go native

Verb

go native (third-person singular simple present goes native, present participle going native, simple past went native, past participle gone native)

1. (idiomatic) To adopt the lifestyle or outlook of local inhabitants, especially when dwelling in a colonial region.
   • […]for St. Xavier's looks down on boys who ‘go native all-together.’ One must never forget that one is a Sahib, and that some day, when examinations are passed, one will command natives.1900 December – 1901 October, Rudyard Kipling, chapter VII, in Kim, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1901, →OCLC, page 177
   • He was an extraordinary figure, with his red beard and matted hair, and his great hairy chest. His feet were horny and scarred, so that I knew he went always bare foot. He had gone native with a vengeance.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 53, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   acculturate, assimilate, integrate

2. (idiomatic) Of a contractor or consultant, to begin working directly as an employee for a company and cease to work through a contracting firm or agency.
   • […] we had to stop putting job-hunting colonels in charge of AFPRO detachments in the plants. It almost always happened that they went native and began to represent the contractor rather than the government.1989, Arthur Ernest Fitzgerald, The Pentagonists, page 204