1
Towards an Ethnographic Study of British Lifestyle Migrants in Apokoronas, Crete.
1.0
Introduction.
1.0.1 The phenomenon of Lifestyle Migration (LM) needs no introduction in the
social sciences; anthropologists, demographers, geographers and sociologists, inter
alia, have been involved in researching this phenomenon for several decades now. It
is an international movement, from the USA to Panama (McWatters 2009), and from
Europe to Varanasi in India (Korpela in Benson & O’Reilly 2009), for example, but
for the purposes of this application, the discussion is restricted to Europe.
In commonsense terms, LM refers to the processes whereby hundreds of thousands
of people, often but not only retirees, have migrated from the countries of northern
Europe to the Mediterranean basin in search of a better, cheaper, and more easygoing lifestyle in the sun. In more academic discourse, it refers to “…migration
motivated more by quality of life than employment or escape from poverty or
hardship” (Benson & O’Reilly 2009.) In other words, while being a subset of the
worldwide pattern of migration, LM is distinct in not being driven primarily by
economic or asylum-seeking motivation. It is, therefore, the antithesis of
immigration into EU countries, which is overwhelmingly driven by labour market
reasons, and also an urban phenomenon (EUKN 2012.) The literature on LM is now
extensive, and ranges from ethnocentric and populist whimsy like Peter Mayle’s A
Year in Provence (1989) to detailed ethnographies like Karen O’Reilly’s The British on
the Costa del Sol (2000) Michaela Benson’s & Karen O’Reilly’s edited collection
Lifestyle Migration (2009), and Benson’s The British in Rural France (2011.)
While there have been a few exploratory studies of this type of migration in Greece
(e.g. Damer 2004; Lazaridis, Poyago-Theotoky & King 1999), there has been a notable
absence of sustained ethnographic research. This is all the more puzzling as Greece,
2
especially the Greek islands, has been a magnet for British migrants for many years
now.
1.2
British Lifestyle Migrants in Crete.
1.2.0 The absence of ethnographic research into British lifestyle migration in Crete,
the largest Greek island, is quite remarkable, given the relatively recent and sudden
accretion of such migrants there. When the writer lived in a mountain village in
western Crete doing ethnographic research from 1985-1987, there were at most a few
dozen British expats living in Nomos Hanion, the Prefecture of Hania, which covers
the western end of the island, and he knew most of them. But at some point around
the Millenium, there was an explosion in such migration, and there are now several
thousand British residents in the area. It is impossible to give an exact figure for
their numbers, as EU legislation permits of free migration. In Greece, free residence
is permitted for up to three months, after which foreigners are supposed to apply for
a residence permit. However, there are no penalties for EU citizens who stay longer
than three months, and the authorities have no way of knowing how long they have
been in the country as passports are not stamped with an entry date.
However, we do know the total numbers of Britons resident in Greece in 2001, the
last year for which data appear to be available.
NUMBER OF BRITONS IN GREECE, 2001
TOTAL
INC. PART-TIME PENSIONERS
18,000
24,000
3,182
%MALE
40
BREAKDOWN BY AGE
0-14
15-24
25-44
45-64
64+
12.6
9.0
41.2
28.3
8.8
Source: DWP/IPPR.
%FEMALE
60
3
What is interesting about these statistics is that the single biggest age-group by far is
the 25-44 one. While this may be accounted for by younger people moving to Greece
for hedonistic reasons, the suspicion has to be that they are in fact classic lifestyle
migrants. And there is no reason to suppose that their demographic profile is
different in Crete.
