable qualities of experience in later life. The paper explores the making - and breaking - of new emotional attachments amongst migrants in two ways. First, I demonstrate how questions of belonging for these migrants are indexed to personal and existential experiences of ageing. Thus emotional attachments to place and homeland are subject to re-evaluation and are regularly revised according to individuals' bodily ageing. Second, I show how new relationships are influenced by deep-rooted feelings and emotions about identity, particularly in relation to 'taste' and, ultimately class, which for some people may disrupt the extent to which they can feel 'at home'. In exploring these themes, the paper reveals how emotional attachments forged in transnational and migrant contexts can be interpreted through reference to the life course.