Why do people move here and what is the nature of their experience? That is what local PhD candidate Christina Kargillis is seeking to explore through her research study and she is keen to hear from anyone who would be interested in sharing their story. Read on for some details about her study and how you can contact her.
My research project is part of a Doctoral program with the University of Technology, Sydney, and it’s underway in Noosa, exploring ‘lifestyle migration’ and its impact on working people. I’m interested in the way that places of strong environmental beauty and limited industry encourage people to develop their entrepreneurial skills because they are required to take risks and become more flexible if they are going to survive.
A recent US study on lifestyle migration (Hoey, B., 2005) found that the main reason working people move away from the city to regional or lifestyle areas is provoked by a ‘critical incident’, often to do with employment issues like retrenchment. This failure of the American Dream is directly transferable to the Australian scenario. While my research will also explore motives behind why working people take the career and financial risks that they do in relocating to places like Noosa, I am mainly interested in how people adjust to new conditions in order to survive.
There seems to be a real focus on discovering your ‘inner pioneer’ for working people who make this sort of shift where the risk factor is actually a lure for this reason. Many ‘lifestyle migrants’ look to self-employment or end up working in a field very different to that of their background as a way of gaining control over their own destinies. The US study suggested that the people who didn’t last five years in their new place often returned because they couldn’t handle being caught between worlds – they may have been a corporate manager in the city and after the move they couldn’t accept the shift in hierarchy, dropping from being ’somebody’ to ‘nobody’. That’s where flexibility and risk-taking are so important.
I’m really interested to hear from people who don’t particularly see themselves as creative and yet have really pioneered themselves a whole new lifestyle in tough economic conditions. The natural environment is the other key attraction where place becomes a very symbolic thing and represents unchartered territory for people to pioneer – where to live equals how to live.
I have lived on the Sunshine Coast for more than two years and was inspired to research the topic since 2005 after working at The Banff Centre for the Arts in the Rocky Mountains of Canada – a hive of creativity set in a National Park, with a high tourism component and a small population base. Noosa is Banff except of course that I’ve swapped the snow for the beach. Living in Banff for a year really motivated me to finally get out of Sydney when I returned to Australia – it was a blast.
Have you got a story to tell?
I am looking for people who would like to share their stories of lifestyle migration to be included in my research. All interviews will be confidential and identities automatically kept confidential unless participants choose otherwise.
Please contact me if you are interested in taking part in this research and are:
•Working full-time or part-time, self-employed or an employee
•Aged between 25-54
•Currently living in the Noosa area but have lived on the Sunshine Coast for at least five years; and
•Moved to the Sunshine Coast as an adult from a long-term city base.
Interviews will take around 2 hours in person and then again in three months time there’ll be another 2 hour session. I’m really keen to talk to people about their lifestyle shift to Noosa. Only around a third of working people who attempt it actually last the five year mark and in my experience there are some inspiring stories out there that show a lot of initiative. Please contact me by email on Christina.Kargillis(at)student.uts.edu.au and I’ll set up a time to meet with you.
