What draws people to study abroad or volunteer in far-off communities? Often the answer is romance – the romance of landscapes, people, languages, the very sense of border-crossing – and longing for liberation, attraction to the unknown, yearning to make a difference. This volume explores the complicated and often fraught desires to study and volunteer abroad. In doing so, the book sheds light on how affect is managed by educators and mobilized by students and volunteers themselves, and how these structures of feeling relate to broader social and economic forces.

“The volume provides us with some valuable insights … as an increasing number, if still a minority, of students take up opportunities to spend some of their education in a stay abroad. This book should, therefore, be particularly useful for students and professionals in the fields of mobility studies, international education and education more broadly.” Anthropological Forum

Neriko Musha Doerr received a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Cornell University. She currently teaches at Ramapo College, U.S.A. Hannah Davis Taïeb has a Phd in anthropology from New York University. She is an independent international educator teaching community engagement and intercultural communication in Paris. She was Resident Director at CIEE-Paris from 2003 to 2015.