Women's Agency, Transnational Activism and Contributions to Community Identity Politics: British Bangladeshi Women in London

In this paper I highlight some issues on ‘community identity politics’ from a feminist intersectional and ethnographic study, which I am conducting on identity, intersectionality and the Bangladeshi Diaspora in Britain. The paper is concerned with the impact of the community identity on diaspora women. It highlights the dynamic positioning and positionality of women in the British Bangladeshi community identity in London. Through ethnographic engagement in the Bangladeshi community in London, as well as with the activism at the community level, the research attempts to explore how and to what extent the personal life experiences of transnational and diaspora women, which are generally not expressed and talked about in the political identity of a diaspora community, have emerged as influential factors in terms of gaining political consciousness. For example, the notion of struggle for women to relocate abroad or live in a particular diaspora context and transnational space plays a critical role in enforcing the importance of not losing political consciousness and, therefore, forming individual and collective political identities. The paper discusses how the intersection of religion, gender and politics has been identified as both powerful and challenging in relation to women’s political identity formation. The gender dimension in political engagement and community identity has been identified as a more dynamic set of identities, continuities, which is more cohesive and benign. Women from different cohorts and different political backgrounds have been identified as showing their common interest in mobilizing, engaging and supporting women that hold different political standpoints. The paper argues how the role of women in political activism breaks the binary of self-determinism and Islamism to some measure, and shows the unconventional practice of political harmony, strategic maintenance of transnational political links as well as reinforcement of generational linkage of ethno-nationalism.