The Bengal Diaspora

Alexander, Claire; Chatterji, Joya; Jalais, Annu

doi:10.4324/9781315660066

Cited by 50 publications

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“…The Boishakhi Mela punctuates the annual cycle of Bengali diaspora life in East London and elsewhere. A public, joyous and occasionally raucous celebration of the eternal cycle of rebirth and renewal, the Mela functions as a performance of Bengali identity, an evocation of the ties to the homeland and to other Bengali communities in diaspora and a claiming of space in the place of arrival: what we have described elsewhere as the ‘rituals of diaspora’ (Alexander et al, 2016). Such events inscribe Bengali presence in time and space, through an appeal to places and points of origin, and through the enactment of the fragmented (trans)formations of contemporary diaspora identities.…”

Section: Introduction: Boishakhi Mela 2008mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…They enact multiple temporalities and spatialities, including the more local histories of British Bengali communities. The Boishakhi Mela in East London, for example, emerged as part of the bigger Banglatown project (Eade and Garbin, 2006; Shaw, 2008, 2011), and is integral to the local (hi)story of diasporic community building in Tower Hamlets (Alexander, 2011; Alexander et al, 2016). These local dimensions are nevertheless interwoven with broader British and transnational imaginaries, which provide constitutive and competing frameworks for signification, which shape Bangladeshi diaspora identities in Britain.…”

Section: Introduction: Boishakhi Mela 2008mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The article arises out of a larger three-year Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project on ‘the Bengal diaspora’ (Alexander et al, 2016). This project ran from 2006–2009 and was a study of the experiences of the migration of Muslims from and within the Indian state of Bengal in the period following Partition in 1947.…”

Section: Introduction: Boishakhi Mela 2008mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The ‘Public Life’ of the Bengal Diaspora: Performing Religion, Gender and Generation in the Boishakhi Mela

Alexander

2018

Sociology

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It has become a theoretical truism that diaspora encompasses both mobility and settlement, change and continuity, roots and routes. Nevertheless, sociological accounts of diaspora identities have been largely focused on diaspora identities as part of a process of placemaking and claims-staking in the place of arrival. Such accounts have largely downplayed questions of origin, continuity and connection, and of the role of history and structure in shaping diasporic cultures 'on the ground'. Focusing on the annual Boishakhi Mela in East London, this article explores some of the tensions and ambiguities of diaspora spaces and cultural practices. It empirically examines the encounter between 'authentic' and 'commodified' cultures and the contested faultlines around gender, generation and religion that are played out in this public spectacle.

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Section: Introduction: Boishakhi Mela 2008mentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introduction: Boishakhi Mela 2008mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introduction: Boishakhi Mela 2008mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The ‘Public Life’ of the Bengal Diaspora: Performing Religion, Gender and Generation in the Boishakhi Mela

Alexander

2018

Sociology

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“…22 'The South is not just a "source" of migration, but its preeminent destination.' 23 Once this overweening fact is recognized, the 'immobility paradox' takes on a quite different complexion. In the Global South, the capacity of states to seal their borders is notoriously weak.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Being Stuck in Bengal: Immobility in the ‘age of migration’

Chatterji¹

2017

Mod. Asian Stud.

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Immobility raises awkward questions for theorists of migration. From their standpoint, migration is unusual behaviour that requires explanation. Its obverse—staying in place—is seen as an ‘obvious’ state of affairs that calls for no explanation. Yet assumptions about the ordinariness of immobility are insecure. For one thing, we know a great deal more about the mobile societies of early modern Asia; for another, Asian mobility in the era of high imperialism is much better understood. Yet despite these cumulative gains in our understanding of the scale of mobility in early-modern and modern Asia, and its acceleration in ‘the age of migration’, immobility continues to be seen as the ‘obvious’ state of affairs. This article suggests some preliminary answers to ‘the immobility paradox’, based on a study of the greater Bengal region. By analysing the impact of the intensifying links, in the late colonial era, between Bengal and the global economy, it shows that this varied widely for different people, in ways that had a profound bearing on their capacity to move. The article develops the notion of ‘deficits’ which worked to inhibit the mobility of particular groups and individuals. Physical frailty and obligations of care, it shows, were crucial factors in shaping immobility. Relations of gender and generation, and the inequalities embedded in these relations, produced ‘overabundances’—of obligations to people and places—that tied certain people down. Finally, it hints at the reasons why, and the ways in which, stayers-on have grown poorer.

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“…2.See Tumbe (2018); on the persistence of a different form, refer to Alexander, Chatterji and Jalais (2016). …”

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Migration: Change and Continuity

Roy

Tumbe

2018

Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics

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Migration: Change and Continuity 'Migration' is an interdisciplinary subject like few others can claim to be. Demographers, economists, sociologists and researchers across disciplines have analysed the causes and consequences of migration for individuals, families, communities and regions. This literature is quite broad in scope and has developed in several directions. Two of these themes, however, are particularly relevant for the economic historian. First, migration and long-term economic change are interdependent processes. For example, industrialization, agrarian expansion, or large-scale development projects can induce migration; and equally, migration, via effects on labour markets that lose or gain workers and via remittances sent back home, can influence economic change. Second, migration is necessarily embedded in social institutions. Since social institutions change relatively slowly, this embeddedness imparts an inertia or a quality of persistence on the way migration decisions take place. Caste, class, gender, household form and religion impinge on the propensity to move, the choice of destinations and strategies to reduce risks or even to feel at home. While decisions to migrate are often responses by individuals to risks at home or earning opportunities abroad, these 'push' and 'pull' factors alone explain little of some of the really large-scale voluntary population movements. They also need to be seen as social decisions in some sense. 1 South Asia has long been familiar to episodes of large-scale voluntary migrations, or 'circulation' to borrow a term from a study of precolonial migrations in the region (Kerr, 2006). Not surprisingly, historians have written at length on migration episodes. They have studied, for example, migration in the medieval world (Ramaswamy, 2016) and the precolonial and colonial worlds (Haynes &

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The Bengal Diaspora

Cited by 50 publications

References 0 publications

The ‘Public Life’ of the Bengal Diaspora: Performing Religion, Gender and Generation in the Boishakhi Mela

The ‘Public Life’ of the Bengal Diaspora: Performing Religion, Gender and Generation in the Boishakhi Mela

On Being Stuck in Bengal: Immobility in the ‘age of migration’

Migration: Change and Continuity

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