Carol Upadhya

HONORARY VISITING PROFESSOR

Administrative Position

Head

School

School of Social Sciences

Programme

Urban and Mobility Studies

Phone

080-22185141

E-mail

carol.upadhya@nias.res.in

Room no

S-4

Carol_Upadhya_2025.pdf

Department

Faculty

Carol Upadhya, a social anthropologist, has researched and published widely on a range of social transformations related to development, economic change, urbanization, provincial capital, labour and migration in contemporary India.

Prof. Upadhya was Co-director of the Provincial Globalisation and Speculative Urbanism projects at NIAS. She has received research grants from the National Science Foundation (USA), Azim Premji Foundation, Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), WOTRO Science for Global Development of the NWO (Netherlands), and the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (Netherlands).

She has been a visiting scholar at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies (SCAS), Uppsala, Sweden; Central European University, Budapest; Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Goettingen, Germany; and the International Institute of Asian Studies, Amsterdam.

Professor Upadhya’s latest publication is a co-edited volume (with Vinay Gidwani and Michael Goldman), Chronicles of a Global City: Speculative Lives and Unsettled Futures in Bengaluru (University of Minnesota Press, 2024). She is the author of Reengineering India: Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy (Oxford University Press, 2016) and co-editor of Provincial Globalization in India: Transregional Mobilities and Development Politics (Routledge, 2018).

Upadhya is Co-editor of the Journal of South Asian Development and serves on the Editorial Board for Contributions to Indian Sociology.

Publications

Urban Migration, Skilling and Employment in the New Service Economy

Reengineering India: Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy

In an Outpost of the Global Economy: Work and Workers in India’s Information Technology Industry

Provincial Globalization in India: Transregional Mobilities and Development Politics

Special Issue on ‘Reconsidering the Region in India’

Engineering equality? Education and im/mobility in coastal Andhra Pradesh, India

Assembling Amaravati: Speculative accumulation in a new Indian city

Caste at the City’s Edge: Land Struggles in Peri-urban Bengaluru

Skill training has become a numbers game

India’s changing cityscapes: Work, migration and livelihoods

Articulation work: Value chains of land assembly and real estate development on a peri-urban frontier

Crafting new service workers: skill training, migration and employment in Bengaluru, India

Dispossession without displacement: Producing property through slum redevelopment in Bengaluru, India

Migration, skilling, and employment in Bengaluru’s new service economy

Rural Real Estate: Empty Urbanisation and the Agrarian Land Transition

Cultures of work in India's new economy

A love for land: transregional property investments in Andhra

Ghurye, Govind Sadashiv (1893–1983)

Capitalizing on the Future: Negotiating Planned Urbanization in South India

Employment, exclusion and ‘merit’ in the Indian IT industry

Shrink-wrapped souls: Managing the self in India’s new economy

Return of the ‘Global Indian’: Software professionals and the worlding of Bangalore

Software and the 'new' middle class in the 'New India'

India's 'New Middle Class' and the Globalising City: Software Professionals in Bangalore, India

Rewriting the Code: Software Professionals and the Reconstitution of Indian Middle Class Identity

Management of Culture and Managing through Culture in the Indian Software Outsourcing Industry

The idea of Indian society: G.S.Ghurye and the making of Indian Sociology

Colonial anthropology, law, and adivasi struggles: The case of Jharkhand

Recasting Land: Agrarian Urbanism in Amaravati

Introduction: Reconsidering the Region in India: Mobilities, Actors and Development Politics

Afterword: Middle Class Activism and Bangalore's Environmental Predicament

Amaravati and the New Andhra: Reterritorialization of a Region

Mario Rutten (1958-2015)- Obituaries

Migration, transnational flows and development in India: A regional perspective

Imagining India: Software and the ideology of liberalisation

Ethnographies of the Global Information Economy: Research Strategies and Methods

Employment, Exclusion and 'Merit' in the Indian IT Industry

Community Rights in Land in Jharkhand

A New Transnational Capitalist Class?: Capital Flows, Business Networks and Entrepreneurs in the Indian Software Industry

Bangalore's 'Great Transformation' - The Problem

Introduction: Transregional mobilities and provincial transitions in India

Caste and Capital

Chronicles of a Global City: Speculative Lives and Unsettled Futures in Bengaluru

Controlling offshore knowledge workers: Power and agency in India's software outsourcing industry

The Farmer-Capitalists of Coastal Andhra Pradesh

Taking the high road? Labour in the Indian software outsourcing industry

Law, custom, and adivasi identity: Politics of land rights in Chotanagpur

Work, Culture, and Sociality in the Indian IT Industry: A Sociological Study

Ghurye, Govind Sadashiv (1893–1983)

Return of the Non-Resident, ethnographic film by Vanaja C.

