Negotiating sustainability and place: migration to an ecovillage and local community

Lifestyle- and amenity migration have frequently resulted in socio-ecological changes to places through increased population and development. Where sustainability is often an after-thought to over-development this paper introduces 'sustainability-led migration', looking at migration to a newer ecovillage. I first ask how ecovillages fit within a migration framework. Secondly, using a case study of a 'new' ecovillage in Norway, I investigate how sustainability-led (voluntary) migration to a rural ecovillage impacts people-place relationships. Analysing in-depth interviews with ecovillagers, municipal authorities and other local residents through the lens of 'throwntogetherness', reveals ongoing negotiations of sustainability and place in the process of 'making' attractive communities. For some, sustainability-led migration becomes heroic where migration of resourceful people with new ideas helped create a more open-minded society. For others, 'sustainability' became the villain of the piece, regarded as a negative or meaningless pejorative, unrepresentative of the place they know. Sustainability-led migration directly and indirectly facilitated changes to place identity, enabling both connection and disconnection to place narratives, implying 'caution' when using sustainability as a place-marketing strategy.