Retiring to Spain

Anya Ahmed is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Salford, UK, with a background in social policy and sociology. She researches and writes about economic, forced and lifestyle migration and the experiences of less heard groups in societies. She is interested in how constructions of different forms of belonging and community reflect social change and continuity.

• Retiring to the Costas: British women’s narratives of nostalgia, belonging and communityPart One: Lives in context;Conceptualising, theorising and narrating retirement migration;Locating the women: macro, meso and micro contexts;Boundary spanning and reconstitution: retirement migration and the search for community;Part Two: Lived experiences;Leaving the UK: motives, agency and decision-making processes;Living in Spain: ‘idyllisation’ and realisation;Belonging to networks: reconciling agency and positionalities;Renegotiating family relationships: managing intimacy from a distance;Locating ‘home’ and community: the end point of plot movement;Conclusion: nostalgia, community and belonging: linking time and space;Afterword.

"A welcome addition to the literature on international retirement migration, offering important and significant conceptual insights into community, belonging and home through in-depth analysis grounded in the daily lives, dreams and disappointments of working class women migrants. Highly recommended." Professor Peter Dwyer, University of York "This fascinating study reveals the complexity of people's journeys undertaken as they search for community. Their stories of pursuing this often elusive goal are ones of resourcefulness and hope." Professor Graham Crow, University of Edinburgh "Retiring to Spain is an outstanding resource for scholars with an interest in older women, in retirement, or in narrative methods." The Gerontologist "A good addition to the methodological literature on narratives in the particularly under-researched area of women's retirement migration experiences." Dr Kelly Hall, Birmingham University "A beautifully crafted book confirming the importance of subjectivity and agency framed within persistent gendered social worlds." Professor Louise Ackers, University of Salford