Working a working-class Utopia: marking young Britons in Tenerife on the new map of European migration.

British migration to Tenerife has increased dramatically over recent years, with a visible rise in young British settlers who seek jobs in tourism-related sectors. Yet despite significant numbers of young British migrants to Mediterranean and Canarian destinations, the existence of young British people as a newly emergent migrant group has to date received little sociological attention. However, recent theoretical developments in the migration literature have begun to draw attention to new migration typologies, and the fact that the old political and sociological concerns and dichotomies within migration analyses (forced versus voluntary, skilled versus unskilled, legal versus illegal and poor versus rich) have become increasingly blurred and so not entirely useful in addressing questions about the new, diverse motivations and modalities within more recent migration (King, 2002; Cohen, 1995 ). Russell King has recommended that analyses of new European migrant phenomena should recognise that migrant narratives of self-improvement and self-realisation can be pivotal. Drawing on interviews and survey data, this paper discusses young British migrant discourses in Tenerife, in terms of how they might fit with King's theoretical concerns with identity reproduction. Central themes include the desire to escape a crest-fallen and 'overrun' Britain, the self-reflexive significance of 'sun-seeking' and travel, and Tenerife as an idealised geographical and cultural destination. It will look at how specifically classed, raced, gendered and nationalised identities are lived out within this particular location and how these processes can inform the discursive reproduction of a white, British working-class utopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]