1.2.1 What is clear is that while British expats live all over Crete, there are
significant concentrations. A systematic trawl of Cretan estate agents’ websites –
and they are numerous – demonstrates that the biggest single grouping of British
residents is in western Crete, in the Dimos (administrative Municipality) of
Apokoronas, in the eastern part of the Prefecture of Hania. This traditional rural
municipality has an area of 315,478 sq. kms., and a population of 12,860 living in 67
villages (Chania Post, No. 2, May 2013; www.chaniapost.eu.) These British residents
are concentrated particularly in and around the villages of Kalives and Vamos, 19
km. east of the provincial capital town of Hania, at the entrance to Souda Bay. A
recent article by two local Greek academics provides an evocative explanation for
the popularity of this area:
Nature has endowed Apokoronas with unique advantages such as: The beautiful lake of Kourna, the
three unique rivers of Crete that run all year round (two in Kalyves and one in Georgioupoli), fastflowing torrents, the boundless blue sea, the picturesque fish ports of Kalyves and Almyrida, the
Drepanos cape, the caves, the view to the snow-capped Lefka Ori (White Mountains), the springs of
Armenon, Stylos and Kalyves, the unique footpaths in the nature and more particular on the
mountainous part of Apokoronas, the beautiful architecture of the stone houses, the narrow tiled
paths, the picturesque villages, the numerous picturesque big and small churches, the rare plants
most of which are unique globally, the great variety of herbs, the scent of thyme, the heady smell of
the night-flower and innumerable other flowers, the sounds of the big bells round the sheep’s necks,
the hawks, the eagles and the hundred other birds, the rich history regarding battles, the important
personalities distinguished not only in the past but also today, Cretan hospitality, Cretan sense of
honor, tsikoudia treats, peoples’ smile, the black shirts of the Cretans, the renowned for their gallantry
Cretan shepherds, the haughty Cretan grandfathers wearing their capes, the grandmothers in black
with their young and soft face skin, Cretan diet (pilaf, special snails, cream cheese pies, yoghurt with
honey, Greek salad, kalitsounia etc.), the Cretan jams (like bergamot, bitter orange, walnut, fig,
watermelon e.tc.), the endless fruit variety all year round, olive oil, wine, tsikoudia, raki with honey,
local festivals, Cretan weddings, dances, songs, the sounds of the lyre and the lute, the rizitikes-like
voices of the singers, the successful artists, the absolute silence and tranquility of
the villages of Apokoronas and finally the most incredible sunrise, the most magnificent sunset and
the most lavish moonlight.
Probably, the most important asset of all is the unique cool weather during the summer, the mild
winter and the most days with sunlight in Europe. The winds here are weak compared to other islands
and other areas in Crete where they rage all year round. The exceptional and of rare beauty view [sic]
from all the areas of Apokoronas is what can one best enjoy in the province. Most of the villages
4
overlook the snow-capped Lefka Ori [White Mountains] on the right while on the left one can see the
infinite blue of the sea. And of course we should not forget that there is only a ten minutes distance
from the port of Souda and twenty minutes from the airport. The following constitute an indicative
description of the advantages Apokoronas has. Surely, there are many more that probably escape the
present registration.
These advantages have been discovered by many northern Europeans in the last few years that have
chosen to live here the rest of their lives either buying summer houses or renting them. Apart from
the precious exchange that those people bring here for the purchase of their house,
they are also consumers of Apokoronas products and ambassadors that promote the above
advantages to their countries, as well.
(Atsalakis & Atsalakis 2010.)
The proximity of the atmospheric and picturesque county town of Hania is also
important, as there is an excellent public transport system of buses in Crete of both
the intercity and local variety.
For the record, it was Cretan developers who took the initiative in this development
of housing for expatriates. Land was cheaper in Apokoronas than anywhere else in
Crete, so the developers bought large plots of land and then sub-divided them.
(Personal communication: Elizabeth Fountoulaki, Elizabeth Estate Agency, Pyrgos
Psilonerou.) The characteristics of this housing can be seen by visiting the main
local estate agent’s website at: www.crete-minoan-properties.com. Suffice it to say
that the marketing of these properties is highly professional, and even seductive.
However, there is a significant difference in the housing built in Crete for lifestyle
migrants from that in Spain. There are no large-scale residential blocks purposebuilt for residential tourists in Crete like the Spanish urbanizaciones. The Cretan
lifestyle migrant housing is of three kinds: (i) single modern villas; (ii) small blocks
of between (typically) two and five terraced villas with a common swimming-pool;
and (iii) renovated traditional village houses.
