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The seachange phenomenon has recently returned to the policy and planning agenda in Australia owing to some recent data showing new movement patterns out of capital cities. This chapter presents a discussion around this via review of the literature in the areas of amenity migration, counter-urbanisation and lifestyle migration. It further proposes, through demographic research into the region of Gippsland in Victoria, that we need to begin to better understand the motivations for shifting away from the capital cities and the flow on impacts in local communities. Among these impacts are coastal populations in various stages of flux, transforming communities based on local, familiar ties and an enduring relationship to place with new residents from far and wide. As these communities and places are ‘opened up’ through permanent, semi-permanent and visitor populations, more work is required to understand the local place as one that is increasingly inclusive of converging mobile lives, driving communities in transition and renegotiations of identity, belonging and security.

This chapter examines the contemporary migration of Italian families to Morocco. Situating Italian emigration studies in context, it describes how this ‘new migration’ is a result of both historical and economic factors. Beginning with how ‘being in motion’ shapes the everyday lives of Italian women and families, it points out that migration is a way to apply agency. Being on the move through migration is presented not only as a process that (re)shapes the family, but also as a means of attaining an imagined model of family, one based on cultural aspirations of a good life for one’s self and one’s children.

Purpose – This chapter examines place-based social practices and experiences, conceptualized as ‘belonging’, among older Americans who live in senior mobile home communities in Florida.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Pursuing a grounded theory approach, the chapter is based on 18 ethnographic interviews with senior mobile home households, conducted between 2005 and 2007.

Findings – Following lifestyle migration, senior Floridians developed interrelated, yet distinct, forms of belonging within their varying social and spatial environments, combining elements of selective, elective and resistant belonging.

Originality/Value – The study participants’ focus on shared and socially valued group characteristics in their construction of place-based identity problematizes the possibility of a successful integration of outsiders, raising new questions for the concept and future study of belonging.

Migration of the Turkish new middle-class – high-skilled, well-educated, young professionals – has been growing in recent years. This paper explores their migration experience and discusses the role of physical and virtual bubbles in the formation of transnational communities and processes of adjustment to a new place.

This paper is based on a qualitative inquiry collecting data via semi-structured interviews with 18 London-based Turkish migrants and a digital ethnographic study of three Facebook groups that bring together the Turkish migrant community in Richmond, London.

Findings indicate that the migration of the new middle class differs conceptually from existing typologies. The paper proposes the concept of “dissonant harmony-seekers” and elaborates on their interactions to demonstrate that, in the Internet age, the traditional image of migrants living in isolated localised bubbles is no longer accurate. Findings also indicate a pragmatic and functional engagement with the bubbles, with migrants sporadically interacting with the bubbles to meet their individual needs in information, education and employment. 

This paper contributes to the literature with the concept of dissonant harmony-seekers, which will gain more visibility in a world where the trend of democratic decline and rising authoritarianism will motivate a migratory move for people who confront a moral dissociation from the civil order in their homeland. The engagement of dissonant harmony-seekers with migrant communities challenges the conventional thinking that social identity is central to creating and maintaining bubbles. The other contribution of the paper to the literature is the metaphor of “foam” to capture the ephemeral and fugacious nature of the dynamics of migrant communities and practices.

Implicit within much of the migrant literature is an assumption that migrant flows are primarily motivated by economic differences. However, such an assumption raises three interesting questions. First, why would people wish to leave a country where income levels are relatively high, public services are extensive and the standard of living is well above global averages? Second, what are the socio-cultural attributes that might attract such potential migrant to a new domicile state? Third, how might this be reflected in consumptive attitudes and behaviours within their new domicile state? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In order to investigate the answer to these questions, a two-stage qualitative research methodology incorporating photographic self-records and in-depth interviews is used to examine UK migrants’ decisions to migrate to New Zealand. Subsequently, the authors examine the celebration of Christmas in New Zealand by UK migrants to better understand meaning creation and re-creation of consumption activities within a new socio-cultural context informed by their decisions to migrate.

Findings suggest that with some lifestyle migrant groups, individualistic values and belief systems appear to play a significant role in determining consumptive attitudes and behaviours in their domicile states.

This research identifies how some migrant groups may adopt a more reflexive approach by undertaking a complex and sophisticated process of self and social identity construction reflective of their individualistic values and belief systems rather than the acceptance or rejection of their domicile culture.

