“I left too late, I go back too often”: Sentiments of belonging and home among Indian scholars in the United Kingdom

Abstract

This paper addresses current notions of belonging amongst Indian scholars in social sciences building an academic career in the United Kingdom. Drawing on concluded PhD research in social anthropology, it articulates a multi-sited ethnography of centres of research and in-depth interviews. This research project acknowledges the fact that while the literature on circulations of scholars is vast and continues to grow, ethnographic studies on this matter are still rare. For this reason, this paper focuses on an ethnographic comprehension, based on everyday conversations and evocative situations, of these lives that are built in a context of mobility. Here, I address notions of diaspora, global citizenship and cosmopolitanism as relevant hermeneutic tools for the comprehension of transnational sentiments of belonging amongst these scholars. At stake are intersectional elements that include class, gender, origin and caste, in the construction of transnational academic circulations.