Coding Culture: Bangalore’s Software Industry, series of three ethnographic films (with Gautam Sonti)

Crafting new service workers: skill training, migration and employment in Bengaluru, India

Urban Migration, Skilling, and Employment in the New Service Economy

	Carol Upadhya Chronicles of a Global City: Speculative Lives and Unsettled Futures in Bengaluru Co-Edited with Vinay Gidwani and Michael Goldman. University of Minnesota Press 2024
	Carol Upadhya, Mario Rutten, Leah Koskimaki Urban and Mobility Studies Provincial Globalization in India: Transregional Mobilities and Development Politics Routledge, London: Edinburgh South Asian Studies Series, 2018 2018
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Reengineering India: Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy Delhi: Oxford University Press 2016
	Carol Upadhya, A R Vasavi co-edited Urban and Mobility Studies In an Outpost of the Global Economy: Work and Workers in India’s Information Technology Industry Edited Volume. New Delhi: Routledge, 2008 2008

	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Urban Migration, Skilling, and Employment in the New Service Economy Upadhya, C., Roy Chowdhury, S. (2025). Urban Migration, Skilling, and Employment in the New Service Economy. In: Nayak, S. (eds) Policy Recommendations for Sustainable Development, Volume 2. NIAS Policy Briefs. Springer, Singapore. 2025
	Carol Upadhya Caste and Capital In: The Oxford Handbook of Caste. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198896715 2023
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Cultures of work in India's new economy In: Sanjay Srivastava,Yasmeen Arif and Janaki Abraham (Eds), Critical themes in Indian sociology, New Delhi: Sage 2021
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Rural Real Estate: Empty Urbanisation and the Agrarian Land Transition In: Sujata Patel (Ed). Neoliberalism, Urbanization and Aspirations in Contemporary India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2021 2021
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies A love for land: transregional property investments in Andhra In: C Upadhya, M Rutten and L Koskimaki (Eds). Provincial globalization in India: transregional mobilities and development politics, London: Routledge 2020
	Carol Upadhya, Leah Koskimaki Urban and Mobility Studies Introduction: Transregional mobilities and provincial transitions in India In: C Upadhya, M Rutten and L Koskimaki (Eds), Provincial globalization in India: Transregional mobilities and development politics. London: Routledge 2018
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Capitalizing on the Future: Negotiating Planned Urbanization in South India In: Tim Bunnell & Daniel PS Goh (Eds). Urban Asias: Essays on Futurity Past and Present, pp 169-182. Berlin: JOVIS Publishers 2018
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Ghurye, Govind Sadashiv (1893–1983) In: The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, JohnWiley & Sons, Ltd 2018
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Employment, exclusion and ‘merit’ in the Indian IT industry In: Satish Deshpande (Ed). The Problem of Caste: Essays from Economic and Political Weekly, pp. 141-151 2014
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Return of the ‘Global Indian’: Software professionals and the worlding of Bangalore In: Xiang Biao, Brenda Yeoh and Mika Toyota (Eds). Nationalizing transnational mobility in Asia. Duke University Press, Durham, pp. 141-161 2013
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Shrink-wrapped souls: Managing the self in India’s new economy In: Nandini Gooptu (Ed). Enterprise culture in neoliberal India: Studies in youth, class, work and media, pp. 93-108 2013
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Colonial anthropology, law, and adivasi struggles: The case of Jharkhand In: Doing sociology in India, Sujata Patel (Ed). New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 266–289 2011
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Software and the 'new' middle class in the 'New India' In: Amita Baviskar and Raka Ray (Eds). Elite and everyman: The cultural politics of the Indian middle class, New Delhi: Routledge, pp. 167–192 2011
	Carol Upadhya Taking the high road? Labour in the Indian software outsourcing industry In Anne Posthuma and Dev Nathan (ed), Labour in Global Production Networks in India, pp. 300–320. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010. 2010
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Management of Culture and Managing through Culture in the Indian Software Outsourcing Industry In: Carol Upadhya and AR Vasavi (Eds). An Outpost of the Global Economy: Work and Workers in India's Information Technology Industry, London: Routledge, pp. 101-135 2009
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies India's 'New Middle Class' and the Globalising City: Software Professionals in Bangalore, India In: Lars Meier and Hellmuth Lange (Eds). The New Middle Classes: Globalizing Lifestyles, Consumerism and Environmental Concern, Netherlands: Springer, pp. 253–268 2009
	Carol Upadhya Law, custom, and adivasi identity: Politics of land rights in Chotanagpur In Nandini Sundar (ed), Legal Grounds: Natural Resources, Identity, and the Law in Jharkhand, pp. 30–55. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009. 2009
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Rewriting the Code: Software Professionals and the Reconstitution of Indian Middle Class Identity In: Christophe Jaffrelot and Peter Van der Veer (Eds). Patterns of middle class consumption in India and China, New Delhi: Sage, pp. 55–87 2008
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies The idea of Indian society: G.S.Ghurye and the making of Indian Sociology In: Patricia Uberoi, Nandini Sundar, and Satish Deshpande (Eds). Anthropology in the East: Funders of Indian sociology and anthropology, Permanent Black, pp. 194–255 2007

