From Pi to Pie: Moral Narratives of Noneconomic Migration and Starting Over in the Postindustrial Midwest

Abstract

Research introduced here examines the impact of social and structural transitions during the past three decades on middle-class working families in the United States. Through the telling narrative of an especially iconic case of urban-to-rural migration and career change, this article explores the meaning of relocation away from metropolitan areas and corporate careers to growing ex-urban, small-town communities. The author interprets this life-style migration as a manner of personally negotiating tension between experience of material demands in pursuit of a livelihood within the flexible New Economy and prevailing cultural conventions for the good life that shape the moral narratives that define individual character. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research involving interview and observation of recent migrants to Northern Michigan, this article contributes to our understanding of noneconomic migration and its part in the changing moral meanings of work in postindustrial America.