EXPLORING SUSTAINABILITY WITH URBAN-RURAL MIGRANTS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC EXPERIENCE IN POLAND

Globally, the word „migration” is most often associated with long distances and moving from one country to another. In the shadow of this comprehension stands the phenomenon of contemporary internal migration. I present a more rarely analysed type of it—lifestyle migration of people who made the decision to quit living in the big city. From anthropological point of view, the study reveals push factors— the unfavourable matters about the civic area that one used to live in, and also pull factors that attract one to the new area. Placing them in the frame of counterurbanisation, I explore the close relations urban-rural migrants try to establish to both nature and small groups of society. Based on participant observation and interviews held with Polish lifestyle migrants and environmental activists, I point out the potential problems of the migrants in relation to the term “sustainability” which is central for their adjustments.


Introduction
The first feeling like spring Saturday evening in March 2018 was a suitable time for conducting the informal part of a seminar dedicated to living in harmony with nature and learning about the concept and operation of an eco-oriented home. We had paid for a 2-day workshop and sleeping accommodation in an ecocenter in the outskirts of the Polish village of Wyszow 1 . The 18 th of us were now sitting comfortably and in a perfect silence around a circle table in a cozy house built of natural materials. We were carefully listening to the householder named Brandon -eco-activist in his late 40s, originating from England. Working in permaculture he first came in Poland to support a protest campaign against GMO. He founded the ecocenter 15 years ago, together with his girlfriend he met in Poland. Brandon is the author of several books on related topics. At the first day of the seminar, he started reading with passionate voice an excerpt from his book: "Once one has got a reasonable handle on "what's wrong", the next step involves putting into place something "that feels right", he began.
Revealing a predominantly emotional message rather than some practical advices, Brandon aimed to show us why it is important to consider getting "out of the vicious spider's web of the Matrix". He was explicitly calling people to embrace a lifestyle closer to nature and in opposition to the culture based on rash consumption. For an anthropologist who starts research on urban-rural migration, this was an appropriate right place to observe potential migrants and to make interviews with them. Indeed, the predominant part of the attendants had the attitude to sooner or later move permanently to a village and that they had also taken part in other initiatives related to sustainable life.
In this article I draw on my experience in an ecocenter in Poland in 2018 to reflect on the origins and consequences of the decision to migrate from a city to a village-push and pull factors, images and attitudes toward the countryside, potential problems. I start with examining the contents of the term "rural idyll", use it to go further to the processes of urban-rural migration and hence counterurbanisation, and arrive at conclusion that the goal is achieving sustainability and a kind of self-efficiency. I classify such mobilities as lifestyle related and therefore take a closer look at the term "lifestyle migration." As Benson and O'Reilly (2009: 608) point out, those are: "migrants who do not fit the stereotypical idea of a migrant in the given destinations, do not compete for jobs, and tend not to be racialised as other immigrants." Although the topic inspires thoughts of lightness and images of coexistence in harmony, research shows a more complex picture. As demonstrated bellow, urban-rural migrants have a great potential to revive depopulated rural zones physically, socially and in some cases economically (Stone, Stubbs 2007) which explains why such a topic is to become more and more important. The positive impacts of migration to rural areas include not only the support provided by the new-comers, but also an increase in cultural diversity (Milbourne 2007: 385) and further development. This lifestyle migration from urban to rural areas obeys to the idea of living following ecological, social and spiritual lines that, mixed together, form the notion of sustainability.
The reviewed scholarly work from the field of geography, anthropology, sociology and psychology, puts into perspective the data collected during the seminar, through participant observation, interviews and informal conversations with potential urban-rural migrants. Participants are building their projects to move out of town but none of them have stopped practicing urban lifestyle. It is important to underline that even though they are spending much time in rural environment (for example some of them have already bought land in a rural area and/or started building), participants in the seminar are still at the stage of projecting, imagining, planning. Given the fact that this article is a part of an ongoing research, I present results based on a one single site with a qualitative approach.

