Chasing the dream: masculinity and male honour of Italian-Bangladeshi men relocating to London

Abstract

This paper focuses on the gender identity transformations of Italian-Bangladeshi men who, after first migrating from Bangladesh to Italy, then undertook a further onward migration, relocating, along with their families, to London. The paper shows the ambivalences and contradictions, in terms of male honour, involved in the new migration towards the UK. Specifically, it shows how the crossing of multiple borders, as well as their arrival and stabilisation in political-territorial contexts that were socio-historically constructed by colonialism as prestigious and wealthy areas, may increase the symbolic capital and male honour of male Bangladeshi migrants. However, if this experience increases their symbolic, gendered and social credentials, it also implies trajectories of professional, biographical, and social downgrading that compromise their image and position as 'successful' men.