Consuming the neighbourhood? Temporary highly skilled migrants in Montreal’s Mile End

Abstract

ABSTRACT The neighbourhood of Mile End, in Montreal, Canada, is known to be a transient, multicultural hub, home to successive waves of migrants. It is internationally acclaimed in popular travel blogs and world lists of ‘hip’ neighbourhoods on the basis of indicators such as number of artists per square kilometre, café culture, and established independent shops. Yet a core of socially involved and rooted residents nurture the village-like vibe of the area. In the past decades, the eastern industrial zone of Mile End has seen a concentration of IT, gaming and film industries rise considerably, especially with the arrival of a large multinational company that brought a significant demographic of mostly affluent professional 20- and 30-something males. Local companies are recruiting temporary high-skilled migrants to respond to a growing demand for various types of designers and programmers. This paper documents the localised everyday life experience of temporary professional migrants’ in the neighbourhood. It considers migrants’ influence on the revitalisation of the area, and their the impact on the urban culture. Ethnographic data on how temporary migrants’ struggle for integration into forms of civic engagement are juxtaposed against their transnational urban lifestyles mostly defined by modes of consumption.