UoH faculty visits Germany

Hyderabad: 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, Germany. During her visit she delivered 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. Rayaprol also had an interaction session with doctoral students who are part of project ‘Single’ and also a part of the larger research project which 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. Prof. Rayaprol has been till recently the director of the Study in India Programme (SIP) at UoH. Her areas of interest include Gender Studies, Indian Diaspora, qualitative research methods and Urban Sociology.