Parvati Raghuram

Parvati Raghuram is an academic geographer and Professor of Geography and Migration at the Open University in the United Kingdom.^[1] She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.^[2]

Parvati Raghuram
Alma mater	University of Delhi University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Occupation	Professor

Background

Raghuram was born in Shillong, in Meghalaya state in India. She then migrated around the country, but spent the largest proportion of her childhood in Delhi.^[3]

She then attended the University of Delhi's School of Economics, between 1982 and 1985, where she gained a Bachelor of Arts in Geography. Between 1985 and 1987, she studied a Master of Arts in Geography, also at the University of Delhi, and was awarded the qualification.^[4]

Her and her spouse moved to the United Kingdom together in 1987.^[5]

Career

Raghuram completed her PhD in geography at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1991.^[4][3] Her thesis was entitled: Coping strategies of domestic workers: A study of three settlements in the Delhi Metropolitan region, India.^[6]

Starting in 1994, Raghuram was a lecturer in geography at Nottingham Trent University.^[4]

By 2005, Raghuram had been one of the editors on special editions, of journals, that focussed on migration and gender.^[7] Starting in 2005, Raghuram worked at the Open University.^[8]

As of 2013, Raghuram was Reader in Geography at the Open University.^[9]

As of 2016, Raghuram was awarded the Murchison Award by the Royal Geographical Society.^[10] She was the first woman of colour to receive the award.^[1]

In she co-wrote a research paper focusing on female migrants from India to the EU;^[11] the research paper was for a project called the European Union-UK Cooperation and Dialogue on Migration and Mobility, by the International Labour Office, which is now called the International Labour Organization and is a UN agency.^[12]

By May 2025, Raghuram had authored reports for several UN agencies and thinktanks,^[1] and her academic output included nine research pieces, most of which are research articles, co-authored with academic geographers Clare Madge and Patricia Noxolo.^[13]

As of May 2025, Raghuram is Professor of Geography and Migration at the Open University,^[1] and her research focuses on how the world is being reshaped by the geographical movement of goods, people and intellectual outputs.^[8] Much of her work has focused on changing the theorisations of migration of more educated migrants and of international students.^[10] Also as of May 2025 she is involved in a number of research projects focusing on people migrating from one place in Africa to another.^[14]

She has written for OpenDemocracy^[15] and been interviewed by the website Womanthology.^[5]

She has also been the research director and postgraduate director of the OpenSPACE research centre;^[5] the centre focuses on researching inclusivity in accessing outdoor spaces.^[16]

Personal life

In a 2016 interview, Raghuram stated that regulations relating to migration were part of the reason for her having to be employed part-time for several years in the early part of her academic career.^[3]