The ambiguous notion of "rural idyll"
In the context of the rapid everyday life that most of the population of the Western world leads nowadays, going for a rest in a rural area is seen as an opportunity to slow down and experience life more naturally and at its finest. The countryside has turned into a synonym of tranquillity, life closer to nature and keeper of traditions that are to melt away in the civic environment or had already done this. It evokes "a sense of stepping back in time and also stepping slowly" (Benson, O'Reilly 2009: 613). The role which countryside images play in the preferences of urbanites to spend time in the rural areas has since years been present in scholar's works. For example, a survey carried out in Netherlands in 2000 examines the living preferences of urbanites (van Dam, Heins, 2002: 465). Fifteen percent of the total number of 4047 respondents from 4 different in character municipalities answered that they considered to move to a village in the close future. These people were asked several questions about the image of the countryside among which one demanded to be given 4 words associated with the countryside. The authors divided the vivid variety of associations in 4 categories: -morphological aspects-the visual characteristics of the countryside (for example, ''green'', ''cows'', ''farms'') were most frequently mentioned (more than 50%); -functional aspects-related to the spatial functions of the countryside (for example, ''agriculture'', ''nature'', ''recreation''); -socio-cultural aspects-related to the social-cultural situation of the countryside (for example, ''quiet'', ''dull'') were also frequently cited (more than 35%); -topographical/locational aspects-indications of specific areas or locations (for example, ''North-Netherlands'', ''the Green Heart'').
The final part of the survey sought to understand whether the respondents have positive, negative or neutral image of the countryside. It appears that 73.8% share a positive view while less than 5% have a negative one. These figures "may reflect the possible existence of a rural idyll in the Netherlands", the authors conclude (van Dam, Heins, 2002: 462).
Further development of the idea of "the rural idyll", and also results from the ongoing research and previous researches of mine held in Bulgaria, serve as evidence that the rural idyll exists not only in Holland, but is a cross-border view shared among members of many Western societies. The definitions of the concept state its main characteristics of establishing close relations to both nature and society hence guarantee it an important role in understanding aspects of the dichotomy between human and nature. Here are two of the most explicit: ''presents happy, healthy and problem-free images of rural life safely nestling with both a close social community and a contiguous natural environment'' (Cloke and Milbourne, 1992: 359).
''a less hurried lifestyle where people follow the seasons rather than the stock market, where they have more time for each other and exist in a more organic community where people have a place and an authentic role. The countryside has become the refuge of modernity'' (Short, 1991: 34) It is also important to keep in mind that: "in many countries rural life has been portrayed for centuries as simple, innocent and virtuous as part of a pastoral myth of a lost Eden, divorced from harsher realities of rural life (Shucksmith 2018: 163) Although these innocent and harmless views are realistic to some extent, they are also potentially problematic. They mask the negative and even harsh characteristics of rural life and in this way can cause taking of rash acts. With no intention to devalue the preliminary assessments taken by people who decide to quit living in a city and organize their life around a village community, I argue that some of them fall in the trap of exactly this romantic notion and encounter unexpected problems after their migration.
If we can rather easily comprehend motivations driving people to move to the countryside, images of what is rurality as experience appear more blurred. As demonstrated below and as Boyle et al. (1998, p. 142) states: ''the rural idyll may be an urban perspective on the countryside, refracted through various media and not based on direct experience, but it nevertheless can be a strong force guiding migration''.

Problematising the bond between counter-urbanisation and lifestyle migration
Once tempted, or to be more precise-continuously tempted by the idea of living in a peaceful environment, some urbanites dare to undertake the step of migrating to a chosen rural area. This should be examined not so much as a particular set of prefigurated actions, but more as a process with many variabilities, a process that in some cases possibly lasts for years. As van Dam and Hein put it: "migration is preceded by a cognitive process in which, apart from triggering events and changes in the household or employment situation, desires and preferences for particular residential environments play an important role in the decision to move from one specific residential environment to another" (van Dam, Heins, 2002: 472).
