A search for meaningful place: Lifestyle migrations and mobilities in Tofino, British Columbia
Date
2022-07-18
Authors
Mara, Gabriel
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Abstract
This paper focuses on the social phenomenon of lifestyle migration in connection to individuals living in Tofino, British Columbia. Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Tofino, this paper asks the question of how participants create narratives around their lifestyle choices of neonomadic mobility. To help explore this question, three modes of analyses are applied: (1) looking to the figure of the nomad in history and as metaphor, (2) looking to contemporary forces and perceptions of being in postmodern landscapes as motivations to participate, and (3) how the embodied experience of place is felt. The study concludes that the social imaginaries of places such as Tofino both attract neonomadic travelers while also helping to perpetuating the nomadic state due to its empirical realities.
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Keywords
neonomad, lifestyle migration, geopoetics, home, Tofino, nomad, vanlife, ethnography