MALASREE NEEPA ACHARYA
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
»‘Brain-Gain’ - Return of India’s High Skilled Entrepreneurs: Home, Transformation and Power in the Cosmopolitan Global South«
ABSTRACT
This dissertation investigates why entrepreneurs of Indian origin are returning from residing in the EU and US to cosmopolitan cities in India and how they construct their lives. The project interrogates the policy and political implications of the migration of a diasporic elite global citizenry to Global South cities of return. India’s growth attributed to cross border diasporic networks of Indians has given rise to a generation of permanently returning migrants to India’s cosmopolitan cities. The project draws upon elite hybrid, trans-migrant imaginaries of home that are reshaping ideologies, infrastructures, and social relations in India and the West. It captures both sides of the migration process through interviews in Silicon Valley (California, USA) and London (UK) as well as a 12-month ethnographic fieldwork study in Bangalore, India.
BIOGRAPHY
Malasree Neepa Acharya is a doctoral researcher at the Institute for European Studies in Brussels. She is an alumna of Stanford University with an M.A. in Cultural and Social Anthropology (2007) and a B.A. Honors (2006) in Public Policy and Music. Neepa’s research combines ethnographic enquiry within public policy analysis at local and global levels. She has worked for Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and as an analyst at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), University of Alaska. In 2007, Neepa arrived in Belgium as a fellow of the Belgian American Education Foundation and the Vlaamse Overheid, pursuing historical violin performance.
PUBLICATIONS
Malasree Neepa Acharya (2007): The Economic Impacts of Paraprofessional Health Aide Programs on the Village and Regional Economies Model, Technical Report, Medicaid Template and User Guide, prepared for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), University of Alaska-Anchorage.
Malasree Neepa Acharya (2007): Red Dog TANF Work Program Summary and Proposal, in: An Analysis of Economic Significance and Impact in Red Dog Mines Alaska, ISER, University of Alaska-Anchorage.
Paulla Ebron, Ewa Domanska, Malasree Neepa Acharya (2007): Pastoral Nostalgia and Urban Imagination in Jibanmukhi gaan in Calcutta (1974-1994), Stanford University, September 2007.
John B. Shoven, Malasree Neepa Acharya (2006): Welfare Reform and the Alaska Native: Analyzing the Incentives for Alaska Natives to Participate in Welfare and Public Assistance Programs,” Stanford University, ISER, University of Alaska-Anchorage, September 2006.