Changing Narratives of Violence, Struggle and Resistance: Bangladeshis and the Competition for Resources in the Global City

Abstract

Tower Hamlets contains the largest concentration of Bangladeshis in the UK and they have been very successful in campaigning for resources in a borough which has high poverty levels in the north, while to the south it has been radically transformed by global capital and new white middle class "immigrants" employed in the service sector. A debate concerning poverty, social exclusion and the growing incidence of criminality among third generation Bangladeshis was dominated during the 1980s by secularists whose hegemony was challenged during the 1990s by Islamist groups. This struggle between secularist and Islamist leaders is not just a local phenomenon since it is shaped by ideological, political and social ties with Bangladesh and with other Muslim-majority countries. It raises the issue of how leaders seek to represent their "community"--variously defined--in a non-Muslim nation where state institutions (locally and nationally) attempt to co-opt community leaders through multiculturalist strategies. So far, the struggle has not been overshadowed by the kind of urban violence seen in other areas of substantial Bangladeshi population.

Drug use among British Bangladeshis in London: a macro-structural perspective focusing on disadvantages contributing to individuals’ drug use trajectories and engagement with treatment services

“…It is possible that the disjuncture between socially formatted expectations (achieving the goal of economic success) and structural arrangements (socioeconomic resources) inherent in inequality produced feelings of marginalisation, boredom and of lacking in self-sufficiency among participants who turned to selfdestructive means to cope with dislocation. In Britain problem use of heroin and crack cocaine is linked to poverty, deprivation, widening inequalities, and few community resources (Buchanan, 2004;May et al, 2005), and remains hidden among Bangladeshi groups (Cottew & Oyefeso, 2005) who often have a pre-existing social disadvantages that places them at risk for drug taking (Eade & Garbin, 2002) corroborating the findings of our study. However, although Bangladeshi drug users in our study were identified on the basis of ethnicity, their drug use trajectories or careers very much mirror those of drug users in general, regardless of ethnic identification (see Bourgois, 2003;Darke, 2011) in terms of onset of drug use, acceleration, regular use, cessation and relapse, and contact with multiple service systems (e.g.…”

Reluctant pluralists: European Muslims and essentialist identities

“…Like their predecessors, earlier generations of Bangladeshis encountered the intolerance of white East Enders wary of an inscrutable Other (Eade 1994;Eade and Garbin 2002). Ethnic and Racial Studies 1871 However, thanks to their effervescent civic activism (see Glynn 2006), the UK's rather open citizenship laws and historically thin definitions of Britishness, the newest generation of Bangladeshi adults is characterized by its fluency with British life, culture and politics.…”

Competing visions of identity and space: Bangladeshi Muslims in Britain

“…The organisers of the Baishaki Mela present the event as expressing the desire of British Bangladeshis to both maintain their ties with their country of origin, and to distinguish themselves as an ethnic/cultural 'community' in Britain based on a secular nationalist Bengali heritage. 16 However, these interpretations have been challenged by leaders from the East London Mosque and its affiliated organisations. As we shall see later, the participation of these activists in public funded bodies and various anti-drug and youth projects legitimated their claim to occupy a central role in the local landscape of COMPETING VISIONS OF IDENTITY AND SPACE community representation that had been dominated by secular activists.…”