The purpose of this study is to examine lifestyle migration as a cultural and everyday practice, with the emphasis being on observing how lifestyle changes from urban to rural are described, practiced and made meaningful by people who have left major Swedish cities behind, in favour of a life on the Gotlandic countryside. The empirical material has been collected through ethnographical methods and is based on observations and qualitative interviews with 13 individuals who all reside on farms and practice animal husbandry. Focus has been placed on the practices, conceptions and other expressions which are related to the informants’ animals and their keeping. The theoretical starting point of this study is phenomenological, where anthropologist Tim Ingold’s ideas of what it means to dwell are central. Also, the term authenticity and the concept of lifestyle migration are important tools to examine the collected material. The result of the study demonstrates that the idea of the rural idyll, in other words, the preconception of the countryside as a calm and harmonious refuge far removed from the stressful life of major cities, plays a large part in the in-migrants lifestyle migration. The informants’ decisions to move to the countryside, as well as their everyday practices once settled in, are characterised by these romanticised notions. The study also shows that the informants’ lives, with animals and their keeping, presents a series of unexpected challenges and difficulties that are not present in the preconception of the rural idyll. In reality, the informants experience more stress and even higher workloads in their rural everyday, than they were exposed to living their previous urban lifestyle. The animals and their care, however, provide a series of positive experiences and the interactions with the animals are seen as authentic and meaningful. The everyday interchanges with the animals become an important part of the informants’ being and wellbeing on the countryside. They are therefore crucial to their lifestyle migration.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-385065 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Peker, Gurbet |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för kulturantropologi och etnologi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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