This idea was also expressed by Mateusz -architect in his 30s, living in London with his girlfriend also architect. On the question" When, you and your girlfriend, are you planning to leave London and move to the village of Lomna?" he answered: "I'd love to do it tomorrow. It is an ongoing thing. We do as much as we can". This project should be seen as a process, in which the young couple have already taken part. This process is well-known in the scholarly literature as "counter-urbanisation". Considering the wide range of definitions for urbanisation, I will not engage in explaining counter-urbanisation by discussing conceptual differences. I also believe this may not be the right way of thinking about it.
Instead, I drow on Elshof's and Haartsen's definition of counterurbanisation as "a desire for space, quiet, greenery, and safety [that] can motivate people to move from urban to rural areas" (Elshof, Haartsen 2017). Thus, this process is directly connected with the idea of the rural idyll and that it can be driven by this same vision. A number of scholars also engage in this direction s. For Anthropolou&Kaberis, "The rural idyll, related to the perceived quality of physical environment and rural life, is the key driver in urbanites' decisions to move to the countryside. Counter-urbanisation processes are the complex result of economic restructuring of urban and rural communities, and of socio-cultural and technological changes facilitating greater geographical and social mobility than was offered to previous generations" (Anthropolou, Kaberis 2017: 1) Equally, Grimsrud (2011, 642) alleges that "the stereotypical rural inmigrant is routinely portrayed as someone who escapes the harried city for a more "down-to-earth" way of life", and Halfacree (2008, p. 479) claims that "[t] his almost taken-for-granted presentation of wealthier people moving to rural areas is the dominant image today' (Stockdale 2016: 602) Even though it may seem that this process emerged in the decades of the 21 st century, rural and population researchers worldwide state that it can be rooted back to the 70s of 20 century or even the end of 60s (Elbersen 2000: 61) and that its birthplace way the USA, then it included most of Western Europe and Australia, and more recently-post-Socialist countries and part of Africa. (Stockdale 2016: 601;Gieling et all 2017: 238). Following its progress, we should cite the observation that if in the initial phase counter-urbanisation was motivated by the inspirations for better life and work, more recently it has something in common both with it and with the pressure of economic crises and more and more entrepreneurial manifestations (Anthropolou, Kaberis 2017: 2).
For further understanding of counter-urbanisation, I choose to refer to Sant and Simons (1993: 124) who propose fourth different explanations of counter-urbanisation: the ability to move, place utility, the willingness to move and regional restructuring. There is a term that entwines the nature of all 4 dimensions: "lifestyle migration". As Benson and O'Reilly (2009: 608) perceive the idea of lifestyle migrants, they are: "relatively affluent individuals of all ages, moving either part-time or fulltime to places that, for various reasons, signify, for the migrant, a better quality of life. Ethnographic accounts especially have revealed a narrative of escape permeating migrants' accounts of the decision to migrate, further emphasised by their negative presentations of life before migration. Migration is thus often described using language like 'getting out of the trap', 'making a fresh start', 'a new beginning'." The same authors classify three different "types of lifestyle migrant" (Benson, O'Reilly 2009: 611): residential tourism, bourgeois bohemians, and the rural idyll. This typology is however rather problematic. The nouns "residential tourism" and "rural idyll" indicate a particular background, even a cause, a motive, but they are not descriptive enough. I would prefer to call the category of people attracted from the rural idyll simply "urban-rural migrants".
There's no doubt that a main driving force for the decision to quit inhabiting a big city is the powerful image of the rural idyll. Countryside becomes the proper escape, the place where one will enjoy having enough time, pressure-free and unpolluted environment, and peaceful living. Yet, this may not always be the objective reality: "the presented advantages of life in the destination are often romanticised accounts, while the migrants' representations of the ills of their home society are often overstated" (Benson, O'Reilly 2009: 610).
