Identity, Ideology and Positioning in Discourses of Lifestyle Migration

The British in the Ariège

Michelle Lawson

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9783319335650
• eBook ISBN: 9783319335667
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book uniquely integrates discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to examine representations of the self and other within lifestyle migration. With a focus on British migrants living in the Ariège, south-west France, the study identifies common positioning strategies to demonstrate links between wider themes and local identity construction. Drawing on positioning theory and related analytical tools, Lawson is the first to integrate a corpus of British media texts with online and face to face discourse. The book presents a detailed identification of ideologies relating to being British in France, and the linguistic analysis demonstrates how this value system is both taken up and habitually manipulated within local discourse as a resource for negotiating a particular kind of identity. Using social theory to underpin the analysis of positioning strategies in interaction, the book enhances our understanding of the complex possibilities within processes of self-identification in a migration context.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

Michelle LawsonIdentity, Ideology and Positioning in Discourses of Lifestyle Migration10.1007/978-3-319-33566-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Studying the British in the Ariège

Michelle Lawson¹

(1)

Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

Abstract

This chapter introduces the book’s investigation of the relationship between local identity construction and wider discourses of migration. After introducing the research context of the British living in the Ariège region of France, the chapter discusses the methodological implications of investigating identity through language and makes the case for a social constructionist perspective of language as social action. The three datasets are briefly introduced and the relevance of positioning theory for offering coherence across the data is made clear. The chapter concludes with an outline of the associated positioning tools that are used in the subsequent analysis of how dominant beliefs shape identity construction within interaction, and how such beliefs are equally shaped as speakers manipulate them alongside their own experiences.

Keywords

British lifestyle migrationLanguage and identityPositioning theoryIdentity constructionSocial identityDiscursive positioning

End Abstract

Introduction

It’s “yes we’re moving to France and this is what it’s going to be like but we want all our things from home around us. We don’t want to be that foreign”.

Sitting in a British shop in a French town within sight of the Pyrenees, the owner ponders how things are now easier for British arrivals compared with when she moved here more than twenty years ago. In a narrative that positions herself and the newcomers at different ends of a spectrum, Felicity, the owner, represents the newcomers by their wants, feelings, and demands on arrival, animating her opinions so that they emerge as the voices of these others as they demand familiar things. There is also a wider indexing towards an ideology about the British abroad and their need to transfer their culture to France, articulated here as a desire to avoid too much foreignness in the new life. In such ways are attitudes, values, and beliefs about ‘the British in France’ recycled and manipulated across both local and more widely promoted discourse.

This book is a study of identity within the context of lifestyle migration; more specifically, it is an investigation of positioning within the discourse of British lifestyle migrants in France. The book takes the reader along an empirical search for the relationship between local migrant discourses and wider discourses of migration to present an overall view of how collective representations of ‘other’ British interact with individual identity construction. With a broad aim to develop our understanding of Britons who have migrated from the UK to settle in a relatively less well-known area of France compared with, for example, the Dordogne, the book examines how local identity construction is influenced by what this new life offers in terms of available ‘possibilities for self-hood’ (Ivanič 1998, p. 27). As Ivanič reminds us, local discourse is embedded in the social conditions within which both the producers (writers) and the receivers (readers) are situated. In order to fully situate local migrant discourse within the wider social context, the book includes analysis of a corpus of British media articles because media discourse forms part of the social context that informs and influences how local discourse is produced and interpreted. Therefore the two discourse contexts are mutually influential. Only through analysis of both local and wider discourse can we begin to investigate the extent to which identity claims made by migrants are rooted in and framed by a wider ideological landscape pertaining to British lifestyle migration.

The book builds on existing sociological research that has identified themes of distinction among the British abroad (Benson 2011; O’Reilly 2000; Oliver and O’Reilly 2010). This time the focus is on language in order to make a systematic analysis of the value system as utilised within interaction. Firstly, I examine the extent to which the British media represents lifestyle migration to France as a social practice with an inherent ideology, and following this I explore how this system is appropriated and discursively constructed within local interaction. An ultimate aim is to identify and present a body of talk that represents a coherent way of thinking, talking, and behaving about lifestyle migrants and migration, or what we might refer to as a Discourse of lifestyle migration .

With its focus on Britons living in France, this book also helps to address the ‘relative neglect of [British] emigration’ that was indicated in the IPCC report published by Sriskandarajah and Drew. This largely quantitative study (with some qualitative themes) was gleaned from a study of Britons world-wide, and it attempted to redress the balance of attention within migration as a whole because, the researchers argued, the current ‘hysteria around immigration’ (2006, p. 1) ignores the essentially bi-directional nature of migration. My own study is part of a growing number of studies worldwide that continue to propose that a focus on emigration is just as relevant if we are to understand society more broadly. (See the Lifestyle Migration Hub at http://​www.​uta.​fi/​yky/​lifestylemigrati​on/​index.​html.)

