MIGRATION TO RURAL NAVARRE: QUESTIONING THE EXPERIENCE OF COUNTERURBANISATION.

During the last two decades, many rural localities of Navarre (northern Spain) have experienced an increase of population related to the counterurbanisation phenomenon. This reflects the growing lure that rural localities have as residential environments for urban people, especially those coming from Pamplona, the county town of the region. Nevertheless, beyond this restructuring process, a plurality of profiles of migrants and reasons for moving to the country are found. This paper attempts to analyse this diversity through the analysis of the discourses of rural newcomers as expressed in diverse indepth interviews. Whereas most of the academic literature regarding counterurbanisation studies is based on conceptual categories defined prior to the encounter researcher/migrant, this paper explores the possibility of inverting the approach to the study of the phenomenon by considering the starting point as the lowest common denominator; how one experiences an urban-to-rural migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]