Diaspora alumni networks as transnational governance actors

Abstract

AbstractDiasporas are increasingly seen as an economic resource and new agents in sending state development regimes. The nature of these state‐diaspora relationships are matters of increasing interest to scholars. In this paper we examine the case of India and the current government's engagement with diaspora groups, especially alumni networks of Indian Institutes of Technology and Management. Alumni networks provide conduits for diasporas to inform homeland affairs and for home nations to project their brand of soft power and technological modernity, suggesting novel and emerging forms of transnational governance particularly in education and technological development. We offer a critical conceptual review of these issues by tracing prominent Indian diaspora alumni actors and emerging transnational diasporic governance networks and how these might inflect “national” policy frameworks in sending countries through the reproduction of caste and class privilege.