Noel B. Salazar is Research Professor in Anthropology at the University of Leuven. He is the author of Envisioning Eden (Berghahn, 2010) and numerous journal articles, book chapters, and edited volumes on the anthropology of mobility and travel. He is the founder of Cultural Mobilities Research (CuMore) and the EASA Anthropology and Mobility Network (AnthroMob).

List of Illustrations

Foreword
Vered Amit

Preface

Introduction: Mapping Mobility

PART I: IMAGINING MOBILITY

Chapter 1. Chile: Traveling to and from the End of the World
Chapter 2. Indonesia: Merantau and Modernity
Chapter 3. Tanzania: The Maasai as Icons of Mobility

PART II: ENACTING MOBILITY

Chapter 4. Education: Leaving to Learn
Chapter 5. Labor: Capitalizing on Movement
Chapter 6. Life's "Pilgrimage": Travel, Travail, Transformation

Conclusion: Mobile Futures

References
Index

Grounded in scholarly analysis and personal reflection, and drawing on a multi-sited and multi-method research design, Momentous Mobilities disentangles the meanings attached to temporary travels and stays abroad and offers empirical evidence as well as novel theoretical arguments to develop an anthropology of mobility. Both focusing specifically on how various societies and cultures imagine and value boundary-crossing mobilities "elsewhere" and drawing heavily on his own European lifeworld, the author examines momentous travels abroad in the context of education, work, and spiritual quests and the search for a better quality of life.