The Contested Spaces of Lifestyle Mobilities: Regime Analysis as a Tool to Study Political Claims in Latin American Retirement Destinations

Abstract

Amenity-oriented migration of mainly retired North Americans to destinations in Latin America is a relatively new but rapidly expanding mobility that, amongst others, induces an interesting array of political claims and practices. Unlike economic migrants, the predominantly wealthy and often economically successful amenity migrants possess resources to participate in local and regional development; additionally, they have the know-how to initiate and activate political networks. The article discusses recent trends of lifestyle-oriented mobilities to Latin America and aims at developing a conceptual framework to analyse the role foreigners can play in the negotiation of strategies for local and regional development. Regime analysis, a particular way to conceive governance, is used as a tool to consider the possibilities and problems arising from lifestyle mobilities to Latin America, as specified through the empirical debate regarding planning conflicts in a recently established retirement destination in northern Costa Rica.