Migration, mobility and changing power relations: aspirations and praxis of Bangladeshi migrants

Abstract

This article, based on empirical research in two villages in Bangladesh, examines the ways in which migration is not a mere response to poverty and family survival, but becomes an instrument to interrogate the power of the traditional elite and contribute to social and status mobility in the local context. By focusing on four key inter-related dimensions of place, work, consumption and marriage, and on the hierarchies embedded within different migrant destinations, it points to the ways in which migration strategies are related to mobility strategies, and contributes to refiguring class and gender identities. Religion and the construction of a modern Islamic identity, bearing simultaneously elements of materiality and spirituality, serve as a crucial mediating force in this process, bridging the gap between aspirations and praxis.

Migración, movilidad y las cambiantes relaciones de poder: aspiraciones y praxis de migrantes bangladeshíes

Este artículo, basado en investigación empírica en dos pueblos en Bangladesh, analiza las formas en que la migración no es una mera respuesta a la pobreza y la supervivencia de la familia, sino que se vuelve un instrumento para interrogar al poder de la elite tradicional y contribuir a la movilidad social y de estatus en el contexto local. Enfocándose en cuatro dimensiones interrelacionadas de lugar, trabajo, consumo y matrimonio, y sobre las jerarquías insertadas dentro de los diferentes destinos de los migrantes, apunta a las formas en que las estrategias de migración están relacionadas con las estrategias de movilidad, y contribuyen a refigurar las identidades de clase y género. La religión y la construcción de una identidad islámica moderna, conllevando simultáneamente elementos de materialidad y espiritualidad, sirven como una fuerza de mediación crucial en este proceso, cerrando la distancia entre las aspiraciones y la praxis.

移民、流动性与改变中的权力关係：孟加拉移民的渴望与实践

本文根据在孟加拉两处村落的经验研究，检视移民并不仅是对贫穷与家庭生存的回应，而是成为整合传统菁英权力、并于地方脉络中有助于社会及身份流动的工具。本文透过聚焦地方、工作、消费与婚姻这四个相互关联的主要面向，以及在不同的移民目的地中体现的阶层关係，指出移民策略连结至流动性策略、并造成阶级与性别认同重塑的方式。宗教以及现代伊斯兰认同的建构，同时承担了物质性与精神性的元素，提供做为此一过程中的重要中介力量，弥合了渴望与实践之间的差距。

Keywords::

• migration
• mobility
• gender
• status
• identity
• Bangladesh

Palabras claves::

• migración
• movilidad
• género
• estatus
• identidad
• Bangladesh

关键词:::

• 移民
• 流动性
• 性别
• 身份
• 认同
• 孟加拉

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Development Research Centre on Globalisation, Migration and Poverty for a research grant during 2005–2008 and my Research Associate in Bangladesh Munshi Israil Hossain for making the empirical work for this article possible. I would also like to thank the Javeriana University, Bogota, Colombia, for inviting me to present an earlier version of this article at a conference on Renegotiating territories in the twenty-first century, and the questions and comments from the participants. I specifically thank Amit Mitra for his extensive inputs and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on this article.

Notes

^1. Comilla had a literacy rate of 45% in 2001 (42% female) as against Manikganj with a literacy rate of 40% (35% female) (Statistical Pocketbook Bangladesh 2004). The Human Poverty Index of Comilla was 26.7% as against 35.4% for Manikganj, yet both show declining rates of poverty (Deb et al. 2008). http://www.undp.org.bd/report/reports/growth.pdf, accessed 15 August 2011.

^2. Although the alia madrasa provides a combination of religious and general education, the quomi madrasa is concerned exclusively with religious education.

^3. Kindergardens are mainly an urban elite phenomenon, and while unusual in rural areas, they are gradually spreading in more prosperous rural communities (Hossain and Zeitlyn 2010, 17).

^4. Forty-eight competitive, merit-based scholarships were secured by students from here between 1982 and 2006.

^5. Asadullah and Chaudhury (2008) report that girls now constitute 50% of secondary-level madrasa enrolment in Bangladesh.

^6. 127 Taka = 1 GBP as on 11 July 2012.

^7. The military rule from the late 1970s weakened Bangladesh's secular credentials, leading to an alteration of the Constitution in 1988, public recognition of hajjis, establishment of mosques and madrasas and allowing space to Islamic parties, while at the same time encouraging female employment (Feldman 2001b).

^8. Dowries were earlier seen as women's assets, expanding their economic spaces and ability for action. It is, however, now seen more as a transfer of moveable or immoveable assets to the in-laws and husband, over which the woman has little control.

^9. Paul-Majumdar and Begum (2006, 17) found that 38% of female garment workers in their sample were married women.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nitya Rao

Nitya Rao is professor of Gender and Development at the School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. Her research focuses on gendered changes in land and agrarian relations, migration, livelihood and well-being, gendered identities and intra-household relations and equity issues in education policies and provisioning. Her book on the theme of land as a resource in the struggle over gendered identities entitled ‘Good women do not inherit Land’: Politics of Land and Gender in India was published by Social Science Press and Orient Blackswan, New Delhi, in 2008, and republished in 2012. She has recently worked on two major research projects, one on ‘Gender Differences in Migration Opportunities: Implications for Educational Choices and Outcomes’ funded by the Development Research Centre on Globalisation, Migration and Poverty and the second on ‘Intra-household Allocation of Resources: A Cross-Country Comparison’ funded by DFID-ESRC. Her research has mainly been conducted in South Asia.