Project description - a first outline

Amenity and Migration

Migration motivated by a desire for recreation and leisure amenity values probably constitute a significant share of the total migration taking place in today’s Europe. This migration can be permanent or temporal (in different forms e.g. seasonal and weekend recreational commuting), can be interregional and international, and is spurred by a general increase in mobility and wealth among European citizens and households. In Europe this is materialised in a variety of ways, for example in a huge amount of weekend recreation homes (second homes) in the rural hinterland of many urban regions in the Nordic countries, [noe om alpene.....] and in the notable amount of seasonal and permanent migration of retirees from northern Europe to the Mediterrian. There are host of studies in different European countries on different aspects of this phenomena, but few is comparative and there is a lack of more conceptual and theoretical discussions within a European context. Second homes are the most studied and theoretically developed part of this phenomenon, but there is an increased awareness that migration based on recreation and leisure amenity values also includes other forms of migration, patterns of residence etc. New books within tourism and leisure studies focusing on concepts like "multiple dwelling" "amenity migrants", amenities and rural development and tourism and migration, have been central in elaborating the issue of amenities and migration. There is however a great need for more work both conceptually and on the theoretical understanding of this phenomenon, as well as on the scope of it through Europe. It is surely also a need to better integrate the issue of amenity into the more "traditional" migration and population theories and studies.

We will propose a project that seeks to develop theories and concepts concerning amenity and migration, to improve our understanding of the scope and different kinds of amenity based migration across Europe and the consequences it might have for the receiving societies, and to discuss how amenity motivated migration can be integrated, or rather contribute to develop, “classical” migration and population studies.


Research questions:

1. How can we theoretically understand amenity motivated migration in Europe? Focuses will here be to bring together experiences across Europe in a comparative and systematically way, to increase our theoretically understanding and knowledge in this area based on the European context.
2. What are the different types and scope of amenity motivated migration in Europe, and what kind of impacts can it give in receiving societies? Based on the theoretical discussion in (1) we will seek to estimate the scope of this kind of migration in Europe (based on secondary data), and discuss what impacts it might give – based on experiences across Europe
3. How can amenity motivated migration be understood, integrated and contribute to develop “classical” migration and population studies? Here amenity motivated migration (it’s theoretically and conceptually demarcation, scope and impacts) will be discussed in relation “classical” migration theories and to the other main motivations for migration in Europe (economic, social, political, etc.).

Should we also something on the formal status of amenity migrants? NORFACE seems to emphasise this issue to some degree.

Hovedspørsmål: Skal fokus kun være på internasjonal amenity migrasjon? I utlysningen ser det ut til at det kun er internasjonal migrasjon som er temaet.

Quotations from call for project:

…need through theory-guided, comparative,…studies especially in relatively unexplored areas, or fields with unresolved issues (2)

…research is not comparative and thus important country-level variation dissapairs… (3)

…there are still very strong needs for major new initiative to build a new synergetic body of research which contribute strongly to our theoretical understanding and knowledge in this area. (5)

…there is evidence that the relationship between individuals and places of settlement is changing, mainly because of developments in technology, transport and communication. The contemporary Diaspora includes an increasing number of people who are directed as much to networks of people as to particular sites. (5/6)

….migrations could be permanent, or assume various forms of temporariness.(6)