Aditi Sharif:
It was mid-July in Bangladesh. People of this country experienced a series of horrific incidents, led by the previous Bangladesh Awami League Government. Many people including me have to protest against that Fascist Regime on social media platforms. During such ‘online activism’, I have witnessed that many migrants were actively participating in this activism. Apart from that they also stopped sending Remittances to create pressure on them. And as a ‘feminist’, I also noticed the significant participation of female migrants. Some of them were raising their voice despite they don’t have anyone in Bangladesh. While asked about the reason for such selfless support, one of my acquaintances replied to me, “Isn’t it obvious? No matter where we live, our heart always resides in this country. And frankly speaking, we can never belong to the country, no matter what we do. As an anthropology graduate, genuinely interested in Gender Studies, her statement intrigued me to dig deeper into nostalgia and the sense of belongingness of female migrants.
Now how can we define the sense of belongingness? When we talk about the conditions of immigrants in their host country, we use two general concepts: Melting Pot and Integration. While the concept of Melting Pot refers to the processes by which “various immigrant groups will tend to “melt together,” abandoning their individual cultures and eventually becoming fully assimilated into the predominant society(Melting Pot – ECPS, n.d.), integration involves a mutual adaptation of migrants and the host society(ILO, 2016). However, the sense of belongingness is a more holistic concept to me that can be defined as “a highly subjective and dynamic feeling of acceptance, inclusion, and connectedness”(Afonso et al., 2023). Therefore, I will try to utilize that concept rather than using integration to denote the condition in which migrants feel truly accepted in the host country.
Nowadays, Bangladesh is facing a significant surge in the number of female migrants in international migration. However, as women can’t be a universal category, these women belonging to different strata of society, experience their migratory journey in terms of their class, gender, and motives of migration. Some women went abroad with their spouses and family members. On the other hand, many women are now going abroad to pursue higher studies. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that most of the female migrants in Bangladesh belong to the labor class. These women often go to Southeast Asian countries or the Middle East leaving behind their family members back in their country for their work. Now, how do these women experience their migratory journey? Perhaps Alexia Bloch’s work in a different context can provide an in-depth perspective on this matter. Based on an analytical framework of Transnational Feminism, she illustrated how kinship patterns and transnational ties play a crucial role in maintaining relationships with their homeland among Gagauzian female labor migrants(Bloch, 2017). The situation of Bangladeshi female migrants is quite similar. Additionally, workplace discrimination and physical and sexual abuse against them create impediments to fostering a sense of belongingness towards the host country. On the other hand, female international students have to face multiple forms of discrimination due to their ethnic and gender identity. The women who tend to migrate with their family members can have different kinds of experiences. Alongside the nostalgia associated with their homeland, they had to bear the burdens of managing the household and maintaining family ties. Moreover, language barriers and discriminatory behavior towards immigrants can add more complexities. However, I don’t want to claim that not attaining a strong sense of belongingness is fundamentally associated with the feeling of nostalgia for the home that they left behind.
The concept ‘Nostalgia’ can be used in the context of migrants to describe “longing for one’s old home”(Smeekes & Jetten, 2019). This longing forces them to constantly think about the homeland and their people even if no kin lives there anymore. Now, how do they keep alive their home alive in the abroad? Mostly, they do it by maintaining cultural practices. And these cultural practices often produce a deep sense of nostalgia among them(Chowdhury, 2019). In this regard, I want to mention a study on the language and cultural maintenance of Bangladeshi migrants living in Australia that suggests that Bangladeshi migrants, especially the first generation, preserve linguistic and cultural elements to protect the Bangladeshi identity(Chowdhury, 2019). While writing this piece, I was thinking about how this sort of nostalgia can contribute to the socio-political changes in Bangladesh. Additionally, as we all know gender identity can play a crucial role in shaping the experiences of migration, in what specific ways do cultural traditions produce nostalgia, and how the interplay between gender and memory shapes the patterns of nostalgia. Unfortunately, I don’t have any clear idea about it.
However, there is no doubt that these women, no matter where they live, belong to our little, and chaotic homeland!
Reference
Afonso, J. D., Barros, S., & Albert, I. (2023). The Sense of Belonging in the Context of Migration: Development and Trajectories Regarding Portuguese Migrants in Luxembourg. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 57(2), 518–546. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-022-09721-4
Bloch, A. (2017). “Other Mothers,” Migration, and a Transnational Nurturing Nexus. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 43(1), 53–75. https://doi.org/10.1086/692441
Chowdhury, F. Y. (2019). Language and culture maintenance among Bangladeshi migrants in Southeast Queensland, Australia [PhD Thesis, The University of Queensland]. https://doi.org/10.14264/uql.2019.690
Melting Pot—ECPS. (n.d.). Retrieved September 26, 2024, from https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/melting-pot/
Migrant Integration and Social Cohesion. (n.d.). International Organization for Migration. Retrieved September 26, 2024, from https://www.iom.int/migrant-integration-and-social-cohesion
Smeekes, A., & Jetten, J. (2019). Longing for one’s home country: National nostalgia and acculturation among immigrants and natives. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 69, 131–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2019.02.001
Biography:
Aditi Sharif is a Social Researcher, currently researching Gender Diversity, Historiography, Feminist Discourse and Methodology, Heritage, and Migration. She is also a volunteer writer in Women Chapter English.