Michaela Benson

I loved this book - a diverse but well-integrated collection of chapters - about a phenomenon Benson and O’Reilly define as “lifestyle migration”, relatively affluent individuals re-locating to places that have 'meaning' to them, in the sense of offering a potentially better 'quality of life'.

One of the key themes that I saw consistently emerging had to do with the ways in which 'identity' and 'location' are narrated and given meaning in the stories of these migrants, in the sense that as 'artists of life', as suggested by Zygmunt Bauman, we're all continually engaged in the process of making meaning of our lives. They suggest this meaning-making is an ongoing process.

My favourite chapters talked about young Westerners in Varanasi, India; 'down-sized and down-shifting' Americans in rural Michigan; and English-speaking women who married Italian men in Florence, Italy.

But the book was consistently interesting, and thought-provoking throughout.… (meer)