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From Diaspora to Multi-Locality: Writing British-Asian Cities

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Title: From Diaspora to Multi-Locality: Writing British-Asian Cities


1
From Diaspora to Multi-Locality Writing
British-Asian Cities
  • Drs Seán McLoughlin, William Gould
  • Ananya Kabir Emma Tomalin
  • Religious Studies, History English Literature
  • University of Leeds
  • www.leeds.ac.uk/writingbritishasiancities

2
IntroductionMapping the Conference Themes
  • Types of Mobility
  • forced plantation exile labour holidays
    paradise.
  • In-Between Locations, Identities, Consciousness
  • Indian-Italian Jewish-Turkish-German
    Russian-Swedish British-Irish Iranian-American
    Turkish/Greek-Cypriot-British Ulster-Scottish
    Chinese/Portuguese-Northern-Irish.
  • Not Forgetting Temporal Locations
  • historical (mostly) pw/contemporary, n.b.
    social change(?)
  • Texts Spaces of Representation
  • historical documents policy documents
    respondents narratives literature (fiction)
    cinema television online.
  • Conceptual Frameworks
  • homeland memory community cultural politics
    gender / generation/sexuality hybridity
    identity(ies) situationality.

3
IntroductionMapping Our Networks Aims
  • To establish forum for scholars/others interested
    in UK South Asian presence (labour/forced
    migration)
  • To compare the multi-local trans-local
    dynamics of five British-Asian cities examine
    changing representation of (public) identities,
    1960s - 2000s how written by different genres of
    writing ethnography local/oral history
    literary/cultural production the media official
    reports.
  • To reflect upon the (inter)disciplinary
    perspectives of Social, Religious,
    Literary/Cultural Studies, History.
  • To consider differently located/empowered
    insiders/ outsiders, scholars/civil
    society/cultural /community
  • To establish a steering committee community
    events
  • To create www.leeds.ac.uk/writingbritishasiancitie
    s

4
Introduction Keynote Overview
  • 1) The Dynamics of Multi-Locality Five
    British-Asian Cities Compared
  • 2) From Diaspora to Multi-Locality Theorising
    the Glocal City
  • 3) Writing British-Asian Cities genres,
    discourse, audiences the politics of
    representation
  • 4) Historical perspectives on changing
    British-Asian identities in post-colonial Britain
  • 5) British-Asian Bradford Tower Hamlets
    Compared
  • 6) Hidden Histories, Silent Voices? Gaps in the
    Writing of British-Asian Cities

5
1) The Dynamics of Multi-Locality Five
British-Asian Cities Compared
  • Birmingham
  • Major centre of Desi beats, eg Apache Indian,
    Bally Sagoo. Home of the Balti. STWCs Salma
    Yaqoob.
  • Largest Asian city outside London. Relatively
    even spread of communities. Pakistanis largest.
  • Powerful industrial base, drew migrant workers,
    but decline from late 1970s. Recent renaissance.
  • Bradford
  • Mecca of the North with Ayatollahs of its own
    (1991).
  • Size, predominance, concentration of single
    ethnic group (Mirpuri Kashmiris/Pakistanis),
    reinforced by religious identity (Muslims)
  • Mill town struggling with post-industrial
    regeneration.

6
1) The Dynamics of Multi-Locality Five
British-Asian Cities Compared
  • Leicester
  • Iconic - largest centre for East African Asians,
    1972
  • Spread of religious communities but 26 Indian
    heritage 72,000 highest Asian UK. 3rd
    biggest Hindu pop.
  • Initial resistance to migration but cited for
    good relations.
  • Manchester
  • Since 90s, home of Northern cool. Curry Mile
    (Rusholme).
  • Large diffuse Asian presence. Pakistani
    Punjabi-Muslims in rag trade. Also significant
    others e.g. white-collar Hindus.
  • Decline spectacular regeneration reflecting
    economic /cultural presence e.g. Bollywood at
    Trafford Centre.

7
1) The Dynamics of Multi-Locality Five
British-Asian Cities Compared
  • Tower Hamlets, London
  • Iconic - East Ends history of accommodating
    immigrant groups. Lascars. Restaurant trade.
    Monica Alis Brick Lane.
  • Size, predominance, concentration of a single
    ethnic group (Sylhetis/ Bengalis/Bangladeshis)
    reinforced by religion (Muslim) but significance
    too of secular ideology
  • City within a global city different yet
    comparable in having a recognisable civic
    personality.