1.2.2 While it is difficult to give a definitive figure for the numbers of British
lifestyle migrants in Apokoronas – there being differences between permanent
residents and holiday home owners, for example, which sometimes overlap – the
figure given by a Greek-speaking Englishwoman, a twenty-year resident of the area
married to a Cretan, is:
5
“The Municipality of Apokoronas has around 1500-2000 foreign residents, the majority are
English, and there are also many French and Germans.”
(www.apokoronasourhome.com/eleni.html.)
Even if we said that there were 1000 British residents in the municipality, that figure
constitutes 7.78% of the overall population – a substantial and highly visible
minority. Nowhere is this more true than in and around the village of Vamos, where
some 500 Britons live (cf. the English-language newspaper AthensPlus, June 11, 2010.)
1.3
Cultural Characteristics of Crete.
1.3.0 While Crete is of course a Greek island, Cretans have a quite distinct, and
very powerful, insular identity, signifying the island’s cultural and social
distinctiveness within Greece, like that of Scots within the United Kingdom. Many
scholars have commented upon these and other aspects of Cretan culture (e.g:
Damer 1987, 1988, 1989, 1993; Herzfeld 1987; Trudgill 2008.) It is frequently
remarked that the rugged mountainous spine of Crete, ranging from the White
Mountains in the west, through the Psiloritis massif in the centre, to the Dikti range
in the east, have given the Cretans a rugged identity. As the local saying Agria
Vouna, Agrioi Anthropoi states in translation: “Wild Mountains, Wild People.”
1.3.1 The components of this identity include a martial tradition: Cretans are the
pallikaria, the warriors, of Greece par excellence, and many men carry concealed
pistols in their waistbands to this day. This is not an urban or indeed rural myth,
and its symbolic importance has been discussed by scholars of modern Crete (e.g.
Herzfeld 1985. But see critique by Damer: 1987.) The Cretans have resisted
centuries of invaders in their mountain fastnesses: Romans, Barbary Corsairs,
Venetians, Turks, Germans and, some would say, tourists. Murderous vendettas are
still not uncommon, sheep-stealing is tantamount to the national sport, and bridesnatching was practised within living memory. The Cretans have a quite distinct
6
dialect of Greek including, it is said, some 3,000 words of Dorian origin. Their
traditional music and dance is equally distinctive. The Cretans are also famous for
an overwhelming filoxenia, or love of, and hospitality towards, strangers. Quite
apart from the staggering natural beauty of Crete, it is these cultural characteristics
which attract so many British people to buy a home and settle on the island, and
attempt to live their dream of the ‘rural idyll’ (Williams 1973.)
1.3.2 Yet such British settlement is not without its problems. Greek culture in
general, and Cretan culture in particular, is much more dense than its British
counterpart. It is infinitely more compacted than that in Britain and Cretans more
likely to have active connections with rural villages. After all, Greece including
Crete was essentially a peasant society right up until the Second World War
(Mouzelis 1978), and cultural survivals of the traditional rural past flourish to this
day, as numerous anthropologists have observed (e.g. Campbell 1964, Du Boulay
1974, Danforth 1982, Friedl 1962, & Herzfeld 1985.) For example, in Crete, the
extended family is alive and well. 98% of Cretans are Greek Orthodox, have saints’
names and celebrate not birthdays, but name-days, and each village has a panayiri, a
feast-day celebrating its patron saint. They share a common and well-known history
centring upon epic resistance to the Ottoman Empire, while all Greek men still do
National Service and are left in no doubt that Turkey is the potential enemy.
Further, in Crete, it is almost as if the Second World War ended last month, with
new war memorials appearing frequently. In other words, to paraphrase Eriksen,
Cretan culture contains ‘symbolic universes of mutual intelligibility and shared
references’ which are not shared by, and unintelligible to, British lifestyle migrants
(Eriksen 2007.)
