Desh bidesh revisited

Abstract

This article discusses the emergence of a ‘British Bangladeshi social field’. It makes two connected arguments about its effects. First, it argues that the emergence of the British Bangladeshi social field has rendered the discourses of desh and bidesh less important. Second, it argues that British Bangladeshis are embedded into many transnational social fields and lead multiply orientated rather than binary lives. It uses the example of the importance of the global Islamic umma (community) to British Bangladeshis to illustrate this and argues that it has also contributed to the decreasing importance of the discourse of the desh. What this shows is that the transnationalism of today is very different from that of 20 years ago, both in terms of how it is experienced and how it is analysed

Ambivalences of the emotional logics of migration and family reunification: emotions, experiences and aspirations of Bangladeshi husbands and wives in Italy

“…4 If the possession of an Italian passport symbolises, for some, the ultimate goal of a stabilisation process, representing their setting down roots in the country, for others it is a strategic reactivation of a never-fulfilled migratory mobility (Skulte-Ouaiss 2013). By acquiring nationality of one member state, they acquire the ability to move and live within the territory of the EU and, thus, the possibility of reactivating a geographical mobility that is almost always oriented towards the UK 5 (Zeitlyn 2013). The phenomenon of onward migration is relatively new, but it is also a hot topic and an urgent question within the EU, as the referendum on 'Brexit' has shown.…”

When migrants become hosts and nonmigrants become mobile: Bangladeshis visiting their friends and relatives in London

“…In a more recent review, Zeitlyn (2013) points to the diminishing importance of this dualistic concept, especially from the point of view of British Bangladeshis, for whom the discourse of homeland is declining in favour of a geographically widening diaspora and the creation of their own desh /homeland in Britain. Nevertheless, the views of the nonmigrants in Sylhet are still of bidesh as the source of economic capital and social progress.…”

Introduction. Imagining Bangladesh: Contested Narratives

“…Marriage migration is now one of the principal flows of people between Bangladesh and the UK, contributing to about a quarter of the increase in the British Bangladeshi population between 2001 and 2011 (Zeitlyn 2013). Marriage is of course much more than a migration flow, cementing transnational relationships and exchanges for another generation.…”

“…His work focuses not only on the making of transnational kinship groups but also on the ways these translocal social fields allow the circulation of several forms of capital that are used differently according to context. Zeitlyn (2013) has shown how these transnational social spaces change and collapse notions of desh and bidesh and the discourses once associated with them, due to intensified global connections, communications and mobility. Zeitlyn (2012Zeitlyn ( , 2013 explores the ways British Bangladeshi children learn notions of home and belonging between Bangladesh and the UK.…”

“…Zeitlyn (2013) has shown how these transnational social spaces change and collapse notions of desh and bidesh and the discourses once associated with them, due to intensified global connections, communications and mobility. Zeitlyn (2012Zeitlyn ( , 2013 explores the ways British Bangladeshi children learn notions of home and belonging between Bangladesh and the UK. He argues that the British Bangladeshi transnational social field, a transnational social space in which British Bangladeshis exchange and compete over different forms of capital and meaning, disrupts notions of desh and bidesh (Zeitlyn 2012).…”