8
2) From Diaspora to Multi-Locality Theorising
the Glocal City
  • Locality place significant aspects of empirical
    study of UK Asian migration, diaspora, identity,
    since 1960s.
  • Asian cultural production of interest to Literary
    / Cultural Studies (another way into diaspora
    studies)
  • But until 1990s main texts studied
    sociological, geographical especially
    anthropological with interest in state structure
    / cultural agency respectively.
  • Anthropological later Religious Studies (1980s)
    focus on ethnic/religious communities in
    particular cities.
  • Often multi-local as researchers studied both
    homeland and diasporic ends of the migration
    chain.

9
2) From Diaspora to Multi-Locality Theorising
the Glocal City
  • The local is but the point at which multiple
    local, national and global forces converge.
  • Gardner - desh (home) bidesh (away), can be
    seen as different locations of the same society
    (1995 8).
  • Triad of translocal circulations / flows
    connecting UK diasporas, South Asian homelands
    beyond
  • Although interest in social change associated
    with deterritorialization, few compare
    multiplicity of localised dynamics/trajectories
    in individual cities.
  • No rejection of diaspora but attempt to underline
    discrepant experiences in divergent locations.

10
2) From Diaspora to Multi-Locality Theorising
the Glocal City
  • there is no such thing as a city. Rather, the
    city designates the space produced by the
    interaction of historically and geographically
    specific institutions, social relations of
    production and reproduction, practices of
    government, forms and media of communication, and
    so forth. By calling this diversity the city,
    we ascribe to it a coherence or integrity. The
    city, then, is above all a representation.
    (Donald, 1992 422)
  • this city, despite all its specific details and
    insular claims on experience, cannot avoid
    acquiring a part in other stories, other idioms,
    other possibilities. It is ineluctably
    transformed from being a self-referring monument
    to becoming an intersection, a moment of
    rendezvous, a site of transit, in a wider
    network. Set loose from its moorings, the city
    begins to drift, to enter other accounts. The
    parochial hold on reality is compromised by
    economic and cultural forces being narrated
    elsewhere. (Chambers, 1994 107)

11
3) Writing British-Asian Cities genres,
discourse, audiences, politics
  • Genres and Discourse
  • The city is constructed through in writing. All
    write it.
  • Different genres together constitute discourse
    or web of representations through which power
    diffused contested.
  • Discourse most powerful way British-Asian
    city-space mediated to the world. Power of
    insider voices?
  • To what extent do different genres construct
    place, community, etc differently? E.g. policy vs
    novel?
  • Mapping genres commonly deployed in writing
    cities do some cities attract particular genres?
    Bradford/travel writing.
  • How has the image of a city been impacted by
    genres /discourses that write it? Tower Hamlets /
    the novel.
  • A literary /cultural studies perspective
    sensitizes us to genre, discourse the politics
    of representation.

12
3) Writing British-Asian Cities genres,
discourse, audiences, politics
  • Market and Audience
  • Who finances publication/production,
    publicity/distribution? Who reads/views novels,
    films, etc?
  • The market as interface between writer/director,
    reader/viewer subjects /subject matter.
  • North-South divide also shapes politics of
    publication.
  • Concepts such as gaze help analyze
    power-relations.
  • Attraction of the British-Asian to the
    mainstream? Dangers of consumption of exotic
    other cultural capital vs commodification.
  • From Asian cool to war on terror. Promotion
    of stereotypes/ voices/ view-points.
  • Mainstreaming message of integration in Bend it
    Like Beckham

13
3) Writing British-Asian Cities genres,
discourse, audiences, politics
  • Cultural Capital and Resistance
  • Understanding self-perceptions crucially involves
    examining their diverse cultural production
    (novel, film, music, art).
  • A source of positive cultural capital in
    diasporic homeland spaces. But is being written
    about - necessarily empowering?
  • Is writer perceived as an insider or an outsider?
  • Probing relationship between perception,
    self-positioning, authenticity resistance to
    dominant discourses? Cf novelists Tariq Mehmood
    Monica Ali.
  • AH focus also arguably contributes to
    empowerment Inflecting social policy engaging
    community self-regard.
  • Away from problem-oriented social science
    discourse? Is this really possible?
  • Aim to bring differently-positioned
    constituencies into contact through city events
    website.

