Mobilizing capitals, forging terroir: Lifestyle migration and envisioning a “better rural landscape”

Abstract

Urban-to-rural lifestyle migration, the phenomenon of relocating to rural places for a “better life”, increasingly reshapes rural territories, often driven by entrepreneurial initiatives. While this presents new challenges, it can also encourage community-focused uses of local resources. Employing “the capitals framework,” this study examines (1) how entrepreneurial lifestyle migrants in Urla, Turkey, mobilize their social, economic, and cultural capitals to plan and implement their vision of rural landscapes and (2) how their terroir tourism initiatives (specifically the Urla Artichoke Festival and Vineyard Route Project) transform and reconfigure place-specific capitals. We argue that these migrants are enthusiastic about terroir-focused economic opportunities, using their diverse capitals to alter the entrepreneurial ecosystem. This process can also stimulate place-specific economic and cultural assets and draw local communities into new entrepreneurial activities. Our ethnographic research reveals that although lifestyle migrants are often pioneers of gentrification, they engage in a complex balancing act: their economic capital-oriented planning for high-value terroir businesses is strategically intertwined with their social and cultural capital to preserve the valued rural texture against global tourism market pressures. Ultimately, the transmutability and interplay they generate between capitals through collective, often semi-formal actions contribute to the production of a fragmented and contested “better rural landscape,” marked by selective benefits, new socio-spatial inequalities, and a “discordant countryside” where power dynamics are crucial.