Paper short abstract:

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork among high-skilled return migrants in India. It focuses on the so-called gated communities in different Indian metropolises, where these returnees are residing. We study these sites as hubs of convergence between transnational and local migration.

Paper long abstract:

Our fieldwork amongst foreign-returned knowledge workers in Hyderabad and Pune in India, indicated that the gated communities in which they tend to cluster, could be studied as places where transnational and internal migration converge. In the paper we analyze (1) the component of internal migration in the life trajectory of the transnational and highly skilled migrant and his/her kin and (2) the migratory journeys of their staff, typically maids, drivers, security personnel and plumbers. The latter are employed by these return migrants at their residential (gated) communities, and provide narratives of internal/regional/local and even transnational migrations and (3) we analyze the broader significance and impact of such migratory convergence. We reflect on the differences between these forms of migration but simultaneously underscore their mutual dependence.