Seeking Authenticity in Place, Culture, and the Self

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. The Great Urban Escape

   • Nicholas Osbaldiston

   Pages 1-27

3. The Promises of the Natural World: Escaping the City for Pristine Landscapes

   • Nicholas Osbaldiston

   Pages 29-50

4. A Sense of Community: Cultural Heritage, Nostalgia, and Sociability

   • Nicholas Osbaldiston

   Pages 51-71

5. The Culture of Planning: Coding in Policy Initiative

   • Nicholas Osbaldiston

   Pages 73-90

6. The Perils of Seachange: Threats, Unintended Consequences, and the Future of Place

   • Nicholas Osbaldiston

   Pages 91-109

7. The Local Experience, Seachange Communities, and Mythologies

   • Nicholas Osbaldiston

   Pages 111-124

8. The Seachange Story: Authenticity, Place, and the Self

   • Nicholas Osbaldiston

   Pages 125-144

9. Back Matter

   Pages 145-175

   PDF

In recent times, there has been a substantial push by people to escape the metropolis for lifestyles in small coastal, country, or mountainside locales. This book explores the narratives emerging from amenity-left migration using methods developed within the 'strong' cultural sociology.

• community
• methods
• migration
• sociology

"This fine book significantly contributes to our understanding of modern social and emotional life. Written from a neo-Durkheimian perspective, it persuasively demonstrates that the contemporary search for a bucolic Eden derives from a pervasive desire for authenticity and self-realization. The unintended consequence is that the 'last real places' tend to evolve into overcrowded playgrounds for the rich. This irony, and much else, is fully explored in a text that is both sophisticated and elegiac." - Charles Lindholm, University Professor of Anthropology, Boston University

"In this pioneering book, Osbaldiston sheds light on the cultural phenomenon of seachange, the migration of urbanites in search of meaning. Through the lens of cultural sociology, he presents a compelling and theoretically rigorous argument for how the construction of authentic places by planners, promoters, and seachangers is thoroughly and inextricably entangled with a sense of the authentic self. The result is unmatched, with Osbaldiston narrating a nuanced and thoroughly engaging account of the impact of seachange on places and on individuals." - Michaela Benson, author of The British in Rural France

Nicholas Osbaldiston is a Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Resource Management and Geography, University of Melbourne

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