"Expats in Ecuador": Motives of migration decision-making and the meaning of privileged mobilities in transnational lifestyle migration to Vilcabamba, Ecuador

Abstract

This thesis aims for a broader understanding of and a contribution to the field of transnational lifestyle migration. In the global context of unequal north-south migration patterns, where rather affluent citizens from countries of the Global North move to the Global South for a number of lifestyle-related reasons, this thesis explores the question of individual motivation for migration and the challenges that emerge through such a hyper-mobile migration dynamic towards a small-town community in the Ecuadorian Andes. A combination of on-site participant observation and narrative interviews with lifestyle migrants from the United States, Europe, and South Korea constitute the methodological basis for this research project; showing that individual motivations for migration decision-making are simultaneously similar as they are versatile, and that a strong migration influx of affluent foreigners creates multilayered fields of tension within the receiving community.