The Economics of Lifestyle Migration in Caribbean Costa Rica

• In Event: 4151 - International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 11: Immigrant Workers and the Labor Market I

Abstract

This paper examines the situation of economic migration in which business entrepreneurship forms the main site of contact between migrants and locals and the main site of integration of migrants into rural areas dependent on tourism. In an environment where international migrants start businesses as well as enjoy natural amenities, migrants create a social system of economic incentives that necessitates adaptation by local residents. In such situations, migrants maintain their transnational networks and resources to create expatriate communities and use their wealth to employ locals as workers, translators, personal assistants, and go-betweens with local economic and political officials. This paper examines the workings and consequences of economic integration of lifestyle migrants from North America and Europe who move to rural communities in the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and addresses how economic power of these migrants impacts their integration into local communities and what impact their economic resources have on local Costa Ricans. Using participant observation and in-depth interviews I show how the economic projects of starting businesses and buying land form a main site for interaction with locals and how the economic privilege of migrants relative to locals allows them to resist integrating and form migrant communities that are geographically integrated but not socially integrated with locals.

Author

• Erin M. Adamson, University of Kansas