Dr M.S. Amrith

Megha Amrith is an Associate Professor of Globalisation and Transnationalism . She is an anthropologist and interdisciplinary scholar with a focus on migrant labor, care, ageing, inequalities, and wellbeing, primarily in Southeast Asia, and drawing upon comparative ethnographic and transnational perspectives. 

She is Principal Investigator of a five-year ERC Consolidator Grant 'WELL-ASIA: The Pursuit of Wellness in Southeast Asia: New Encounters and Inequalities in an Emerging Industry'. The project examines the wellness industry in Southeast Asia - with specific focus on Singapore, Chiang Mai and Bali - looking at the uneven interactions between those who labour in the industry (many of them migrant workers), the travellers and consumers of wellness experiences,  and the local communities involved. 

Megha is author of Caring for Strangers: Filipino Medical Workers in Asia (NIAS Press, 2017) and co-editor of the volumes Aspiring in Later Life: Movements Across Time, Space, and Generations, with V.K. Sakti and D. Sampaio, Rutgers University Press 2023) and  Gender, Work and Migration: Agency in Gendered Labour Settings (with N. Sahraoui, Routledge, 2018).  She is currently Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Global Networks: a journal of transnational affairs. 

Prior to joining FASoS, Megha was leader of the Max Planck Research Group 'Ageing in a Time of Mobility' (2017-2024), which examined the intersections between ageing and migration in regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America.  She previously also carried out research on migrant labour in São Paulo and Barcelona and spent a few years working to bridge academic and policy perspectives on migration and mobility.