Relocation narratives: British women writers settling in Spain in the twenty-first century

Abstract

This essay discusses the generic and discursive characteristics of British relocation literature about women moving to rural life in Spain in the twenty-first century. It analyses features borrowed from autobiography and the novel, and questions whether the authors undergo the “inner journey” from northern materialism to southern utopia that they initially embark on. I consider Lisle’s (2006) discussion of nostalgia, Buzard’s (1993) idea of the anti-tourist and Urry's ([1990] 2002) concept of the tourist gaze as useful ways to interpret the structure and content of typical texts. The British perception of Spain in the popular imagination is revealed through the way local culture is portrayed by Scott (2009), Innes (2003) and Nicholas (2008, 2012). Deep immersion and integration in another culture are ultimately of less interest to these authors than the desire to distinguish themselves within their own culture by going beyond the norms of tourism and celebrating their “positional goods”.