	Supriya RoyChowdhury, Carol Upadhya Crafting new service workers: skill training, migration and employment in Bengaluru, India Third World Quarterly, Vol.45, No4, 2024. 28 December 2024 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya, Supriya RoyChowdhury Urban and Mobility Studies Crafting new service workers: skill training, migration and employment in Bengaluru, India Third World Quarterly, 2022 20 June 2022 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya, Vinay Gidwani co-authored Urban and Mobility Studies Articulation work: Value chains of land assembly and real estate development on a peri-urban frontier Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2022 19 June 2022 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya, Deeksha M Rao Urban and Mobility Studies Dispossession without displacement: Producing property through slum redevelopment in Bengaluru, India Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2022 1 February 2022 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya, Supriya RoyChowdhury Urban and Mobility Studies Migration, skilling, and employment in Bengaluru’s new service economy Economic & Political Weekly 57(4): 40-46, 2022 22 January 2022 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Recasting Land: Agrarian Urbanism in Amaravati Urbanisation. 6(1): 82- 103 18 June 2021 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya, Sachinkumar Rathod Urban and Mobility Studies Caste at the City’s Edge: Land Struggles in Peri-urban Bengaluru In: South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, Special Issue on Urban Peripheries, pp. 01-28 11 May 2021 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Assembling Amaravati: Speculative accumulation in a new Indian city Economy and Society 49(1): pp. 141-169 28 February 2020 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya, Leah Koskimaki co-authored Urban and Mobility Studies Special Issue on ‘Reconsidering the Region in India’ Journal of South Asian Development 12(2), August 2017 28 August 2017 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Amaravati and the New Andhra: Reterritorialization of a Region Journal of South Asian Development 12(2), pp. 177-202 9 August 2017 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya, Leah Koskimaki Urban and Mobility Studies Introduction: Reconsidering the Region in India: Mobilities, Actors and Development Politics Journal of South Asian Development 12 (2 ): pp. 89-111 9 August 2017 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Bangalore's 'Great Transformation' - The Problem Seminar 694, pp. 12-16 28 June 2017 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Afterword: Middle Class Activism and Bangalore's Environmental Predicament International Development Policy Revue Internationale de Politique de Developpement 8(2) 8 February 2017 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Engineering equality? Education and im/mobility in coastal Andhra Pradesh, India Contemporary South Asia, pp. 1-15 22 August 2016 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Mario Rutten (1958-2015)- Obituaries Economic and Political Weekly 51(5): 96 30 January 2016 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Migration, transnational flows and development in India: A regional perspective Economic and Political Weekly XLVII: 54–62 12 May 2012 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Imagining India: Software and the ideology of liberalisation South African Review of Sociology 40: 76–93 11 June 2009 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Controlling offshore knowledge workers: Power and agency in India's software outsourcing industry Upadhya, C. (2009). Controlling offshore knowledge workers: Power and agency in India's software outsourcing industry. New Technology, Work and Employment, 24(1), 2-18. 24 February 2009 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Ethnographies of the Global Information Economy: Research Strategies and Methods Economic and Political Weekly 43: 64–72 26 April 2008 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Employment, Exclusion and 'Merit' in the Indian IT Industry Economic and Political Weekly 42: 1863–1868 28 May 2007 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Community Rights in Land in Jharkhand Economic and Political Weekly 40: 4435–4442 28 January 2005 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies A New Transnational Capitalist Class?: Capital Flows, Business Networks and Entrepreneurs in the Indian Software Industry Economic and Political Weekly 39: 5141–5151 28 November 2004 Journal Articles
	Carol Upadhya The Farmer-Capitalists of Coastal Andhra Pradesh Upadhya, C (1988). The farmer-capitalists of coastal Andhra Pradesh. Economic and political weekly 23(27)(, 1433-1442. 2 July 1988 Journal Articles

	Carol Upadhya, Supriya RoyChowdhury Urban and Mobility Studies Urban Migration, Skilling and Employment in the New Service Economy Reports, 2021, NIAS/SSc/UMP/U/PB/01/2021 2021
	Carol Upadhya, Supriya RoyChowdhury co-authored Urban and Mobility Studies India’s changing cityscapes: Work, migration and livelihoods (NIAS Research Report No. NIAS/SSc/UMS/U/RR/01/2020). Bengaluru: ISEC and NIAS. 2020
	Carol Upadhya, A R Vasavi Work, Culture, and Sociality in the Indian IT Industry: A Sociological Study Final Report submitted to IDPAD. Bangalore: NIAS 2006

	Carol Upadhya Urban and Mobility Studies Skill training has become a numbers game Deccan Herald 11 May 2020 Other Publications
	Carol Upadhya Ghurye, Govind Sadashiv (1893–1983) In The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, edited by Hilary Callan. John Wiley & Sons, 2018. 28 January 2018 Other Publications
	Carol Upadhya, Sanam Roohi Return of the Non-Resident, ethnographic film by Vanaja C. Provincial Globalisation programme, NIAS, 2016. 28 January 2016 Other Publications
	Carol Upadhya Coding Culture: Bangalore’s Software Industry, series of three ethnographic films (with Gautam Sonti) NIAS-IDPAD project, Bangalore, 2006. 28 January 2006 Other Publications