NRIs in the City

Abstract

This article explores the role of international Indian migrants in metropolitan dynamics in India by identifying the different channels through which they invest in real estate, thus making themselves actors of the urban fabric. By adopting a chronological perspective, it analyses the articulations between economic liberalization, the diaspora-orientated policy of the Indian government and the relations between the wealthy section of migrants and India, their country of origin. Here we aim to demonstrate the importance of investigating the financial dimension of transnational flows, which has been largely overlooked by migration studies, as well as the necessity to consider migrants as actors in the ‘worlding’ of cities in the Global South. One key methodological point here addresses the exploration of online tools developed by the corporate sector as well as by migrants and which have become platforms for an emerging transnational real-estate market.