Page - 181 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 1/2015

The sea: place of ultimate freedom? Ethnographic reflection on in-between places and practices Nataša Rogelja Abtract As a result of the rapid development of navigation and communication technology, boat building technology, popularity of travel and the sea, increased living standards, mobile work opportunities, as well as recessions and disillusionment with the nation-state system and postindustrial economy, a constantly increasing number of people adopt mobility on the sea as a way of life. The paper explores the connection between sea imaginaries and maritime lifestyle migration, discussing the process by which sea imaginaries are translated into practice but also how the physical maritime environment influences the experience of lifestyle migrants. In doing so, the concept of liminality, as previously tailored to the lifestyle migration literature and initially introduced by Arnold Van Gennep and Victor Turner, will be put in a dialogue with the ethnographic material. first, the paper explains the theoretical foundations of lifestyle migration, emphasizing the relation between the social construction of places and choices of lifestyle migrants, while also introducing the debate on liminality; second, it discusses the importance of these cultural dimensions in the specific ethnographic setting among Westerners in the Mediterranean who live, travel and work on sailing boats. finally, the sea images, the maritime environment and details from individualized biographies will be put in a dialogue with each other in order to discuss in-between practices and places. Keywords lifestyle migration, the sea, Mediterranean, liminality, sea imaginaries Mobile culture Studies. The Journal, Vol. 1 2015, 181-198 Editor reviewed article Open Access: content is licensed under cc BY 3.0