Seite - 185 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Band 1/2015

Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 1 2o15 Nataša Rogelja | The sea: place of ultimate freedom? 185 the cost of living on a boat can be extremely low (if you anchor in secluded bays) or extremely high (if you moor in luxury marinas). After having experienced life on a boat, many of my interlocutors reported they were surprised how cheap it was to live this way – some of them even started their journey or continued with this lifestyle because of its economy. A migration that started for aesthetic qualities is thus prolonged due to economic reasons, or simply because my interlocutors acquired new skills and an awareness of “parallel” economic paths. however, in “refusing” or not being able to afford the smooth routes of contemporary elite mobility, my interlocutors were also confronted with a variety of barriers (starting from not having toilets and hot water during the winter, they also reported how their social status changed once they were living outside the marina shelter, anchoring in bays, worrying about weather conditions, depending on locals for help during storms and for water supplies). furthermore, one of the specificities of maritime lifestyle migration is its connection with sea imaginaries. As we will observe in the next section discussing the relation between per- sonal experiences, stories, and the physical environment, following stories of migration through a longer timeframe is of special importance in order to better understand maritime lifestyle migration. Sea imaginaries are specifically linked with freedom, contemplation, isolation, mobility, adventure and travel, as are the aspirations and expectations of my interlocutors (to have an adventure, to travel, to find him/herself, to escape consumerism, to have an active retirement…). Their experiences in the post-migration period however reveal various details (changed perspectives on the initial sea imaginaries enriched by their personal experience with the concrete environment and specific lifestyle on the boat) that help us better understand maritime lifestyle migration. Where do you place those who are sailing the seas? The sea as a physical place, sea imaginaries as well as the practice among my interlocutors, liveaboard lifestyle migrants, undoubtedly leads to a reflection on the concept of liminality. The ancient Greeks had two words for the sea; pelagos and pontos. While pelagos was used to refer to the sea as a “fact”, “… pontos indicates something else: it was the sea facing the human being, a trial to overcome, a threshold to pass, an open sea to be crossed, a danger, a challenge (Thomassen 2012: 21). Those who sailed the seas also had a special position. When asked who were the most numerous, the living or the death, Anarchasis (a sixth century Bc Scythian sage) is said to have answered, “Where do you place those who are sailing the seas?” (Endsjø 2000: 370 in Thomassen 2012: 21). Various researche‚rs of lifestyle migration present liminality as an explanatory concept (or a concept with which they develop a critical discussion) while observ- ing the ambivalence 1 of everyday life of their interlocutors. Some discussed the performance of liminality in migrants’ life (Bousious 2008), others used liminality to refer to the destination (O’Reilly 2000), they critically observed the difference between the term liminal and liminoide in relation to their case studies (Korpela 2009, Benson 2011) or referred to the in-between state of liminality of their interlocutors in the context of mid-life crisis (hoey 2009). Originally, the theoretical concept of liminality was developed by Arnold van Gennep (1900 [1960]) and Victor 1 More on the concept of ambivalence as an analytical framework for explaining post-migration subjectivities in relation to British lifestyle migrants in rural france see Benson 2011.