Making a new home in the diaspora

This special issue focuses on the diverse experiences of the South Asian Diaspora in Britain as its members make new homes and identities outside the subcontinent. It has two main intentions. First, it attempts to show how it is possible to bring together much of the small-scale case-study literature on the diaspora by concentrating on significant and continuing themes in the diaspora experience. All members of diasporas have core tasks to perform as they make new homes for themselves outside their countries of origin. Here, our authors pay particular attention to the work of creating sacred and domestic space being done by South Asians in Britain—work that has to be continued through successive generations and well beyond the first stage of movement outside South Asia. Second, the authors hope to indicate why scholars and other readers beyond those who particularly study diasporas should be concerned with the British South Asian experience. Not only is this particular ethnic diaspora a persistent part of the subcontinent's own history, it also is significant for an understanding of Britain's social, economic, political and cultural history. The British South Asian experience is particularly important in the light of the attacks on the London transport system in July 2005. These raised important issues concerning diaspora community identity and cohesion, and religious authority and leadership, particularly the disengagement of many young South Asians from traditional religious institutions, which is a central theme in many of the contributions. They also are grateful to those who assisted us financially in this enterprise; namely, the History Faculty in the University of Oxford, the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, also in Oxford, and the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Coventry. Notes 1. Roger Ballard, 'The context and consequences of migration: Jullundur and Mirpur compared', New Community, Vol 11, Nos 1/2, Autumn/Winter 1983, pp 117–136. 2. Census 2001, Ethnicity and Religion in England and Wales, ⟨http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001⟩, accessed 18 September 2006. 3. Baishaki Mela, ⟨http://www.baishakhimela.com/⟩, accessed 31 July 2006. 4. The disturbances in the Lozells area of Birmingham in October 2005 were thought to have been sparked by rumours alleging a West Indian girl had been raped by a gang of Asian men

Development economics · Diaspora · Economics · Ethnology · Geography · Political science · Sociology · South asia · Anthropology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · History · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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