Book Launch for GRINGOLANDIA: Lifestyle Migration under Late Capitalism

Discussion with author Matthew Hayes (Associate Professor, Sociology, St. Thomas University)

The book provides a look at today’s “reverse” migration of white, middle-class expats from north to south through the perspective of Cuenca, Ecuador—the country’s third-largest city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Regardless of their individual motivations, Hayes argues that such North–South migrants remain embedded in unequal and unfair global social relations. He explores the repercussions on the host country—from rising prices for land and rent to the reproduction of colonial patterns of domination and subordination.