1.3.3 One could continue delineating the distinctive parameters of Cretan culture,
but the point to emphasise here is that it is quite literally foreign to British lifestyle
migrants. In Crete, the British are an ethnic minority. Further, they are a
disadvantaged ethnic minority for very few of them, the retirees in particular, speak
7
Greek. The phrase which recurs among them is: “It’s too difficult.” This raises very
important sociological questions. How can British lifestyle migrants realise their
dream if they cannot communicate with their Cretan neighbours? How can they
participate in small-scale rural community life if they do not understand the rules for
such participation? Of course, it may be that they do not want to participate in local
life, and simply export a “British” way-of-life to Crete, as do so many expats in Spain
who “…cannot escape their Britishness” (O’Reilly 2008), but the fact of the matter is
that in the absence of research, we simply do not know what their motives are. One
of the very few studies of British lifestyle migrants in Greece, in Corfu (Lazaridis,
Poyago-Theotoky & King 1999), found that like Benson’s middle-class Britons in the
Lot region of France (Benson 2011), they did not want to live in British ghettoes, but
actively aspired to participate in local community life, which does not answer the
question of linguistic communication raised above. (And this Corfu study was
based on survey research with a very small sample.)
1.3.4 A further, often overlooked, problem is this. Both the majority and minority
communities in Crete are not homogeneous, do not speak with one voice, and their
make-up is not cast in stone. The large numbers of Cretans who work in the tourist
industry in coastal resorts are much more used to dealing with the eccentricities of
tourists than the inhabitants of rural villages. Yet it is precisely the leisurely,
organic, traditional life of these villages which is marketed to lifestyle migrants, as a
glance at any of the Cretan estate agents’ websites will confirm. Thus the nature of
the complex and continuously renegotiated structures and identities of the two
communities is an empirical matter to be determined in the field. And in the case of
the British, I am mindful of Anthony Cohen’s appeal for the ethnographer to be
concerned with people’s selfhood, with their self-awareness and their personal
experience, for as Cohen argues cogently: “People read collectivities through their
experience as individuals” (Cohen 1994: 178.)
8
1.4
The Current Economic Crisis in Greece.
1.4.0 Now these observations about British lifestyle migrants adapting to
conditions in Crete hold good at the best of times. And at the best of times, the
Cretans are tolerant of and well-disposed towards the British, not least because of
the high-profile involvement of British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers in the
Battle of Crete and subsequent Resistance (Damer & Fraser 2006.) But these are not
the best of times; they are very nearly the worst. The contemporary economic crisis
in Greece does not require to be developed here; Greek society is in a state of crisis
verging on anomie, with an official unemployment rate of 28% (2013.) The meteoric
rise of Chrysi Avgi, Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi, ultra-nationalist, xenophobic political
party is proof of that. (See the English-language website
www.whathappensinGreece.com for a continuing discussion of this party and its
electoral progress.) In spite of the liberal tradition of Cretan politics, Golden Dawn
does have a presence on the island. The figures for the June 2012 national elections
are:
(% of Chrysi Avgi votes)
Greece:
7%
Nomos of Irakleio:
Nomos of Rethymno:
Nomos of Chania:
Nomos of Lasithi:
3.5%
3%
5.5 %
3%
It is to be noted that the Nomos of Hania, the location of the Municipality of
Apokoronas, has the highest proportion of far-right votes in Crete.
1.4.1 A further indicator of the seriousness of the political crisis in Greece is the
recent (June 2013) out-of-the-blue decision by the government to close all channels
and stations of ERT, the Greek state broadcaster. (To exemplify the gravity of this
9
decision, it is as if the present Coalition government in the UK decided to close all
stations and services of the BBC overnight.)
1.4.2 For our purposes, what is important is that in a state of crisis, it is not
unknown for a community to attempt to reintegrate its identity by seeking a folkdevil to blame for its ills. In a community with parameters as distinctive as that in
Crete, it is at least a plausible hypothesis to suggest that such a process is likely.
