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People travel as never before. However, anthropological research has tended to focus primarily on either labor migration or on tourism. In contrast, this collection of essays explores a diversity of circumstances and impetuses towards contemporary mobility. It ranges from expatriates to peripatetic professionals to middle class migrants in search of extended educational and career opportunities to people seeking self development through travel, either by moving after retirement or visiting educational retreats. These situations, however, converge in the significant resources, variously of finances, time, credentials or skills, which these voyagers are able to call on in embarking on their respective journeys. Accordingly, this volume seeks to tease out the scope and implications of the relatively privileged circumstances under which these voyages are being undertaken.
“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
Chapter 1. Structures and Dispositions of Travel and Movement
Vered Amit
Chapter 2. Middle-Class Japanese Housewives and the Experience of Transnational Mobility
Sawa Kurotani
Chapter 3. Living in a Bubble: Expatriates’ Transnational Spaces
Meike Fechter
Chapter 4. Globalization through “Weak Ties”: A Study of Transnational Networks Among Mobile Professionals
Vered Amit
Chapter 5. Traveling Images, Lives on Location: Cinematographers in the Film Industry
Cathy Greenhalgh
Chapter 6. Privileged Travelers? Migration Narratives in Families of Middle-Class Caribbean Background
Karen Fog Olwig
Chapter 7. How Privileged Are They? Middle-Class Brazilian Immigrants in Lisbon
Angela Torresan
Chapter 8. Imagined Communitas: Older Migrants and Aspirational Mobility
Caroline Oliver
Chapter 9. Privileged Time: Volunteers’ Experiences at a Spiritual Retreat Center in Hawaii
Margaret C. Rodman
Notes on Contributors
Index