Roots tourism is an important tourism segment both quantitatively and qualitatively. However, unlike other countries such as Ireland and Scotland, in Italy the interest for this segment on the part of the institutions and the research world has so far been rather limited. Even the offer of services is not adequate and is not targeted. The chapter illustrates the main characteristics of the demand generated by roots tourists, their reasons to travel, their expectations, their preferences in terms of purchase and consumption behaviour. The phenomenon is analyzed from various points of view, not only of tourists but also of other stakeholders, including local government to understand the current and potential policies to encourage this form of tourism. Roots tourism is linked to other interesting tourism segments: retirement migration, lifestyle migration, second home and residential tourism. A comprehensive overview of marketing provides useful information for planning and implementing strategies aimed at developing travels of emigrants and their descendants to their homeland.

The Spanish region commercially branded as Costa Blanca has long been a popular destination for millions of holidaymakers from both northern Europe and Spain itself (Gaviria Labarta, 1974; Moreno Garrido, 2007). However, from the 1960s onward, these Mediterranean shores have also attracted thousands of people from northern Europe for other purposes, some as more or less permanent residents, and others as seasonal peripatetic visitors, traveling back and forth between their first, second or third homes (Aledo, 2008). In many ways, the increase in second home visits and long-term stays in areas such as Mediterranean Spain parallels well-known developments of seasonal and full-time retirement and other migration in North America to what has been termed the Sunbelt states (Mings & McHugh, 1995). The situation in Europe, however, is more complex, due, for instance, to the crossing of national borders, a variety of spoken languages, and possibly also for greater cultural differences. Certain parts of such flows are related to perceptions of diminishing distances and to the progress of internationalization processes in societies in general, where tourism and other long-distance mobilities are not only an outcome, but also a crucial catalyst.

The purpose of this paper is to outline and interpret social circles and networks of long-term visitors to Costa Blanca (Spain) and to analyse how the long-termers relate to Spanish nationals and compatriots in their (temporary) residence areas.

En route airport questionnaire survey to departing passengers.

The study indicates a presence of translocalism among many of the polyglot long-termers not tied to their native soil and having manifold links across national borders. Most of them socialise within compatriot leisurescape settings. Language skills are determinant. Many long-termers are “dual citizens”, feeling at home both here and there.

Airport surveys can reach a broad range of people but must be kept simple because of time constraints. The different labels used by researchers to describe international mobility might not be comprehensive.

The paper is of interest to local authorities, planners, property developers and tourism destination service providers.

The study confirms that some persons may be physically “in” a foreign culture while socially “outside” of that culture, or in society but not of it.

The research uniquely encompasses all types of long-termers in various locations, based on an airport survey. It offers new insights into patterns of social circles and language proficiencies of diverse international long-term arrivals in Mediterranean Spain.

The study aims to explore migrant entrepreneurship in a hitherto overlooked demographic, namely, migrants who have moved away from core-states and towards an economically less developed area. In particular, the study aims to critically evaluate to what extent mainstream theories and findings regarding migrants' ethnic division of labour are applicable in such an “upside down” migratory context.

The study qualitatively analyses 41 privileged core-state (UK, USA and Germany, among others) migrant entrepreneurs who have migrated to Wroclaw, Poland, and positions these findings against a second subject group of 24 migrant entrepreneurs from periphery-states (namely, Ukraine and Belarus).

The study finds that, while the situations of the periphery-state subject group largely lend support to the mainstream literature of migrant entrepreneurship, for those from the core-states subject group it is an altogether different story, whereby these migrants were found to be less likely to employ co-ethnic labour and, instead, were more likely to opt for native, Polish labour.

The study's findings begin to question the universality of migrant entrepreneurship theories which have been formulated within mainstream (semi-)periphery-to-core dominant-subordinate contexts. This, in turn, carries implications for policymakers outside of core-states who may need to carefully consider if such theories are applicable to their specific contexts.

This study not only helps to address a gap in the literature surrounding migrant entrepreneurship within Poland but also a gap within the wider literature in terms of migrant entrepreneurship outside of core-state contexts.

This chapter introduces the argument that pervades the collection that families are in motion both conceptually and in practice. It articulates the motion of family and families, which are made through space and time, and explains the ways in which the book develops current thinking on family. It also situates the concept and practices of family within wider debates and contexts. The chapter then details the contribution of each of the chapters to this argument, which are organised around three thematic parts: moving through separation and connection; uneven motion and resistance; and traces and potentialities. The chapter draws out six conclusions from the chapters in the collection.