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Session 49: Quality life migration in non-metropolitan areasOrganizers:         Sofia Gaspar (CIES-IUL, Portugal) e-mail: sofia.gaspar@iscte.pt     Joana Azevedo (CIES-IUL, Portugal) e-mail: joana.azevedo@iscte.ptCall for Paper:In recent years, quality life migration has been emerging as an increasing mobility trend to refer to affluent individuals of all ages who decide to migrate, whether inside or outside their origin country, pulled by the search of diverse or alternative way of life. Others move to ruralized areas to participate in spiritual and/or ecological communities (ecovillages) in search of a sense of community and experience of a more sustainable and ecological lifestyle. Despite the various conceptualizations that quality life migration might assume &#8211; retirement migration, young or middle-aged couples with offspring, the &#8220;rural idyll&#8221; migrant seeker, the cultural bohemian, migrant tourist-workers &#8211; a counterurbanization discourse focused on meaningful lifestyles experiences apart from the constrains of the city is an important argument to move. This session aims to explore issues related to this social phenomenon both from theoretical and empirical perspectives.Topics:1. Theoretical accounts on &#8220;quality life migration&#8221; as a concept;2. Migrants narratives on lifestyle experiences before and after migration;3. Social dynamics between migrants and the host communities;4. Family dynamics in non-metropolitan areas;5. Renegotiation of work-life balance after migration;6. Social representations of urban vs. rural areas and alternative lifestyle views;Organizers are also open for proposals on additional topics, as long as they can be accommodated in the session schedule.Abstracts:The organizers kindly request authors to submit online (http://irsa2012.com/event/irsa-2012/proposals/) their abstracts no later than 15th January&#160;&#160; 2012.Abstracts should be written in English and cannot exceed 150 words.