Exploring emotional reflexivity in British lifestyle migration to Australia

Osbaldiston, Nick;Picken, Felicity;Denny, Lisa

Abstract

In this paper we explore narratives from interviews with British migrants who had shifted to Australia seeking a better way of life. Framed through the conceptual paradigm of lifestyle migration, we argue in this paper that pivotal to this late-modern phenomenon is the moment of reflexivity where imagination of life elsewhere collides with present experiences in place. However, using work from Holmes (2010, 2015), we argue that these reflexive moments are not simply cognitively processed. Rather, emotions in the everyday, and those imbued by the imagination, colour the reflexive moment and guide decision-making. Furthermore, once living lifestyle migration, emotions continue to play a role in everyday moments of reflexivity. In some circumstances, as we show, emotions in the ongoing migration experience creates impetus to leave place and return home. Through this paper, we hope to engage further with the argument that emotional reflexivity needs to be interrogated in lifestyle migration research.

Journal

Population, Space and Place

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1544-8452

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John Wiley & Sons

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DOI

10.1002/psp.2328