ESCAPING Britain for a life in the sunshine is a dream of many, but for those who have made the leap why did they do it and what are the consequences?
These were just some of the questions posed by Michaela Lord, an anthropologist at Hull University, who wanted to understand just why people left behind family and friends to start a new life.
Below Michaela outlines the findings from her research and you can listen to her being interviewed on Radio 4, on Wednesday, April 6 at 16:00GMT. Michaela writes:
JUST turn on the TV any day of the week, and you will be reminded of all the places you could be living that are not England.
Who would want to stay here, after all, when faced with images of eternal sunshine, good food and wine? It seems that the UK today can no longer offer everyone what they want.
With the relaxation of the borders within Europe, people can see an alternative, with countries such as France and Spain offering them a preferable lifestyle.
However, this focus on lifestyle does little to help us in understanding the migratory experience, particularly as it seems to ignore the individual motivations of leisure migrants.
To broaden understanding of these motivations, it is important that these motivations are looked at in the context of how they apply to specific cases.
What we are talking about here is looking at why particular people move to a particular place.
Drawing on research carried out among English ex-patriots in the Lot valley, France, we gained an insight into the varied motivations in the decision to migrate.
The Lot is a largely rural and agricultural area in Southwest France that has been described as ‘The Place that Time Forgot’ (www.lotguide.com). Spending time there gives you the distinct feeling that you have stepped back in time.
Our findings are drawn from both interviews and questionnaires carried out throughout 2004.
Focussing exclusively on retirees, our research shows how their desires and expectations of life in the Lot are based on recollections of the “England of fifty years ago”, a time of community and family values, which are expressed as being long lost in the English society of today.
Not only does this express their concerns about cultural change in the UK, further to this, it highlights their own fears about growing older.
Returning to, and living within, a memory of youth, facilitated by their emigration from the UK, they bypass the culture that tells them that they are old.
This is a new life, a fresh beginning, and a space in which they can re-identify themselves, take greater control, and make sense of their lives. For many of them, they use this opportunity to reassert the ways in which they are youthful.
Positioning themselves within their new communities, where much of the local population are older than them, they believe that they have escaped the life course that they would have been subject to in the UK.
So, for these retirees, moving to ‘A Place in the Sun’ is about a lot more than the sun, food and wine. It is about making an active choice about how their life will continue by rejecting a life that they do not want to lead.
However, replicating the past in the present is not without consequence.
Relying on a particular notion of the French countryside, these motivations add further mystique to the image of rural France in the popular imagination, attracting more and more interest.
In response to the increase in the retired, English population of the Lot, the lives and lifestyles of the local community are transformed.
Authors:
Michaela Lord (University of Hull) and Didier Besingrand (Université d’Angers). If you are interested in Michaela’s work you can contact her via email.
What’s your view? Leave a comment below…