The View of Lifestyle Migration: a Brief Exploration of the Ethics of Seeking a Better Way of Life

Lifestyle migration, or the middle-class quest to find a better way of life by moving to new places, is often examined through sociological lenses of class, race, gender and other structural categories. However, in this chapter, the concept itself is unpacked by examining what it might mean theoretically to seek out this ‘better way of life’. Using Georg Simmel’s sociology and philosophy as a guide, the chapter seeks to understand how guiding ethics between how individuals feel they ought to live aligns with how they actually live and what input this has on their motivations and also experiences in migration. Using interviews with domestic migrants into the Australian island state of Tasmania, the chapter exhibits how the tension between ought/actuality within lifestyle unfolds especially via relations with others. It is shown how the ethic of how migrants feel they ought to live develops socially before and then after migration. This at times changes perceptions about what the ‘good life’ entails for some migrants as they experience new social relations in their new places. However, for others, their ‘ought’ for migrating in the first instance is challenged by negative experiences with their new communities producing new negative emotions and perceptions of place. Thus, lifestyle migration is a constant unfolding that occurs not in isolation, but socially with others. Subsequently, this chapter argues that the question of life in lifestyle migration deserves further unpacking theoretically. Furthermore, it also argues that the relational approach to this phenomenon is important to understanding how perceptions of life develop through social interaction, engagement and relationships