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Imagining London : the role of the geographical imagination in migrant subjectivity and decision-making

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Robins_2018_Migration_and_geographical_imagination_Area_AAM.pdf (358.7Kb)
Date
12/2019
Author
Robins, Daniel Jacob
Keywords
Brazil
Class
Geographical imagination
Inequality
London
Migration
F1201 Latin America (General)
GF Human ecology. Anthropogeography
NDAS
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Abstract
This article employs a qualitative, biographical approach, to explore the motivations and subjectivities behind migration of middle‐class Brazilians to London. It uses the concept of the geographical imagination to understand how migrants imagine not only their destinations and places of origin but also how their own identity is shaped by their imagined relationship to these places. The paper argues that for many middle‐class Brazilians, their motivation to migrate is couched in terms of “societal alienation”: a feeling of distance from the place of origin resulting from a lack of identification and trust in its institutions and the very culture of the place itself. This is in contrast to the more popularly understood concept of migrating due to “material alienation”: migrating to access a higher level of material consumption or to acquire financial capital to use “back home.” For those who migrate due to “societal alienation” what is “fetishised” is the cultural and less material aspects of the ‘quality of life’ of the migration destination, which become a kind of commodity in their own right. It argues that social class which often intersects with regional and racial divisions within Brazilian society, is a key marker of difference in these two types of imaginary.
Citation
Robins , D J 2019 , ' Imagining London : the role of the geographical imagination in migrant subjectivity and decision-making ' , Area , vol. 51 , no. 4 , pp. 728-735 . https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12519
Publication
Area
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12519
ISSN
0004-0894
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2018, Royal Geographical Society (with the Insitute of British Geographers). This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher's policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12519
Description
Funding: St Andrews’ Janet T Anderson Scholarship
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/21122

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