Vered Amit

Current Research Interests

Mobilities: an ongoing preoccupation with the workings of and intersections between different forms of transnational mobility. Of particular interest has been an exploration of the disjunctures that can be sought through mobility and the implications of these discontinuities for the development and attenuation of various forms of sociality. Projects exploring these issues include:

1. Coming of Age as Dual Nationals

An Anthropological Study of Belonging and Mobility among Young Canadians. This research project considers the implications of inherited dual citizenship for youths and young adults as they embark on key life transitions and attendant choices about education, employment and/or residence. Since young persons inheriting this status are usually negotiating the effects of choices made by their parents regarding migration, naturalization or registration, the project also considers the workings of multiple citizenships as these are refracted across different generations of families who have been able to pass on EU or American citizenship to children who are also Canadian nationals.

2. A study of Canadian student travel abroad

This project explores the ramifications of the expanding panoply of programs eliciting and encouraging student travel abroad, the increasing valorization of 'international experience' as a rite of passage for middle class western youths and the experiences entailed in and orientations cultivated through such travel.

3. Reconceptualizations of sociality with a particular emphasis on concepts of community as well as disjunction

This interest has involved the production of an edited volume (Realizing Community) and a co-authored volume (The Trouble with Community) with Nigel Rapport. Another volume by Amit and Rapport on this topic is forthcoming. This interest has also involved exchanges with a small international network of anthropologists who have been meeting regularly both on line and in workshops.

4. Career, Home and Movement among Travelling Professionals

This work focused on transnationality, conceptions of home, orientations towards mobility, the social production of knowledge and expertise among consultants based in Canada whose work involves frequent and ongoing transnational assignments.

5. Globalization and Transnationality in the Cayman Islands

Focused on the development of offshore finance and tourism industries in the Cayman Islands and the accompanying reliance on a large expatriate labour force. Examined issues of citizenship, expatriacy, transnational connections, notions of home, belonging and migration.