Racial hierarchies and contradictory moral regimes in lifestyle destinations: Older, Western residents in Ubud, Bali

Abstract

This article examines how older, Western residents make sense of racial and economic hierarchies in the context of relations with Balinese employees and a modern service infrastructure of cafes and restaurants in Ubud, Bali. I examine how these residents engage with contradictory moral regimes that reflect a desire to downplay white privilege, yet place the self at the forefront of narratives of life and lifestyle in Bali. The spatial management of such concerns, I argue, is complicated by a desire to impose fixity on socio-cultural process, in ways that bring symbolic pollution beliefs to the fore in this lifestyle destination.

Geographies of global lifestyle migration: Towards an anticolonial approach

“…At the risk of oversimplifying, we have summarized the literatures associated with various terminologies in Table 1 in order to demonstrate some of the key differences between them. In this review we draw across all Benson, 2013Benson, , 2015Benson and O'Reilly, 2018;Botterill, 2017;Ertugrul, 2016;Escher and Petermann, 2014;Green, 2014Green, , 2017Hayes, 2014Hayes, , 2015bHayes, , 2015cHayes, , 2015dKarkabi, 2013;Knowles, 2005;Kordel and Pohle, 2018;Morrissey, 2018;Ono, 2015;Spalding, 2013aSpalding, , 2013bTherrien and Pellegrini, 2015;Van Noorloos and Steel, 2016 Migrant motivations, identity, and experiences…”

“…Benson (2013) shows that many North American migrants become increasingly aware of their relative wealth and privilege vis-á-vis local Panamanians after arriving in Boquete. This sense of inequality is overtly racialized, as interpersonal encounters with locals cause lifestyle migrants in Boquete to become increasingly aware of their Whiteness and its association with economic and cultural capital (Benson, 2015; see also Green, 2017;Hayes, 2015c;Kunz, 2018). Many lifestyle migrants express discomfort with this growing sense of inequality and attempt to rationalize their exercise of privilege in the destination by participating in charitable work and viewing themselves as contributors to local development (Benson, 2013; see also Benson, 2015;Kordel and Pohle, 2018;Rojas et al, 2014).…”

“…For example, Mari Korpela (2010) demonstrates that global lifestyle migrants to Varanasi, India imagine an essentialized, 'authentic' Indian culture against which they define themselves. Korpela views these attitudes as replications of colonial mentalities, since it is 'Westerners who decide how to imagine and act out "authentic India" and how to interact with Indian people' (2010: 1312; for similar arguments in Hong Kong, see Knowles, 2005, and in Bali see Green, 2017). 2 We applaud these scholars for moving toward a more critical frame for understanding how race and privilege shape the experiences of lifestyle migrants in the Global South.…”

Thinking within, across and beyond lifestyle paradigms: Later-life mobility histories and practices ‘in’ Ubud, Bali

“…The research findings presented in this article derive from a longitudinal ethnographic project that began in 2011 (see also: Green, 2015aGreen, , 2015bGreen, , 2015cGreen, , 2016Green, , 2017. Since then, I have made numerous visits as an individual researcher, and completed almost eight months of fieldwork in total, in Ubud, Bali.…”

“Fucking Koreans!”: Sexual Relations and Immigration in the Philippines

“…In contrast,Green (2017) found that Western migrants and retirees in the popular tourist destination of Ubud, Bali, Indonesia often attempted to downplay the virtues of white agency and privilege(Green, 2017: 177). Similarly, in her case study of US and Canadian residents of Boquete, Panama, Benson…”