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Werbner, P. (2004) 'Theorising Complex Diasporas: Purity and Hybridity in the
South Asian Public Sphere in Britain', Journal of Ethnic
and Migration Studies 30:5 p.895-911
New literature on transnationalism and the `transmigrant' – back and forth
“Diasporic communities … are cultural, economic, political and social
formations in process … culturally and politically reflexive and experimental
… they encompass internal arguments of identity…” but also recognizing
“collective responsibilities…” (p.896)
“The reality of diaspora is crucially both representational and material…”
(p.896)
“…religious diasporas expand `chaordically'…” (p.897)
“But what happens when economic migrants from a vast region, divided by
nationality, religion and language but united by a shared popular culture,
cuisine, music and custom, settle permanently in a Western country like
Britain? What kind of diaspora does such a heterogeneous and yet in many ways
homogeneous group form? This is the question I raise in the present paper…”
(p.897)
“…examines the creation of two alternative visible diasporic public spheres in
Britain by South Asian settlers…” (p.897)
#1 Entertainment industry “…that makes its distinctive contribution to British
and South Asian popular culture by satirising the parochialism and
conservatism of the South Asian immigrant generation….” (p.897)
#2 (a) “Bombay movies, cassette pop music, Pakistani dramas beamed on
satellite TV … transnational popular commercial cultural sphere imported from
South Asia…” which has “…little impact beyond the … South Asian community but
… forms a backdrop to the satirical works produced by South Asian diasporic
intellectuals in Britain…” (p.897)
#2 (b) local diasporic public sphere, almost entirely hidden from the gaze of
outsiders … in which different South Asian local community leaders and
activists from different national diasporic … argue among themselves, often
about events back home or global political crises, while competing for power
and influence in local national and religious associations (p.898)
Werbner, “…analyses the alternative hegemonic representations of diaspora
produced in the national public sphere in Britain…” (p.898)
“…this more visible public sphere has dramatised a highly conflictual
encounter between diaspora Muslims and the West as the two sides grapple with
apparently intractable issues…” (p.897)
o Muslim national loyalty
o Inner-city riots
o Morality and politics of the family and sexuality
Second generation British-born Muslims: “South Asians, particularly Pakistanis
... dominate national Islamic associations in Britain” (Shaikh Zaki Badawi and
MAB are exceptions)…” (p.898)
“Most Pakistani Muslim religious leaders in Britain tend to enunciate a
discourse of religious purity in which popular … is rejected as sinful and
`Hindu'…” (p.898)
BUT
“…Pakistanis, like other South Asians, love celebrating [which] draws on
Punjabi and North Indian popular cultural themes mixed in with British popular
culture [and] this hybrid product a critical, satirical edge, in order to
advocate a liberal progressive message…” (p898)
“Seen from the perspective of British Pakistanis, then, we can say that they
actively participate in the creation not of one but of two diasporic public
spheres: the British
Islamic and the British South Asian… from an indigenous British perspective,
they create ambivalent stereotyped images of `Muslims' and `Asians'.” (p.899)
“Seen collectively, diaspora Pakistanis and Bangladeshis project two
alternative identities: South Asian and Islamic, although different organic
intellectuals from within the two communities are actors in each of the
arenas…” (p.899)
“… two identities are in tension … is critical to understanding the
conflicting pressures to which women and young Pakistanis or Bangladeshis in
particular are subjected in Britain. The clash … is played out on women and
young people's bodies. The tension ... a source of friction in British
Pakistani internal politics between those espousing pragmatic integration and
those articulating a more oppositional, exclusionary politics…” which has led
to “…the pluralisation of the Pakistani diasporic public sphere in Britain…”
(p.899)
In Britain, “Trans-ethnicity obscures discrete national belongings and even
religious identity” (p.900) British South Asian cultural producers and artists
“…celebrate this shared cross-ethnic sensibility, irrespective of religion and
national origin” (p.900)
Progressive: “Eastern Eye”
First rupture: Channel 4, Hanif Kureishi’s, ‘My Beautiful Launderette’,
becoming a global confrontation following outrage caused by ‘The Satanic
Verses’.
