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

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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

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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• historical documents policy documents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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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?

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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

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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.

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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.

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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