British migrants in the Turkish countryside: Lifestyle migration, loss of social status and finding ‘true life’ in difference

Abstract

This paper discusses the results of a case study carried out on a particular group of British migrants settled in the Turkish countryside. This migration is part of a larger international migration flow conceptualised as lifestyle migration. The fieldwork shows that at least for this group of migrants, migration was motivated by the feeling of lost social status. By suggesting that an analysis which privileges the nexus of individualism and consumption is inadequate, this paper concentrates on this particular structure of feeling and discusses the results of the fieldwork in terms of the continuities with the colonial imagination.