Naheed G Aaftaab

Narrative

My dissertation examines the interconnections of local cultural
identities and processes of globalization in the growing information
technology (IT) middle-class in Hyderabad, India.  My research is two-
fold; first, I examine the intertwining of new international labor
and consumer practices with local cultural practices; and second, I
focus on the way that poverty and philanthropy are being re-imagined
in a new middle-class community with greater access to international
networks.  What meanings are given to the international aspect of
work in terms of interconnectivity, job mobility, and new consumer
powers by those benefiting from the IT sector? As IT specialists are
drawn increasingly into global networks, how are their understandings
of poverty, inequality and philanthropy reshaped; and what does their
community involvement look like?  In the growing literature on
philanthropy in urban India there have been no attempts to understand
the relationship between globalizing work and consumption and
localized philanthropy, especially in the growing middle-class.