Going First Class?

Vered Amit is Professor of Anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of Manchester and is the author or editor of 11 books including Young Men in Uncertain Times (co-ed with Noel Dyck, Berghahn, 2011), The Biographical Dictionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology (Routledge, 2004), and The Trouble with Community (co-ed with Nigel Rapport).

• Chapter 1. Structures and Dispositions of Travel and MovementVered AmitChapter 2. Middle-Class Japanese Housewives and the Experience of Transnational MobilitySawa KurotaniChapter 3. Living in a Bubble: Expatriates’ Transnational SpacesMeike FechterChapter 4. Globalization through “Weak Ties”: A Study of Transnational Networks Among Mobile ProfessionalsVered AmitChapter 5. Traveling Images, Lives on Location: Cinematographers in the Film IndustryCathy GreenhalghChapter 6. Privileged Travelers? Migration Narratives in Families of Middle-Class Caribbean BackgroundKaren Fog OlwigChapter 7. How Privileged Are They? Middle-Class Brazilian Immigrants in LisbonAngela TorresanChapter 8. Imagined Communitas: Older Migrants and Aspirational MobilityCaroline OliverChapter 9. Privileged Time: Volunteers’ Experiences at a Spiritual Retreat Center in HawaiiMargaret C. RodmanNotes on ContributorsIndex

“Drawing on a diverse set of ethnographic case studies, Going First Classteases out the scope and implications of the relatively privileged circumstances under which middle-class transnational mobilities are being undertaken..As such, the volume provides an in-depth anthropological answer to the proponents of the ‘mobility turn’ in the social sciences.” • Journal of Anthropological Research“The publication of this book… is timely… Interesting and accessibly written, Going First Class? offers not only ethnographically rich reflections on the subject of privileged travel, but… it provides valuable critical insights on the nature of places and the methodological issues surrounding their study.” • JRAI“…this collection of chapters deserves to be widely read and discussed – together, they demonstrate the imperative for ethnographic research in conversation, but not necessarily in cahoots, with reigning critical theories of modernity and the contemporary world.” • Social Anthropology