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Environment as a Multifaceted Migration Motive: Meanings and Interpretations Among a Group of Young Adults in Sweden
Author(s) -
Vilhelmson Bertil,
Thulin Eva
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
population, space and place
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.398
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1544-8452
pISSN - 1544-8444
DOI - 10.1002/psp.1924
Subject(s) - relocation , social psychology , meaning (existential) , sociology , norm (philosophy) , psychology , environmental ethics , political science , law , philosophy , computer science , psychotherapist , programming language
The need for a change of living environment is an often‐expressed motive in surveys of migrants–in addition to better‐defined social, educational, and economic reasons. Studies also suggest that environmental motives have become more frequent and influential over time. While ticking the ‘change of environment’ box of a questionnaire is easy, the underlying concept is highly complex, wide‐ranging, and difficult to measure and theorise. This study explores the meaning prospective migrants attach to the environmental motive in relation to experienced and/or anticipated future moves. We go beyond the conventional quantitative approaches of coding and classification, and draw empirically on in‐depth interviews with 16 urban young adults living in Sweden. Results indicate that they attach many meanings to the concept: a felt personal need to encounter completely new situations, people, and places; a longing for big city social life and culture; a need to connect more closely to nature and outdoor activities; dissatisfaction with present living settings; and, overall, that recurrent relocation is a perceived social norm. Furthermore, the traditional view in which environmental motives contrast or are subordinated to job‐related motives is challenged. The results have implications for the understanding and theorising of migration motives, and for the more comprehensive classification of environmental motives in future research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.