Age, Narrative and Migration: The Life Course and Life Histories of Bengali Elders in London
Katy Gardner
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN: 1859733131
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Whilst the vast majority of recent research on identity and ethnicity amongst South Asians in Britain has focused upon younger people, this book deals with Bengali elders, the ‘first generation' of migrants from Sylhet, in Bangladesh. The book describes how many of these elders face the processes of ageing, sickness and ― finally ― death, in a country where they did not expect to stay and where they do not necessarily feel they belong. The ways in which they talk about and deal with this, and in particular, their ambivalence towards Britain and Bangladesh lies at the heart of the book.
Centrally, the book is based around the men and women's life stories. In her analysis of these, Gardner shows how narratives play an important role in the formation of both collective and individual identity and are key domains for the articulation of gender and age. Underlying the stories that people tell, and sometimes hidden within their gaps and silences, are often other issues and concerns. Using particular idioms and narrative devices, the elders talk about the contradictions and disjunctions of transmigration, their relationship with and sometimes resistance to, the British State, and what they often present as the ‘breakdown' of ‘traditional' ways. In addition to this, the book shows that histories, stories and identity are not just narrated through words, but also through the body - an area rarely theorized in studies of migration.
Disjunction, of no longer being physically at ease. Smells, tastes and other physical sensations are other important themes in many of the narratives, and may help guide memories. On his return to Bangladesh, for example, Mr Haque (Chapter 3) recounts how the rice tasted wrong, and he could not stand the smell of the latrines. In contrast, Mrs Angura Bibi, in describing her longings for the desh, spoke of the sensation of sitting out of doors in the fresh air. A common phrase for describing one’s.
Choices, attitudes and ways of telling reflect their individual characters as well as the broader factors of gender, class and the global political economies that have helped to structure their particular histories. In Chapter 4, I turn to the men’s narratives of their migration to and settlement in Britain, interwoven with historical accounts derived from secondary sources. As the chapter shows, the construction of masculinity is key to the men’s accounts, for in them the themes of work, the.
Little. I did light work. I taught and ate. Well this man and I discussed things. He explained that God had blessed me, that I had come to England and could make a good living. It would be a very sad affair if I was to return to Bangladesh with nothing. After all, everyone expected me to achieve something. He said that I wasn’t totally a lost case, that I was a little educated, not a great deal, but I knew some of the language and so could find work. He suggested that I take a trip around.
Of the 1950s and 1960s is largely remembered as a place of welcome and plenty and their past, youthful selves for their active engagement with life. Paradoxically, while most Bengali men during this period were unambiguously geared towards transformations that they hoped would take place in the desh, since the Bengali and other Muslim communities in Britain had yet to be fully established many were also participating more in mainstream British society than they are today. To this extent, popular.
Professionals at St Hilda’s) are no longer quite so committed to notions of duty and care, for all the sassis whom I spoke to, ‘being a good woman’ was inseparable from being an unquestioning provider of care for one’s husband, children and elderly relatives, whatever the circumstances. This in turn is related 32. See Appendix, household 19. – 130 – Women’s Histories to religiosity and one’s relationship with God. As Rabeya Khanun,33 whose husband has been severely incapacitated by a stroke,.