There are already signs that all is not well within the British lifestyle migrant
community in Crete. Correspondence with the www.BritsinCrete.net website, their
networking site, suggests the following problems. Numbers – as yet unknown – of
low-income British residents, especially pensioners, have already left the island
because of the marked drop in value of the £ against the €, and the sharp rise in the
cost-of-living in Greece including Crete. Further, the normally lax Greek tax
authorities are now targeting British residents, as well as Greeks, in their quest to
raise revenue, and the website states that cars with British license-plates are
especially vulnerable to heavy on-the-spot fines if they have over-stayed the
permitted import period. Further, the final straw for elderly British expats in Crete
is that they now have to pay cash in advance for their medicines at local pharmacies
and “hope” for reimbursement at some unspecified time in the future. Many of
those who have left Crete for the United Kingdom have had to leave their houses on
the market on the island.
1.4.3 This situation raises all sorts of interesting sociological questions.
National/insular identity is usually implicit, it is something about which “everybody
knows” but does not explicate under normal circumstances (Bechhofer & McCrone
(eds.) 2009.) But in the situation of crisis within Greece/Crete, the context has
changed very rapidly, and local Cretan identity may well be activated and made
explicit. It is possible that some Cretans might now be resentful of the alleged
prosperity of British lifestyle migrants. And by the same token, some of these
10
lifestyle migrants might now be resentful of the more aggressive fiscal policies of the
Greek authorities towards them. One thing would appear to be certain: the dream of
these British lifestyle migrants must be increasingly ambivalent and precarious, and
subject to rapid modifications in the light of the shifting Greek economic crisis.
Such encounters and identifications are always shifting and negotiated depending
upon the local contexts. It is only by participating in the daily life of the two
communities, and observing the sites of tensions as they arise, that an analysis of
conflict and negotiation can be achieved. It is for this reason that ethnography is the
obviously appropriate methodology.
1.4.4 To give but one example of potential conflict in the Apokoronas district, there
were 200+ applications for water connection in the village of Vamos alone in 2005.
The fast rate of building and selling of new houses to lifestyle migrants put severe
strain on the water supply, which occasionally collapsed during this year. The
municipal authorities and the water-board had to take emergency action to restore a
full supply amidst vociferous complaints from both lifestyle migrants and Cretan
locals. (Personal communication: Elizabeth Fountoulaki, op. cit.) Similar strain
must appear in the local health service and in schools, both faced with a recent influx
of foreigners. For example, how do local schools and the health centre in Vamos
cope with 500 Britons? This kind of strain has been well-documented for Spain
(O’Reilly 2000.) Again, such strains can only be studied on the spot,
ethnographically.
1.4.5 While there are sound reasons to suspect that relationships between British
lifestyle migrants and Cretan locals in Apokoronas might be under strain, there are
also optimistic signs. In May 2013, the Municipal Council of Apokoronas
unanimously voted to establish a ‘Migrant Inclusion Council.’ The official
responsibilities of this Council are:
- to solve the problems migrants face;
11
- to make sure the Municipal Services meet everyone’s needs;
- to strengthen the social cohesion of Apokoronas.
Three immediate projects were identified:
1. A population profile of the migrants of Apokoronas.
2. Lessons in the Greek language.
3. A Help Centre has been established in the former Town Hall of Vamos. To
start with, it will operate between 1030 and 1230 each Thursday.
These innovative provisions suggest that at an official level, the Municipal
authorities recognise that there are some problems and are taking concrete steps to
address them.
1.4.6 There are also other signs that the relatively new British lifestyle migrant
community in Apokoronas is taking steps to help itself. The English-language
website: www.livingincrete.net is very thorough and helpful to new British
residents. There are also two local English-language websites:
www.apokoronas.news and www.apokoronasourhome.com; the latter in particular
demonstrates a thriving social life within the British community. And there is a
second-hand shop, To Pazari, in Hania, the provincial capital, which acts as an
informal clearing-house for British residents, with many adverts for properties for
sale or rental; British tradesmen, nannies and baby-sitters; the numerous recreational
and sporting voluntary associations which characterise British expatriate
communities; and dispenses useful information.
