Paper short abstract:

Based on a long-term fieldwork, this contribution will enligthen how people who have settled in the Swiss Alps by choice voice their ideas of a "better quality of life" after migrating, and disseminate various representations of living in the mountains.

Paper long abstract:

This talk is based on a previous fieldwork among men and women from diverse origins who chose to settle down in alpine villages in Switzerland (Valais). It is also based on an ongoing project on new migrations in the Swiss Alps (and Spanish Pyrenees) that involves inner and outer migration, including natives, foreigners and multi-local residents from different types.

Most of the research participants expressed their ideas of "good life" in terms of "quality of life", diversely linked to the physical and social environment, the social and political stability, the climate, the tranquillity, the natural mountain conditions to enjoying outdoor activities and the standard of living in Switzerland. In many ways, the search for "good life" in the mountains appears as a mix between class privilege, identity-making project, and western/urban construction of the mountain as an idyllic living place.

New ways of living in the mountain regions can be considered a phenomenon of international concern that is intertwined with market globalisation. In 2018, the idea of living in a natural environment conveys a large spectrum of social fantasy and moral virtues, like a healthy way of life that entails eating organic food, having a slower rhythm of life, more balanced, more fun, and more ecological.

This talk will highlight how the personal meanings and subjectivities behind the imaginaries of "the mountains" as a place to live "in nature" are related to social constraints like working, schooling or housing and to more global trend of migrating in the mountains area.

Paper short abstract:

Residential migrants in German border villages to Luxembourg may experience migration as a largely unintentional transformation. In order to capture the complexity of processes of migration and place making we have to understand the temporalities of multiple and intersecting memories.

Paper long abstract:

For the growing number of Luxembourgish nationals who take up residence in the German border zone to Luxembourg, the move across the national border is motivated by the search for greater residential satisfaction, reflecting thus differing developments in the real estate market on both sides of the border. Apart from this particular aspect of good life, the individuals and families in question do not expect more general changes in their living conditions or better opportunities.

Some scholars maintain that it is mistaken to conceive of this type of mobility as migration (cf. Kaufmann 1999). Based on the results of an empirical study in several German border villages, it is argued, however, that many of the new border-landers turn into migrants by gradually developing a sense of better life in the new place of residence or, to put it differently, by narrating their - unforeseen - happiness.

Furthermore, the Luxembourg example, which turns, in a sense, common migration settings upside down by showing migrants who leave a place that is, in all other respects, one of affluence, allows for a more complete view on the ways of experiencing and narrating migration. Apart from accounts of the conscious pursuit of betterment, migration can also be presented as a largely unintentional conversion or transformation. This leads to the more general question of the importance of memories and the different temporalities of intersecting memories in the process of migration and place making.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the intersection between the imaginings of a better lifestyle and mobility. By ethnographically exploring the migration experiences of Japanese temporary migrants living in Dublin, I aim to unpack the implications of the ideas of 'good life.'

Paper long abstract:

The desire for improved livelihoods is a common theme in migration narratives. In the context of post-war Japan, the technological advancement and material affluence has made international mobility open to anyone who has financial freedom and desires to explore new possibilities in life abroad. For these people, motives for migration do not lie in the search for economic benefits but in the desire for freedom and self-fulfilment. Migration processes typically work in conjunction with the imaginings of a life freed from the constraints of social relationships. Migration is then understood as an expedient means to negotiate their personal desires and design their life courses without being restricted by the middle-class ideals of a Japanese life course. In this body of scholarship, the definition of good life is ultimately intertwined with the ability to exercise individual autonomy.

This ethnographic paper examines the interplay between migration practices and the search for a better lifestyle amongst Japanese people who travelled to Dublin. My informants in their twenties and thirties left their local lives behind and yearned to carve out a unique life in a new social context. What they thought of as a better lifestyle was informed by the ways in which they set out to move abroad. Drawing on the migration experiences of those who temporarily relocated to Dublin, I explore how the imaginings of a better lifestyle intersects with mobility, and ultimately reveal the implications of their ideas of 'good life.'

Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that the quest for a "good life" is also an important motivation for migrants from the Global South, who are predominantly associated with purely economic choices. It analyses "tranquility" as a leading motivation for seasonal migrants working in the Indian informal tourism sector.

Paper long abstract:

Migration motivated by the quest for a "good life" - e.g. lifestyle migration - is usually associated with the privileged citizens of the Global North. This is even more apparent if we take into account the intersections of migration and tourism, and speak about tourism-led lifestyle migration or lifestyle entrepreneurship in tourism (Ateljevic & Doorne 2000), i.e. the shift from lifestyle consumption to lifestyle production (Shaw & Williams 2004). These are usually "expatriates" from the Global North in the Global South who are able to fulfill their quest running lifestyle oriented small tourism (LOST) firm (Carlsen 2008). Meanwhile migrants who originate from the Global South are often imagined as homo œconomicus motivated mostly by better earning opportunities.

In this paper I would like to challenge this assumption by discussing some findings from my fieldwork conducted within the informal tourism sector at the Hampi World Heritage site in India. The majority of small entrepreneurs in this sector are migrants, both internal and international (e.g. from Nepal or Tibet), who move seasonally, often with their families. When asked about the reasons for choosing Hampi as their destination - when more popular and lucrative Goa beaches are just nearby - they point at the category of "tranquility", which they use to counter capitalist notions of profitability by not aspiring to maximize economic gain. I seek to answer the question of how "tranquility" is defined by migrants in the Indian tourism sector and how this affects their migratory decisions and practices.