Visiting friends and relatives (VFR): a multi-sited study of mobilities between Bangladesh and London

The thesis examines the bilateral transnational visiting mobilities of British Bangladeshis and their non-migrant relatives and friends. Theoretically, it draws from the interdisciplinary research fields of Mobilities, Transnationalism and Diaspora Studies. Geographically, it focuses on the VFR practices, processes, experiences of ‘to and fro’ visits between Bangladesh and the Bangladeshi London diaspora, and the social, cultural and political implications of the mobilities and immobilities that unfold. The research is designed as a multi-sited study. Data was collected over a thirteenmonth period through participant observation and semi-structured interviews in London and Bangladesh. Analysis of the empirical evidence is divided into three key trajectories. In the first trajectory, I interpret and compare the context and experiences of VFR mobilities from Britain to Bangladesh, i.e. visits to the migrant and diasporic ‘homeland’. Deploying the notion of ‘memoryscape’, I analyse British-Bangladeshis’ often nostalgic and idealised recollections of places, landscapes and people remembered from the distant past of childhood and early adulthood, or from more recent experiences of visits, and with a particular focus on cross-generational and gendered comparisons. Secondly, I look into the VFR mobilities from a different perspective by reversing the transnational optic. I explore and analyse the diverse experiences and interactions of non-migrant Bangladeshis’ visits to London with the host community, and the significance of the events that unfold. Their VFR mobilities are in many ways quite different from the existing examples of ‘hosting practices’, particularly in the European context, that have been studied. Inherent power imbalances, lack of access to ‘network capital’, the generational gap and the hidden tensions of hosting relatives and friends from the home country in a diasporic space are the key contrasts. Finally, I look into the concomitants of VFR mobilities, including issues of identity, home-making and materialities that are embedded in the bilateral VFR trajectories, and associated tensions and perspectives for the future. The thesis contributes new theoretical and empirical insights into the phenomenon and epistemology of VFR mobilities. Such mobilities, and their correlate of immobilities, unfold in a highly unequal transnational geopolitical and economic context, and add a much-needed novel perspective to a field dominated by western-centric research among relatively free-moving tourists, lifestyle and professional migrants, and members of diasporas

Memoryscapes of the homeland by two generations of British Bangladeshis

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When migrants become hosts and nonmigrants become mobile: Bangladeshis visiting their friends and relatives in London

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

Disrupted mobilities: British-Bangladeshis visiting their friends and relatives during the global pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted the cross-border mobilities of people and materials. The ramifications of such a sudden large-scale disruption of mobilities were hugely significant for migrants’ and diasporic citizens’ transnational way of life. Being ‘here’ and ‘there’ and maintaining intimate personal, familial and social ties between people and places transnationally suddenly became virtually impossible, and some of these blockages and brakes to mobility continue. National lockdowns by many countries across the globe and the virtual halting of international travel severely limited people’s capacity to physically travel. Visiting geographically distant relatives and friends, meeting them face-to-face and fulfilling cultural obligations and duties, such as providing care or attending a funeral, became very challenging. In this chapter, I examine the disruptions of human spatial-temporal mobilities of visiting friends and relatives (VFR) between members of the British-Bangladeshi diaspora in London and their home country, Bangladesh. Drawing from interviews both in-person and online via Zoom and WhatsApp, I analyse and interpret the complex experiences of their visits and the consequences of enforced immobilities for individuals and families during the pandemic

‘It's just a natural human thing to do, to go and visit your family… but it's not easy for us’: gender and generation in Bangladeshis’ transnational visits between London and Sylhet

In the title to this paper, Maya, a British-Bangladeshi woman, expresses her frustration at the refusal of the Home Office to grant her father in Sylhet a visa to come and fulfil his role as family head at the wedding of his son, Maya's brother, in London. The case illustrates well the intersection of gender and generation that fundamentally shapes the pattern of visits, in both directions, across this long-distance transnational social and family space. Bangladesh is a patriarchal society, with marked gender divisions layered across generations, which are largely reproduced among the migrant community in London and are manifested, in various ways, in the phenomenon of transnational visiting. Based on 61 in-depth interviews in London and Sylhet, supplemented by participant observation, we delineate the gendered and generational structures framing the visits, both of migrants to the homeland and of non-migrants to their relatives in London

Ageing and mobilities in transnational space: the British-Bangladeshi experience

Empirical data from in-depth interviews with Bangladeshis in London and Sylhet reveal different experiences, imaginaries and mobilities connected to ageing. In contrast to the now-standard ‘Western’ model of active and successful ageing, in Sylhet and amongst Bangladeshi-origin migrants in London, successful ageing is less about physical activity and independence and more about being socially active and respected, and being taken care of by family members. However, British-Bangladeshis’ experiences of ageing and mobility are gendered, with older men going to the mosque for social interaction, and some making solo trips to the desh or homeland, whilst most older women are spatially less mobile. Men view the experience of ageing in Bangladesh as more convivial, for climatic, economic and social reasons, but healthcare there is very poor. For older British-Bangladeshi women, there is less desire to visit the homeland; even less to return there to settle. Most older first-generation British-Bangladeshis are content to age-in-place in London, although a minority of men go for extended stays in Sylhet. For the younger first-generation migrants in London whose parents are still alive in Bangladesh, managing transnational familyhood and care are a major challenge, given the costs and other barriers to travel