Parachuted into the Périgord: Media representations of British migrants in south-west France

This paper forms part of a wider study of migrant identity within the context of British lifestyle migration to south-west France. The aim is to situate the research within its wider social context by examining media representations of British migration to France. Extracts from selected media discourse are analysed using elements from the Appraisal framework and from van Leeuwen’s Social Actor framework. Results show a pattern of negative assumptions, with clear demarcation between inand out-group as newer arrivals are constructed linguistically as a vague mass entity that is a threat to the established residents. These results suggest that lifestyle migration to France has undergone recontextualisation in the promotion of particular ideologies based on social differentiation, with some types of migrant behaviour presented as more acceptable than others. These generalised perspectives will be taken into account when exploring how identity is constructed within local migrant discourse. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is discussed as a way of understanding these distinctions.