The book is interdisciplinary, as it uses social theory to direct the lines of enquiry while making use of language-orientated frameworks in the analyses. The book will be of interest to a wide audience, including the growing number of social scientists engaged in lifestyle migration research, although I invite scholars and students of all aspects of migration to see how a focus on discursive positioning strategies can enrich our understanding of migrant lives. More broadly, I offer the book to scholars of sociolinguistics as a demonstration of how an integrated approach across three different datasets can still yield depth and provide a robust underpinning of the resulting arguments. Researchers will find that the book supports an argument for using a combined approach, and it avoids potential circularity whereby a single interview dataset is used to not only identify and justify the existence of an ideology, but at the same time explain the discourse in terms of such ideologies (Antaki et al. 2003).

The Research Site of the Ariège

The Ariège is a relatively small and rural département (administrative division), one of eight in the Midi-Pyrénées région of south-west France. It is characterised by lower plains in the north, which contrast with more mountainous Pyrenean territory along the south, where it shares a border with Spain and Andorra. The préfecture (administrative town) of Foix is one of the smallest préfectures in France, with a population below 12,000. The Ariège has a relatively high number of retired inhabitants compared with national and regional figures, along with rising unemployment; in 2010, 11 % of the workforce was unemployed (Tornero 2012). The number of 18–39 year olds is lower than the figure for France overall, and many young people leave the Ariège to pursue higher education or employment.

At the same time as being one of the least-populated départements in France, the Ariège is also one of the fastest growing (Insee 2014), with relatively high regional population growth rates of around 1 % per year since 1999, due to incoming migration. In fact, since 1999, incoming migration to the Ariège has been so marked that it has offset the continuing loss of local inhabitants, resulting in a net figure of around +1400 each year (Insee 2009). Although this demographic recovery is concentrated in the northern, more urbanised areas close to Toulouse, Insee claims that it is also apparent in many small, isolated mountain communities, where the population has sometimes doubled over the last decade.

Despite attempts to make some quantification of the number of Britons residing in France, it is notoriously difficult (Ferbrache 2011) because, being citizens of the EU, there is no requirement to register whether one moves to France, buys a holiday home there, or even resides alternately between the two countries. To date, French demographic reports have tended to focus on British migration to northern regions of France, and a search of Insee publications brings forth reference to a vague britannique (British ‘wave’) to Normandy, high concentrations in Brittany, and the one in four migrants of British origin in Poitou-Charentes and Aquitaine. However, we are told that during the period 2001–2006, more than a third of the 16,600 foreigners to settle in rural areas of the Midi-Pyrenees were British (Touret et al. 2010). The medieval town of Mirepoix in particular is gaining a degree of notoriety for its popularity with the British, so much so that the English language version of the Ariège tourism website (http://​www.​ariege.​com/​mirepoix/​info.​html) refers to the appearance of the ‘Dordogne phenomenon’ as reflected in the appearance of English estate agencies, English language menus, and widely available British newspapers and magazines (Fig. 1.1). Even so, the departmental figures for foreign incomers suggest that British migration to the Ariège is comparatively low (less than 30 % overall) compared with over 45 % for the Lot, for example (Touret et al. 2010, p. 29).

Fig. 1.1

Market day at Mirepoix

So what draws the British to move to this relatively less well-known part of France? The attractions of the Ariège include the mountain scenery, the relaxed pace of life, ancient architecture in towns such as the medieval bastide of Mirepoix , some small ski resorts, proximity to Toulouse and Carcassonne airports, and, undoubtedly, the relatively low property prices of an area that has suffered decades of depopulation. As one interviewee stated: it’s good value for money… our property in the UK bought us a lot more here.

There is no ‘typical’ property type favoured by the British in this area; of the people I interviewed, some lived in detached houses with extensive, and often steep, grounds, while one couple lived in an isolated barn that still lacked the basic utilities as the owners concentrated their energies on constructing a flower garden. Another couple were at the foundation stage of their large new-build within a peaceful mountain valley; yet another were slowly restoring a dilapidated mansion. One couple lived next door to the Mairie (Town Hall) and another lived in a gardenless townhouse and commuted to work in a shop. A nurse conveyed the stresses of commuting to work in a distant hospital, while a retired couple talked about the need to let out their spare bedroom for extra cash and taking in unpaid live-in volunteers to help with the vegetable garden. Thus, even with a relatively small sample of participants, the Ariège context cautions against applying a broad-brush perspective of a homogeneous group of ‘British expats’ living the good life in rural France (Fig. 1.2).

Fig. 1.2

Ariège landscape: Mont Valier and the barns of Cominac

Investigating Identity Through Language

Identity is a central concept within this study as the research considers lifestyle migrants’ self-identification within their search for an improved way of life. The book avoids the more traditional and essentialist models that take identity as fixed, and instead it considers the processes involved in the construction of an identity that is variable and negotiable. The book does not look for representations of an essential self to present an overview of who these migrants are but instead looks at how they...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Studying the British in the Ariège
• 2. Lifestyle Migration and the British in France
• 3. The British Media and the Brits in France
• 4. Life in the Ariège, in English: The Online Forum
• 5. Migrant Identity and the ‘Other’ in Narrative Positioning
• 6. Negotiating the Moral Landscape of Lifestyle Migration: Identity Work and ‘Integration’
• 7. Conclusion
• Backmatter