Page - 184 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 1/2015

184 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 1 2o15 Nataša Rogelja | The sea: place of ultimate freedom? in rural southeast france (Benson 2011). As Benson and O‘Reilly observed, the phenomenon of moving for a better life has been researched under different umbrellas such as retirement migration, leisure migration, counter-urbanization, second home ownership, amenity seeking, seasonal migration, residential tourism, inter alia (2009:2). Many of these studies find life- style migration useful in explaining and titling their case studies (Torkinson 2010, hoey 2010, Korpela 2009, Nudrali and O‘Reilly 2009, Eimermann 2013). Researchers contributing to the collection of studies Lifestyle Migration - Expectations, Aspiration and Experiences (Benson and O‘Reilly 2009), agreed that lifestyle migration is distinct from other forms of migration in its principal motivations: lifestyle and a gradual achievement of a better way of life. As Benson wrote, lifestyle migration should be understood as one step in a wider lifestyle trajectory while understanding lifestyle migrant experiences requires sensitivity to the tension between structure and agency (Benson 2012: 1682). As we will observe in the case of maritime lifestyle migrants, structures and dispositions that enable privileged migration, the importance of historical condi- tions, cultural contexts as well as individual biographies, and the physical environment of the migration setting, all play an important role in understanding the phenomenon of maritime lifestyle migrations. One of the contributions of lifestyle migration studies to the broader field of migration studies has been its focus on the cultural mechanism of migration. focusing on the relation between migration and the cultural motivations of migrants, certain topics within the anthro- pology of tourism – such as the search for authenticity (Selwyn 1996, Theodossopolus 2013) and tourism imaginaries2 (Salazar & Graburn 2014, Selwyn 1996) – have been informing research on lifestyle migration specifically in connection with understanding the search for a better way of life. A wider cultural repertoire or imaginaries privileging the rural idyll have for example been recognized by several researchers as an important element influencing migration. Marco Eimermann for example stressed the importance of rural images in his research on Dutch life- style migrants moving to rural Sweden (Eimermann 2013), while Michaela Benson wrote about the British in rural france, reflecting on their idealized beliefs on rural living (Benson 2011). As observed by Benson and O’Reilly, specific geographic places hold certain meanings for the migrants in terms of their potential for self-realization (2009). Representations of the destina- tions meaningful for migrants could, according to Benson and O’Reilly, be categorized under three main headings: rural idyll, coastal retreat, and cultural/spiritual attraction (2009). Lifestyle migration is distinct from other more documented forms of migrations such as labour or refugee migration while lifestyle migration “on the sea” has additional peculiarities, as the cultural significance of maritime landscapes can be located within the longue durée and is of special importance for my interlocutors. Lifestyle migration has similarities with elite travel (Amit 2007) and its peculiarity also lies in the fact its aesthetic qualities are prioritized over eco- nomic reasons to migrate (Knowles and harper 2009). That being said, my ethnographic data both challenges and confirms these observations. Traditionally, nautical tourism has an aura of high society and elite tourism; the exclusive side of maritime lifestyle migration is certainly apparent in expensive sailing boats and high fees for berths. On the other hand, the large dis- crepancies in the value of boats people live on put stereotypes of rich liveaboards into question, with the commercial value of my interlocutors’ boats varying from 10,000 to 300,000 Euro and more. An additional observation that relativized the (un)importance of economic reasons is that