1.4.7 Finally, an external phenomenon may also have some impact on the British
lifestyle migrant community in Apokoronas, and that is British tourism elsewhere in
Crete, particularly in the resort of Malia, in central Crete. Malia has long been
associated with “rave” tourism by young British people, kamikaze public
drunkenness, and locals have expressed disgust with this behaviour. In July of this
year, a young British man was stabbed to death in a drunken brawl, and press
12
reports suggest that locals have had enough. The details are contained in a
Guardian article:
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/28/bar-stabbing-crete-british-tourist-tide
It remains to be seen if this horrific incident will have any fallout for the lifestyle
migrants.
1.5
1.5.0
A Cretan Ethnographic Study.
The specific proposal is to conduct one year’s ethnographic fieldwork on
the British lifestyle migrant community in the Apokoronas area of Nomos
Hanion in western Crete.
1.5.1
What are the reasons for proposing this particular study in Apokoronas in
Crete, and why should I do it? First, such a study has not been done
anywhere in Greece, and is justified, therefore, as a necessary comparative
study with the existing research on, e.g., France and Spain. Second, Crete
is Greece’s biggest island, contains large numbers of these migrants, the
biggest concentration is in Apokoronas, and Cretans are normally welldisposed towards them. Third, Crete has a distinct identity within
Greece, and both Cretans and other Greeks perceive this distinction as
real. Fourth, Crete does not have the legacy of the EOKA “Emergency” of
the 1950s in Cyprus, for example, to contaminate relationships between
locals and British lifestyle migrants. Fifth, Crete is experiencing the acute
contemporary economic crisis just like the rest of Greece, and the usually
tolerant relationships with British residents may well be under strain.
Sixth, I have been travelling extensively in Crete since 1975, speak Greek
including the Cretan dialect, and am well-networked in western Crete.
Seventh, I have considerable experience of conducting ethnographic
13
research in the Greek-speaking world: in a mountain village in western
Crete (1985-1987); in Cyprus (1995); and in the Dodecanese island of Symi
(2000-2002.)
1.5.2 The questions this project will raise are as follows:
1.5.2.1
Do the British migrants reproduce elements of the social class system of
the United Kingdom? Do they choose to live in relentlessly working-class
communities like some of the urbanizaciònes of Spain, or are they more
discreetly charming and aspire to integrate in the host community like the
middle-class residents of the Lot in France? How do they construct their
everyday lives?
1.5.2.2
What were the motivations for the British migrants to move to Crete?
Were they in search of the rural idyll, or “a more middle-class pursuit of
exotic otherness” (O’Reilly 20121:11) – or simply a better lifestyle in the
sun? What are their narratives for their migration? Do they see
themselves as pioneers and trail-blazers? Are they in fact lifestyle
migrants? If not, what kind of migrant are they? How do they construct
their communities and symbolise their boundaries? What are the
differentiations between them? Do they parallel O’Reilly’s distinctions
between permanent residents, returning residents, seasonal visitors, and
peripatetic migrants in Spain, and are these categories permeable?
(O’Reilly 2000.) Who is perceived to be an authentic member of the
British expat community and who not? (See Damer 2004 for a discussion
of such differentiation on Symi.)
1.5.2.3
How do these constructions, symbols and differentiations relate to those
of lifestyle migrants already studied in Spain (O’Reilly 2000) and France
(Benson 2011)?
