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A job in Dubai and an apartment in Bangalore

This article engages migration studies and urban studies to examine the differentiated roles of highly skilled Indian migrants in the metropolitan real estate markets of the UAE and India. It aims at highlighting their transnational engagement in the property market ‘back home’ in the absence of conditions for a real cosmopolitan social fabric in the UAE. Despite the demographic significance of Indian migrants in the UAE, the illiberal politics of migration management prevailing in the UAE have relegated them to transience. Dubai has been at the forefront of certain reforms to encourage foreigners to invest in the local property market, with uncertain results so far. Conversely the Indian real estate sector has developed techniques to capture migrant remittances and channel them into the booming metropolitan property markets of India. I will explore these mechanisms with a focus on the fast-growing South Indian metropolis of Bangalore through a qualitative multi-sited research project conducted in Bangalore and Dubai. It aims at highlighting the importance of transnational connexions between the urban fabric of these two cities, and more generally the significance of international migrations and remittances for urban dynamics in the Global South.