It is a question of lifestyle, of opposing one lifestyle to another, of escaping the rules of urban life one doesn't want to obey anymore "After all, once we do know how almost every action we take is supporting the continuation of a way of life which we no longer believe in… then is there much choice other than to make a shift?", my research participant Brandon asked his audience around the circle table. This shift signifies "a break, a contrast, a turning point, and a new beginning" (Benson, O'Reilly 2009: 616). For Brandon: "The third step… holds a certain promise. It presents a certain challenge. A new horizon. A brush with the unknown." While focusing on the motivation of the urban-rural migrants, I draw on Jane Bennett who distinguishes between "cause" which is "a singular, stable, and masterful initiator of effects", and "origin" which is "a complex, mobile, and heteronomous enjoiner of forces" (Bennett 2010: 33;Arendt: 1953). Before examining the push and pull factors of urban-rural migration, it is important to point out that they operate together and in most cases are inseparable. Therefore, we can't speak about singular reasons, but better about origins, complexes.
A broad term that mixes great amount of pull factors is "amenities": "simply anything that shifts the household willingness to locate in a particular location. By definition, they are broadly defined and include weather, landscape, public services, public infrastructure, crime, ambience, and so on." (Partridge 2010: 518). If we refer to the need of experiencing the rural idyll, we can expect that more remote villages with a smaller amount of population that guaranties tranquillity should become a preferred destination. From esthetical point of view villages offering a scenic beauty and/or some reserved historical architecture (old-style houses built with natural materials 2 for example) have an advantage. But on the other hand, rural idyll gives way to the role of practical issues-the presence of services like regular daily public transportation, educational and healthcare institutions in a reasonable distance, marketplaces, etc. Migrants comprehend that buying an old naturally built house for example will result in investing great amount of finances in repairing and maintenance. Such is the situation with owning a property in a remote area with undeveloped infrastructure. Among the pull factors we should mention also the cheaper housing and moving in order to be closer to friends and family (Elshof, Haartsen 2017) And as the same scholars conclude: "For example, while some people are drawn to the remoteness of rural areas, others prefer to stay closer to metropolitan centres… we aim to show that whether a rural village is considered attractive depends on more factors than those of the rural idyll". Relative isolation is a feature of the rural idyll (Halfacree, 1995). Nevertheless, most people in rural areas prefer to live close to a metropolitan centre rather than in a remote place (Argent et al., 2009): "Living in a village close to an urban area gives people the opportunity to enjoy the attractive features of both rural and urban places… Whether a place is considered to be remote also depends on its access to transportation infrastructure". Gkartzios and Scott (2009) found for Ireland that rural places that were more connected to main roads and railways had higher growth rates than places that were less connected.
"It may be expected that being close to public transportation infrastructure is especially important for people who travel frequently; i.e., people of working age. However, as households in this age category in rural areas also often have at least two cars, they may not need to have access to public transportation. Meanwhile, older people may travel less than work-engaged people, but they may be more dependent on public transportation to get around, as car ownership levels are lower in this age category…" (Elshof, Haartsen 2017: 41).
The role of infrastructures is ubiquitous in terms of the fact that most of urban-rural migrants have some job considerations. On one hand, working for other employers is in contradiction with the idea of new life and escaping the "Matrix", to employ Brandon's term. As Stone and Stubbs (2007) state, quitting metropolitan life, including employment routine, was a further motivation for urban-rural migration. My research participant Mateusz confirms: "Work as little as possible. Have time for life". On the other hand, an aspect of beginning the "new life" is the undertaking of some new activities and it is not compulsory that they would be related to agriculture. In many cases migrants learn to practice some craft and to market the handmade production, start running a small business in the sphere of individualized rural tourism (Stone, Stubbs 2007) or work remotely for the digital sector.
"The extended scale of daily mobility has resulted in more opportunities to combine life in the village with social and professional networks at other locations (Smith, 2007;Boyle and Halfacree, 1998). In recent decades, physical and residential movement has been complemented by digital mobility (Salemink et al., 2016). Although some rural areas still have to cope with slow online connectivity, digital activities are having an increasing impact on the lives of rural residents" (Steenbekkers et al., 2006), (Gieling et all 2017: 238).
What distinguishes the new-comers from most of the indigenous residents is that the first usually have access to resources like money, time and better education. Because of that they are able to identify local social and economic problems and even involve in managing projects with the goal of improving different aspects of living conditions in the area.
