"Would I Have Been Better Off There?" Comparison, Need, and Conduciveness in Finnish Emigrant’s Account
Abstract
Processes of comparison are central when we make our decisive choices of ways of living. This article is based on an interview with an immigrant who negotiates with himself over why he went away from Finland and why he stayed in South Africa. His line of argument can be analysed using Abraham Maslow’s theory of human motivation. Conduciveness turns out to be his main motivation, and comparison is, implicitly or explicitly, a tool for verbalising this conduciveness.Keywords
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, the author(s) and users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) under the following conditions: 1. they must attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor, 2. they may not use this contribution for commercial purposes, 3. they may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
Authors retain the following rights:
- copyright, and other proprietary rights relating to the article, such as patent rights,
- the right to use the substance of the article in future own works, including lectures and books,
- the right to reproduce the article for own purposes, provided the copies are not offered for sale,
- the right to self-archive the article.
