International Migration Institute

Malasree Neepa Acharya presents her paper '‘Brain-gain' return of India’s high-skilled entrepreneurs: Home, transformation, and power politics in the cosmopolitan global south' in Parallel session V(D) of the conference Examining Migration Dynamics This paper investigates the impact of entrepreneurs of Indian origin as social and economic actors that are choosing to return to emerging cities in India. I ask how do entrepreneurs of Indian origin who have lived for a substantial time in the US and/or EU construct their lives upon returning to cosmopolitan cities in India and what factors affect their actions. Entrepreneurs, self-employed owners, financers and managers of their own business or enterprise, are a specific subset of high skilled migrants who take charge of their destinies. I theorize that entrepreneurs— as a unique action-oriented subset of returning elites (Heberer 1999, Drucker 1975)—create their work and home space as a reflection of their hybrid subjectivities and life experiences as cosmopoli