14
4) Historical perspectives on changing
British-Asian identities
  • Limitations of discipline of historical writing
    on British-Asians and false memories of the
    imperial past.
  • Contexts
  • UK nation state context of legislation
    (immigration, race relations, security) /public
    policy context (multiculturalism)
  • UK multi/trans-local
  • Sub-continental global multi/trans-national/regi
    onal/local.
  • Changing British-Asian identities in the public
    space
  • ethno-national i.e. Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/A
    fricanAsian
  • race / culture i.e. pan-Asian politics/Brit-Asian
    pop culture
  • religion i.e. British-Muslim, British-Hindu,
    British-Sikh

15
4) Historical perspectives on changing
British-Asian identities
  • UK state, immigration transformation of public
    identities against the background of an imperial
    past 1948, 1962, 1971 and Rivers of Blood.
  • Race relations, multiculturalism
    institutionalisation of the politics of
    difference. Community based political
    representation in UK. Cf France.
  • Colonial and postcolonial state discourses on
    religious communities / minorities.
  • Class based political movements organisations
    the Indian Workers Association 1950s 1960s.
  • Anti-racist Asian Youth Movements 1970s early
    1980s. Class. Generation. Self-defence is no
    offence.
  • Pertinence of religious identities from the mid
    1980s. Reuniting of families, redundancy global
    revivalism.

16
4) Historical perspectives on changing
British-Asian identities
  • British-Asian identity complicated by
    trans/multi-local connections Gujarati
    Punjabi East Africans. Twice migrants. Different
    cultural capitals. 1991 Census.
  • Increasingly distinctive socio-economic
    trajectories African Asians, Indians,
    Pakistanis, Bangladeshis.
  • Consequences of different points of origin?
    Islamophobia?
  • Shared values, lifestyles patterns of
    consumption?
  • Growing power of globalised South Asian cultural
    industries products impact on idea of
    British-Asian-ness?
  • Conclusions How are public identities affected
    by state, class, generational, global changes
    differences in UK, South Asia beyond?

17
5) Bradford Tower Hamlets Compared
  • The place of the five city based workshops in
    the life of the network (two completed so far)
  • Genres, history dynamics of locality in
    Bradford Tower Hamlets
  • Importance of engagement with people outside the
    academy.
  • Location of workshops Mumtaz restaurant
    (Bradford) and Kobi Nazrul Centre (Tower Hamlets)
  • Reflections on the evolving / experimental
    structure of the workshops

18
5) Bradford Tower Hamlets Compared
  • Genre
  • Academic tendency for academic writing to
    portray BrAsian cities as problem to be solved?
    insider/outsider dilemma issues of
    authenticity and representation
  • The novel and other artistic forms comparative
    advantage in portraying complexity of human
    experience and identity? Participation from
    local authors (Yunis Alam Annie Potts is Dead
    (1998) and Kilo (2002) Tariq Mehmood Hand on the
    Sun (1983) and While there is Light (2003) and
    the issue of Brick Lane (2004) by Monica Ali
    music, art, theatre etc
  • Policy Reference to a history of Bradford (eg
    Turning Point 1980s Ouseley 2000s) and Tower
    Hamlets written in policy documents.

19
5) Bradford Tower Hamlets Compared
  • History global and national socio-political
    change over the past fifty years Bradford
    Rushdie (1989) riots (1995, 2001) shifts in
    thinking about multiculturalism shift from race
    and ethnicity to religion marker of public
    identity Tower Hamlets racism by 1980s
    bewilderment at the shift from a secular to a
    more religiously inflected identity politics
    over recent decades East London Mosque, Glynn
    (2002) and New Labours faith related
    initiatives Oral History projects
  • The dynamics of locality what is distinct about
    each city? How has this been shaped by its
    different histories? 2012 London Olympics vs 2008
    City of Culture.

20
6) Hidden Histories, Silent Voices? Gaps in
Writing British-Asian Cities
  • Limitations of any project/network in setting
    particular limits boundaries it inevitably
    creates silences.
  • Importance of self-awareness and reflexivity.
  • Language the network is English language rather
    than vernacular focussed
  • Gender goes beyond gender inclusiveness at
    workshops and raises concerns that structure of
    network is not conducive to capturing womens
    histories (i.e. our focus is upon public
    representations)
  • Ethnicities and religions dominance of certain
    groups in cities, other groups silenced. Reflects
    how written.
  • Major urban conurbation focus
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