14
1.5.2.4
How do these British migrants actually relate to their Cretan neighbours,
and to what extent do they wish to participate in, and are welcomed
within, the local Cretan community? What are the criteria for exclusion
and inclusion? Do they live side-by-side with, but separately from, the
Cretans because they cannot or will not understand local language or
culture? Does that matter in intra-community relationships? Do they try
to appropriate rural Apokoronas as they do in the Lot? (Benson 2011.) Do
the British migrants feel marginalised, vulnerable and/or trapped in their
communities? (The feeling, or affect, aspect of their existence is important
for this is an understudied dimension of tourism research. cf. E. Cohen &
S. Cohen 2012.) Do they feel culturally, economically, socially and
politically excluded as do so many of their compatriots in Spain (O’Reilly
2007)? Are they what have been called ‘residential tourists’ in Spain?
How many of them speak even elementary Greek? Does trying to learn
Greek actually amplify a sense of difference? How many of them have
obtained residence permits? How many participate in local political
institutions and processes? How many vote in local elections?
1.5.2.5
How do local Cretans perceive these British expats? Do local Cretans
want the British migrants to be integrated in their community? In what
kinds of local institutions do Cretans and British interact socially? Do
local Cretans think that the British bring economic development to the
area, or do they fear, like the Turks of Didim, that they are in danger of
being swamped culturally by the incomers? (Nudrali and O’Reilly in
Benson & O’Reilly 2009.)
1.5.2.6
What effect is the Greek economic crisis having on the British migrants?
Are tensions developing within and between the two communities as a
result of the Greek economic crisis? While movement to, and residence
within, Crete is technically free under EU legislation, what local policies
15
about this movement facilitate or hinder the settlement of migrants? Does
the Cretan situation parallel the Spanish situation in presenting “a
confusing array of constantly changing rules and conditions enabling and
constraining migration and residence”? (O’Reilly 2007.) Are Cretan
bureaucrats now opting to give British residents a hard time in a national
bureaucracy which is notoriously Byzantine (pun intended) to foreigners?
1.5.2.7
How do the children of the British residents fit into the local Cretan
communities? Do they speak Greek? Do they integrate better than their
parents? How do they get on in local schools? Do they feel that they are
accepted by Cretan children? Do they want to stay in Crete?
1.5.3 While at one level these are elementary empirical research questions, at
another, they have to be asked and answered because the relevant
research simply has not been done in Greece, including Crete. Thus in
general terms, the proposed research is innovative in two important
senses. First, not only does it intend to plug a major gap in the literature
on lifestyle migration, but also it intends to do this in such a manner as to
enable further comparative research. For what is noteworthy about
Benson’s research into LM in the Lot area of France is that while it is very
thorough in terms of motivation for such migration, identity-construction
post migration, and social liminality, nowhere does she discuss the attitude
of French locals towards the immigrants (Benson 2011.) And in a similar
manner, O’Reilly, in her study of the British on the Costa del Sol, is much
more concerned with how the migrants constructed their communities than
with what the local Spaniards thought of them. These are important
lacunae. In contradistinction, Cretan locals’ perceptions of the British
migrants in Apokoronas are a central dimension of the proposed research.
16
1.5.3.1
Second, what is completely new about this proposed research is that it is
being undertaken at a time of acute economic crisis in Greece, one which
can only have as yet imponderable social ramifications for the British
migrants in Apokoronas, Crete.
1.5.4
Further, while what is being proposed is a classic ethnography, following
the traditional methodology of participant-observation, and while the
applicant is a sociologist, the questions being asked are really multidisciplinary, transcending a wide range of social scientific disciplines:
geographic, economic, political and psychological issues are being
addressed as well as the sociological and anthropological. Thus this
study reflects a logical but challenging development of the applicant’s
previous research into aspects of rural/insular Greek society. There are
critical issues of cultural and social identity involved in both the British
and Cretan communities in Apokoronas. And that is precisely why
application is being made to the Leverhulme Trust, given its investment
in comparable work in the United Kingdom, not least in the Scottish
devolution and identity programme.
17
References.
AthensPlus Newspaper (2010): June 11.
Atsalakis, D. & Atsalakis, N. (2010): IN-ON Magazine, Crete: Hania, September.
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