Introduction

In the previous chapter I suggested that thinking with community and how – and to what – people construct belonging illuminates processes of social change and continuity from particular social locations or positions. Retirement migration was presented as a form and consequence of social change, involving both boundary spanning and reconstitution. The important role of nostalgia as a cultural resource in constructing belonging to different forms of community, evoking an imagined lost place or time, particularly for older people was also considered. In this chapter, I explore the reasons for women's dislocation in and from the UK, and the decision-making processes involved in migrating to Spain. In other words, through the examination of women's narratives, I focus on ‘the whys’ and ‘the how’ of retirement migration.

Elements of all three of Halfacree and Boyle's (1993) migrant typologies highlighted in Chapter Two characterise the women featured: they are not easily categorised as singularly purpose rational, traditional or hedonistic. Close examination of women's narratives and how they position themselves sheds lights on motivations, agency in decision-making processes, and how they see themselves and their lives in context and practice. It is now useful to consider how retirement, the high cost of living in the UK, quality of life considerations, and, what is important, feelings of non-belonging due to age and ethnic positionalities shape migration decisions. Women present themselves as rational, traditional and hedonistic in choosing to migrate to Spain in retirement. They cast themselves as fortunate, but not simply through serendipity; instead they are agents who are morally (Goffman, 1959) justified in exercising individualisation through migration (Beck, 1992).

This chapter is structured as follows: first, I examine why women chose Spain as their retirement destination and then consider the multiple reasons for migration in relation to ‘a call’ (Booker, 2004) which precipitates the quest. I offer a structural analysis of Celia and Bernice's narrative accounts in terms of how random events occur in everyday adventure time and characterise biographical disruption. I unravel how agency in decision-making in migration is shaped by wider social structures and mediated by women's gendered positionalities, both in relation to those women migrating alone and those with partners.