Thinking within, across and beyond lifestyle paradigms: Later-life mobility histories and practices ‘in’ Ubud, Bali
This article examines the mobility histories and practices of later-life foreigners living or based in Ubud, Bali. Through an exploration of mobility practices, past and present, I question the analytical relevance of emerging lifestyle paradigms that paradoxically seek to contain experiences of mobility in metaphysical imaginings of flux and dynamism. Based on long-term ethnographic research in Ubud, Bali, I consider the extent to which people continually move across academic paradigms to make sense of their life projects. This mobility of thinking, about selfhood, mobility, place and kin relationships, draws analytical attention to the notion of life course. From this conceptual and methodological sticking point I illustrate how later-life foreigners embrace metaphysical imaginaries of mobility and dwelling on their own evolving, innovative and relational terms. Such imaginaries ultimately unsettle the ‘contained fluidity’ of lifestyle paradigms, as place becomes variously imbued with sedentarist and nomadic qualities of residence, fly paper and water.