"Counter-urbanites mostly do not take up farming activity but intervene in local affairs through involvement in local government, assuming community leadership by virtue of the advantages of their urban culture (a relatively high educational level, organizational and communicative skills, professional and social networking)... If they are not in the category of retirement migration (e.g. migrants returning to their place of origin), the types of employment most promising for active urbanites moving to the countryside are in the areas of rural entrepreneurship, ecology and countryside stewardship" (Anthropolou, Kaberis 2017: 2) As the same scholars claim, it is possible that the public discourse about returning to the land may be void of content and simply reproducing the romantic view of a rural idyll in which people make most of their living out of growing a garden and animal farming. (economic activities, social composition, consumption models, etc.) has had manifold effects…" (Anthropolou, Kaberis 2017: 1)

Figure 1: Factors for urban-rural migration
Earlier were mentioned some of the main push and pull factors for urbanrural migration (Table 1). It was also already pointed out that migrants come from different social milieus and therefore possess different skills. They share untypical adjustments to village life and more informed vision on how to live in unison with the contemporary understanding of sustainability. This fact not only influences their lifestyle, but in some cases may lead to consequences for the local economy and welfare in general. In the next part this perspective is broaden, by focusing on the quest for sustainability embraced by many of the urban-rural migrants.

"You can see the perpetuation of the system [sustainability once implemented], right on, generation after generation" (Brandon)
In the previous section we have seen what stays behind the idea of living in a rural idyll. Now let's return to the opening scene and discussions during Brandon's first lecture entitled "Leave the Matrix -build the Ark. Three steps to be taken". One of his main claims is that: "We are not all destined to live a life of simplicity on the land. But we are all in great need of finding our place in and amongst such. Not as parasites and stooges, but as participants, supporters and work mates." Although he has already explained to me he stopped long-time ago employing the overused word "sustainability", in fact, this was the exact topic of the talk. The attending candidates for urban-rural migration were debating what is "rotten" and what are the means to take the path to living in better conditions.
The idea of sustainable development-balancing human well-being with impacts on the biophysical environment, according to Dietz and Rosa (2009:114) is known "at least since the International Union for the Conservation of Nature issued its World Conservation Strategy (International Union for the Conservation of Nature 1980)". Since then scholars in different fields-from human geography through anthropology to psychology-have widely debated about how to define sustainability. Here I draw attention to three rather general definitions: "improving society's capacity to use the earth in ways that simultaneously ''meet the needs of a much larger but stabilizing human population, … sustain the life support systems of the planet, and… substantially reduce hunger and poverty" (Clark 2007(Clark : 1737 "A commonly used definition of sustainability is meeting the needs of the current society "without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations, 1987). (Ergas 2010: 32) "the harmless integration of human activities into the environment in a way that supports healthy human development in physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual ways, and is able to continue into the indefinite future (Kasper 2008: 13)" What the three definitions have in common is that they are focusing on needs. On one hand, it's the general need to think for the upcoming generations and the inheritance provided for them. On the other, it's our own societal needs which have a potential to damage this future environmental situation and by 'environmental' I mean not only living nature, but all material things in the Latourian sense as mediators (Latour 2005). Last, but not least, it's the personal quest every human being experiences-to be satisfied in ecological, social, and spiritual lines. Therefore, the third quote appears most descriptive and I argue that although strictly connected to nature and ecology, sustainability should be put in a wider context and should be generally thought as maintaining balance on all levels.
In the field of psychology, "sustainable behaviour (SB) generally encompasses a series of actions intended at protecting both the physical and the social environments. SB may be indicated by pro-ecological, frugal, altruistic, and equitable conducts and one of the aims of environmental psychology is to investigate the psychological consequences of such actions". (Corral-Verdugo et al. 2011: 95) In the view of my respondents, sustainability has different shapes and aspects, but they always include a philosophical attitude towards life and a reference to a kind of spirituality.
