ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we argue that ‘diaspora philanthropy’ in India needs to be contextualized within particular regional histories and cultural politics of development. In particular, we show how transnational Beary businessmen and philanthropists in the Gulf of coastal Karnataka, South India, have built a regional narrative and archive of community ‘needs’ to guide their social welfare interventions and respond to ‘communal’ politics in their home region. The paper elaborates the role of transnational welfare organizations in building social and political alliances and producing networks through which particular dreams (khwaish) of modernity and mobility circulate.
