When migrants become hosts and nonmigrants become mobile

Bangladeshis visiting their friends and relatives in London

Bibliographic Data

ID5828076
AuthorsFarid Miah (0000-0002-4998-0527, University of Sussex), Russell King (0000-0001-6662-3305, University of Sussex, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume27
Issue2
Publication date2020-07-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePopulation Space and Place (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1544-8444 • E-ISSN: 1544-8452
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/psp.2355
OpenAlexW3042779749
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited45

Most studies of migrants visiting their friends and relatives (VFR) are on homeland visits. In this article, we reverse the transnational optic and study nonmigrants from the country of origin visiting their migrated friends and relatives abroad. We draw on participant observation and 57 interviews with migrant hosts and nonmigrant visitors carried out in London and in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh. Visits from the homeland to the diaspora are found to be deeply meaningful for the maintenance of transnational familyhood, especially at critical moments such as weddings, childbirth, and end of life. They are performative acts of belonging with unwritten rules of mutual obligations and choreographed itineraries to the houses of relatives and friends and to tourist sites. They also represent inequalities in economic status and social mobility between the migrants and their left-behind relatives and friends in Bangladesh. Most visits are enjoyable for all concerned, but subtle tensions can arise, for instance, in the hosts' difficulty in managing their ongoing working lives with duties of hospitality and acting as guides and in visitors' intense schedule of duty visits to many relatives and lack of agency in stepping out of the Bangladeshi community in London. Furthermore, in an increasingly hostile environment for getting visas to visit the United Kingdom, an unequal and inhumane situation arises of blocked mobility

Diaspora · Homeland · Hospitality · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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