Conference proceedings for the Lifestyle migrationHub meeting28-29 November 2019Umeå University, Sweden : GERUM Geografisk Arbetsrapport (Working paper)

Lifestyle migration refers to the relocation of citizens from affluent industrialised nations in order to find a more meaningful and relaxed life, usually in places with lower living costs and sunny or otherwise attractive climates. Often, they claim to be escaping from the “rat-race”, hectic lifestyles and pressures at work. Retirees, on the other hand, often claim to search for a more active old age by moving abroad. Scholars of lifestyle migration and tourism-informed mobilities are interested in the social conditions that lead individuals to pursue ‘the good life’ through geographic mobility and travel. Lifestyle-informed migration creates new forms of transnational community and identity. It also has important social and environmental effects on receiving communities. Studies have e.g. focused on North Europeans moving to Spain (O’Reilly 2000), or buying second homes in Malta (Åkerlund 2013), or on the migration of North Americans and West Europeans to Latin American destinations (Hayes 2015), and to South or Southeast Asia (Benson & O’Reilly 2018).Despite this significant body of work on lifestyle migration led by members of the hub, no meeting has been arranged over the past years. That is one reason why we arranged a meeting in Umeå in 2019, to provide a new occasion to meet colleagues in real life, discuss ongoing research and future possibilities for collaboration. We found new synergies and insights from anthropology, political science, ethnography, geography, sociology and other disciplines for joint future studies.