Prof. Aparna Rayaprol, faculty in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hyderabad (UoH ) was recently invited by the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, at the University of Heidelberg. She gave a talk on “Return Migration and the Transformation of Hyderabad City”.
In her talk Prof. Rayaprol looked at the ways in which India has become an important destination not only for IT investments but for its Diaspora to actually return. Hyderabad is one of the cities which has been transforming and been interacting with this returnees. Real estate developers and educational entrepreneurs have been trying to woo the returnees as investors and clients for their international ventures. As a student of Indian diaspora, I am looking at return not as finality but as a part of global movements, she added.
Prof. Aparna Rayaprol interacting with Doctoral Students who are part of the project SINGLE
Apart from that she was discussant at the Summer Seminar Film Series: “At Home in the City“ Film title: “Delhi, Mumbai, Delhi“ (2006). Prof. Rayaprol also had an interaction session with Doctoral Students who are part of the SINGLE who are part of the larger research project the centre has on Cultural Geographies and Gendered Spaces in Delhi and Shanghai. SINGLE is a project on single women funded by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) Creating the ‘New Asian Woman’ – Entanglements of Urban Space, Cultural Encounters and Gendered Identities in Shanghai and Delhi (http://herasingle.uni-hd.de).
Prof. Rayaprol has been till recently the Director of the Study in India Program at UoH. Her areas of interest include Gender Studies, Indian Diaspora, qualitative re¬search methods and Urban Sociology.