Do you get told what the good life is, or do you figure it out for yourself?
Posed by a middle-aged lifestyle migrant who left a corporate career, this question invokes the theme of Opting for Elsewhere that emerges from stories of people who chose relocation as a way of redefining themselves and reordering work, family, and personal priorities. This is a book about the impulse to start over. The accounts presented involve new expressions of old dreams, understandings, and ideals. Whether downshifting from stressful careers or the victims of downsizing from jobs lost in a surge of economic restructuring, lifestyle migrants seek refuge in places that seem to resonate with an idealized, potential self. Choosing the option of elsewhere and moving as a means of remaking self through sheer force of will are basic facets of American character forged in its history as a developing nation of immigrants with a seemingly ever-expanding frontier. Stories told here are parts of a larger moral story about what constitutes the good life at a time of economic uncertainty coupled with shifting social categories and cultural meanings. Brian Hoey, Marshall University Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, provides an evocative illustration of the ways these sweeping changes impact people and the places that they live and work as well as how both react—devising strategies for either coping with or challenging the status quo. This stirring portrait of starting over in the heartland of America will initiate fruitful discussion about where we are going next as an emerging postindustrial society.
New Book by Brian Hoey: “Opting for Elsewhere” now available from several sources. See Vanderbilt University Press for information. You can purchase from Amazon or by providing publication information to your local, independent bookseller.
Hear an Interview with Brian Hoey done in September 2015 via NPR affiliate, Interlochen Pubic Radio as part of their series “Which Way to Paradise”
New VUP book out today: “Opting for Elsewhere: Lifestyle Migration in the American Middle Class” by Brian A. Hoey http://t.co/LMMamjD1TZ
— VanderbiltUP (@VanderbiltUP) December 31, 2014
