Global Nomads provides a unique introduction to the globalization of countercultures, a topic largely unknown in and outside academia. Anthony D’Andrea examines the social life of mobile expatriates who live within a global circuit of countercultural practice and international tourism in paradoxical paradises.
Based on nomadic fieldwork across Spain and India, the study analyzes how and why these post-metropolitan subjects reject their homelands in order to shape an alternative lifestyle. They become artists, therapists, exotic traders and bohemian workers seeking to integrate labor, mobility and spirituality within a cosmopolitan culture of expressive individualism. These countercultural formations, however, unfold under neo-liberal regimes that seek to appropriate utopian spaces, practices and imaginaries as commodities for tourism, entertainment and media consumption.
In order to understand the new forms of lifestyle, identity and subjectivity found in these countercultural circuits, Global Nomads develops a dialogue between global and critical studies. D'Andrea introduces the concept of 'neo-nomadism', a fresh outlook on mobility that contributes to overcome some of the shortcomings in globalization studies.
This book is an essential reference for researchers and students of Sociology, Anthropology of Globalization, Cultural Studies, as well as Tourism and Migration Studies.