Shaping multiple Ajijics and development : a Mexican town in the context of the international retirement migration

Ajijic is a Mexican town that during the 1990s experienced its biggest social, economic, and physical transformation of the last 50 years. This transformation was mainly triggered by two factors: 1) a significant increase in the number of foreign retirees moving into Ajijic (effect of a global phenomenon identified as international retirement migration); and 2) the consequent increase in the construction of residential developments and infrastructure (mainly retiree-oriented). In this thesis the author argues that the international retirement migration phenomenon in Ajijic provoked the emergence of different projects of shaping the physical characteristics of this town. Through these projects, social actors shape Ajijic according to their different interpretations of what the town of Ajijic is, and what local development and modernisation mean to them. The transformation of the physical characteristics of Ajijic, through these projects, has also transformed the social life of this town.