ABSTRACT
Resident foreigners own the largest properties in Deia, a village of 700 inhabitants on the northwest coast of Mallorca, Spain and draw on assumed superior knowledge, wealth and cosmopolitan experience to influence and appropriate what they deem as village landscapes and activities, often in contrast to Mallorquins’ experiences and expectations of village life. Foreigners have appropriated local and space-specific symbols (landscape, climate, architecture, celebrations, public spaces, cafés, food styles and more) and now interpret and share these with other foreigners. The diverse and expanding foreign population claims to represent ‘local people and places’ and it is their images that are projected in conversations and publicised in foreign press. Musician Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s favourite restaurants are mentioned in The London Times, hotel hideaway La Residencia (once owned by Richard Branson, now part of the Orient Express group) is featured as the ‘place to be seen’ and Robert Graves’ poetry and prose, written over his 50-year residence in Mallorca, are on display in his home-turned-museum. In 2009 Forbes magazine listed Deia as the tenth best place to live in Europe.