"Well, that you can live well adequately based on the resources available to you, providing you recycle waste matter, you practice ecological farming methods, you do not upset the balance of nature other than in some sort of emergency situations when you might have to. And you can see the system working in perpetuation, right on, generation after generation. So it should be, by the time you die and someone else inherits your farm, it should be better." (Brandon) "Sustainability contains of freedom plus when you resonate yourself with the Earth, it's the basis of sustainability. Based on the Golden rule-to threat others as you would like to be treated." (Kamil, an artist in his 30s who has a project for an art-house in a Polish village). It's not surprising that this broad term has become a subject of the so called "sustainability science" that "focuses on understanding the complex dynamics that arise from interactions between human and environmental systems" (Clark 2007(Clark : 1737. The huma -nature dichotomy is a classical and beloved frame in which scholars put variety of different topics and its connection with urban-rural migration is obvious. I would like to highlight the crucial role of one possible factor in this closed chain -the sustainable behavior of the individuals. What are the characteristics of such behavior? It results in the conservation of the physical environment. It protects individuals and groups -allows equitable access to the resources, and evaluates cooperation and altruism. It often opposes the hedonic goals. (Corral-Verdugo et al. 2011: 95, 98). In relation to the last, the same scientists conducted an interesting research project in the field of environmental psychology. They investigate whether happiness is a correlate of sustainable behaviour using Kaiser's table of ecological behaviour which includes 40 items (1998: 404-5). Although the participants were 606 undergraduate students at a public university in Ciudad Obregón, meaning they hardly have anything in common with urban-rural migrants, the conclusions are in harmony with the values of lifestyle migrants.
"We cannot conclude that the significant covariation between these two factors proves a causal relationship, with happiness being the effect and sustainable behavior the cause. Therefore, an experimental study is required in order to verify the assumption of a causal relationship … There is also an alternative explanation to the correlation between happiness and sustainable behavior: happiness positively influences sustainable acting (Bechtel and Corral-Verdugo, 2010).
One more possible explanation is that the causal flow between these two psychological factors is bidirectional: happier people act more sustainably and their behavior makes them feel more happiness (Corral-Verdugo et al. 2011: 103).
Sustainability-oriented lifestyle may seem like a natural and therefore light and even easy, but it becomes unbearable and extremely difficult to maintain, given the habits urban-rural migrants adopted while living in a contemporary urban environment. The list of challenges they face when trying to maintain sustainability includes: -such values aren't prevalent in the society (Henry 2009: 133), which in some cases makes sustainable choices impossible; -sometimes there are legal barriers (Kasper 2008: 20)-for example prohibitions on building with natural materials, composting toilets, alternative forms of construction, energy and sewage systems; -self-sufficiency from local institutions and infrastructures becomes unachievable (Ergas 2010: 47)-cars, popular media, "artificial" food; -often people don't know, can't imagine, how environmental system reacts to their actions and what is actually harmful (Henry 2009: 133); -there is no monolithic vision on how to achieve the goal of living sustainably (Ergas 2010: 39)-everyday activities aren't enough influential and aren't so likely to attract new adherents.

Conclusion
"A lot of people are interested, but few will be determined to make it," Brandon admits the harsh truth. "Not many [people are turning into it]. It's a slow process-educating the others. And I would say, since we've been working on it -14 years-, 8 to 10% more people [in Poland] have become aware or a little bit aware," he ends our interview in unison with my own conclusions.
The results of my analysis suggest that urban-rural migrants encounter problems in almost every stage of the process of their migration. Firstly, I argued that the images of the rural idyll can drive people's decision and that although these images appear to be different from the real situation, they are among the basic pull factors. In relation to this I established the key opposition in the research-migrants' lives before and after. Taking into account the particularities of everyday life prior to and following the decision to migrate, lifestyle migration from urban to rural areas is seen as an opportunity to start living a better life. To a certain extent, migrants obey a mix of ecological, social and "spiritual" lines with the aim to gradually reach self-sustainability and partial self-sufficiency.
Finally, we see how urban-rural migrants can influence the rural regions they're inhabiting. The next stage of this research would be to investigate social change in the villages following the implementation of urbanites in villages. Coming from a milieu way different than the local one, they consider themselves as possessing a great number of esteemed skills in entrepreneurship, managing projects, dealing with arts and crafts, etc. In the long run, the question is whether they can positively impact local development and contribute to increase peoples' wellbeing in rural context.