What is it about?
The paper uses an approach called Practice Theory to show how over time British migration to Spain, while fluid and changeable, has had long-term positive effects on the migrants themselves and on the local areas. It uses the concept of sediments as opposed to liquids (as in Bauman's work) to understand migration and social and cultural change,
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Why is it important?
It is important to note that such an apparently fluid migration also has long-term and positive effects. It is also important that Westerners turn their gaze on themselves from time to time and see themselves as migrants - as a counter to often negative and problem-centred perspectives on migration. A key argument is that even liquid forms like fluid migrations tend to leave sediments, that will shape the future.
Perspectives
The paper uses empirical data collected over 25 years in order to study its subject long-term. It has an important focus on change, and on processes. It uses Practice Theory and Strong Structuration theory to frame its argument that actions and social structures interact in the making of social life.
Karen O'Reilly
Loughborough University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The British on the Costa Del Sol Twenty Years On: A story of liquids and sediments, Nordic Journal of Migration Research, January 2017, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/njmr-2017-0017.
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