Local responses to global nomads

Combining travel with remote work was once a relatively niche lifestyle. But these days, digital nomadism has matured into the mainstream.

This surge in numbers – a reported 131 per cent growth post-pandemic – is matched by a corresponding growth in public awareness and media attention. And interestingly, much of it is critical.

Many of these criticisms focus on the role nomads (and remote workers) play in processes like gentrification and other forms of community disruption, including the shift from local languages to English.

Some even claim digital nomadism is a form of neo-colonialism or neo-imperialism.

But any serious analysis of this global lifestyle trend needs to acknowledge the equally active and significant roles played by other factors.

For example, growing numbers of countries promote tax incentives and offer digital nomad visas to attract these itinerant individuals.

Government policies like this often put the interests of the global middle class ahead of their own citizens by creating opportunities for local landlords to charge higher rents than they otherwise could.

This contributes to existing problems that tourism and other forms of travel create in places like Barcelona and Lisbon, including low rental stock for locals and over-touristed public spaces.

A more nuanced analysis

We must also recognise that different countries and communities around the world have their own histories, economies and cultures, which have consequences for how well – if at all – nomads are integrated into the social fabric.

This isn’t to trivialise the very real impact nomads have on gentrifying places and overwhelming local housing markets. Nor does it absolve them of their responsibility for making life more difficult for the locals who graciously host and support their lifestyle.

But it acknowledges the complexity and variability of this transnational phenomenon, one which requires a more nuanced consideration.

For example, recent research in Gran Canaria, Spain, by Olga Hannonen (one of this article’s authors) and colleagues found diverse local stakeholders expressed an overall welcoming attitude to the digital nomad community, viewing them as a much-needed injection of human capital and economic activity.

These positive responses come from both businesses that directly profit from digital nomads, and residents who gain no direct economic benefit but interact with them in their daily lives.

Often, these resident-nomad encounters take place in shared public spaces like local cafes or restaurants, which frequently overlap as workspaces for nomads alongside their broader social function as spaces of consumption and community.

Segregation between nomads and locals

But this potential to consume and connect with locals in ‘third places’ isn’t universal, particularly in the Global South.

Recent fieldwork by Shaun Busuttil (also an author of this article) in Bali, Indonesia, found local-nomad interactions in cafes and restaurants were primarily transactional, taking place over the counter between local staff and foreign customers.

In what could be viewed as a form of socio-spatial segregation, nomads often work, eat and drink in different places to locals, segregated not by explicit discriminatory policies but by the literal cost of consumption and significant income disparities.

For example, in places like Bali, AU$5 for a coffee in a trendy cafe popular with nomads and remote workers is too high for locals earning a minimum daily wage of around $10.

On a Global North salary, however, it’s par for the course.

In places where developed tourism infrastructures serve primarily foreign and relatively wealthy customers, the only locals typically found inside are the service staff who support the labouring efforts of these middle-class cosmopolitans.

Culture clashes between nomads and locals

Moreover, recent media reports of tourists behaving badly in Bali indicate a more ambivalent attitude amongst the Balinese towards foreigners – and, by implication, digital nomads – on cultural grounds, despite repeated efforts by the Indonesian government to appeal to this mobile population.

While contributing substantially to the regional economy through investment and spending, their disruptive influence on the island’s cultural identity has stirred some community pushback.

This stands in contrast to nomadic communities in Europe, where a shared Western background between nomads and locals suggest a more seamless (potential) integration.

Neoliberal adaptations

The differences between how nomads are received in Gran Canaria and Bali reveal the significance of culture and (global) class in local community sentiments towards digital nomads.

This has implications for local-nomad relations, but also points to much broader systemic issues and the perpetuation of geopolitical power privileges that nomads simply exploit.

At the same time, it’s important to understand that digital nomads are often escaping gentrified cities and places themselves, taking advantage of structural inequalities and squeezing the benefits of geoarbitrage (earning in a strong economy while living somewhere low-cost) to maximise their quality of life.

But by pursuing this end, they ultimately pass the buck of gentrification into new locales, which just makes it harder for local people to achieve that same coveted end.

These divergent responses to digital nomadism – from warmth to weariness – illustrate the importance of context in how local communities accommodate digital nomads.

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