Understanding Lifestyle Migration ― Theoretical Approaches to Migration and the Quest for a Better Way of Life

Understanding Lifestyle Migration contributes to the wider turn towards understanding migration through the lens of social theory. It is the first volume to question how lifestyle migration and related phenomena can be understood through the application of social theories. The collection is a significant contribution to this rapidly expanding field of research and engages with deeper understandings of such migrations that draw significantly on the models provided by contemporary social theory. It thus aims to set a new and challenging research agenda that brings together researchers from a range of disciplines and geographical locations working on related forms of migration. The chapters engage theoretically with themes and debates relevant to contemporary social science such as place and space, social stratification and power relations, production and consumption, individualism, dwelling, imagination and representations, and community attachments and belonging.

Michaela Benson is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. She has written extensively on lifestyle migration, co-edited the collection Lifestyle Migration, and is author of The British in Rural France which was shortlisted for the 2012 British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memoral Prize.

Nick Osbaldiston is Lecturer at Monash University, Australia. He has written on lifestyle migration and culture including Seeking Authenticity in Place, Culture and Self and The Culture of the Slow. Nick is currently an executive committee member for The Australian Sociological Association (TASA).