“In general, these works debunk traditional sensibilities, and celebrate
“tolerance and hybridity, set against a background of racist Britain…” where
the real' audience is South Asian artists’ parents and peers…” (p.901)
“They satirise an older generation's profligate consumption, false ethics,
superstitious religiosity, blind prejudices and obsession with honour and
status…” (p.901)
“The violation of intimacy by the new wave South Asian artists, the open
public display of embarrassing, internally guarded `secret' ethnic truths,
arguably creates a new zone of intimacy and shared understanding between South
Asians and other Britons…” (p.902)
See: Herzfeld, M. (1997) Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-state
(New York and London: Routledge)
“… the new South Asian elite: young, beautiful, successful, sophisticated,
intelligent, elegant, trendy…” (p902)
BUT
“…their critique appears to have had little impact on either South Asian
diasporic politics or familial sexual politics and intergenerational
relations…” (p.903)
Most South Asians growing up in Britain marriage, kinship/religion continue to
be “…endogamous, communally focused, trans-continental and often, once young
people establish new families, highly insular and nationally oriented towards
the homeland” (p.903)
“…cultural politics thus needs to be read as part of a highly conflictual
internal argument with and within the South Asian diaspora itself; a
dissenting discourse that has as its mission to persuade a younger generation
of British South Asians to be less compliant and submissive to their parents
than they currently are…” (p.903)
“In this politics of the family the message is often assimilatory: to become
more anglicised, liberal and individualistic…” (p.903)
Islam in Britain
“Up until now, however, the vast majority of Punjabi Pakistanis in Britain
have tended to identify themselves with the Barelvi movement. They emphasise
the love of the Prophet and his continued active existence and the veneration
of his `friends', saints or auliya. Many come from families that are, or were,
affiliated to a particular saint in Pakistan…” (p.904)
“A major further feature of Islam in Britain is that on the whole it remains
nationally and ethnically divided…” (p.904)
Emergence of religious group-mosque divisions in 1970s…mosque as central for
men, but for the younger generation, mosque attendance is “…a matter of
choice…” but most remain “…pious and stress their Islamic identity, which they
feel to be beleaguered both locally and globally…” (p.904)
Women “…the inter-domestic domain: a domain of sociality, of ritual and
religious celebration focused on familial, friendship and neighbourhood
networks…” (p.905)
“The main theological divide was between the majority Barelvis, Sufi followers
who endorsed the veneration of saints and the love of the Prophet, and an
array of Islamic reformist groups…” (p.905)
Since 9/11 “…Islam has become a badge of political dissent. The growth of …
Islamophobia, has exacerbated this process … in this context young Pakistanis,
men and women alike, are increasingly adopting diacritical ritual emblems and
practices which act as boundary markers, setting them apart from non-Muslim
youngsters, including other young South Asians … the talk today by politicians
is of Muslim self-segregation…” (p.906)
“…politicisation of Islam in Britain challenges the view that religion
mediates the peaceful integration of immigrants into western democracies as
they strive to achieve equality …” but Islam in Britain is largely peaceful
and “…home based, focused around rites of passage … Koran readings … dars …
held in private homes. So too, some of the smaller Sufi groups [with] male and
female zikr circles…” (p.907)
“The younger generation, both male and female, is currently entering the open
job market in large numbers. For many, Islam appears to be an adventure of
self-discovery, an enjoyable substitute for British youth culture…” (p.907)
“… new-wave South Asian popular culture and reformist Islam in Britain share
crucial features in common…” where both enunciate “…critical, oppositional
discourses which attack `culture', `custom' and `tradition'…” (p.907)
“Even in the public sphere, the politics of alliance rather than confrontation
are also strikingly evident in Britain. In particular, the Stop the War
alliance formed to protest against the war in Afghanistan in 2002, and
expanded in the protests against the war in Iraq in 2003, incorporated
diaspora Muslims as equal partners…” (p.908)
“Given the vitality and contemporaneity of diasporic South Asian culture … can
the seriousness and Puritanism of global Islam, in large measure a foreign
import from the Middle East, prevail?” (p.909) |