ABSTRACT
By analysing the film Bideśinī – From Bangladesh With Love (Bangladesh 2005), in which the author played the lead female role, the chapter shows that the identity of the Bangladeshi state is constructed by invoking similar stereotypes and dichotomies to those that characterise the dichotomisation of non-‘indigenous’-‘indigenous’ people. It becomes apparent that the current trend in public discourses to divide humankind into ‘dominant’/‘dominating’ and ‘dominated’ entities, or ‘perpetrators’ and ‘victims’, solely based upon group identities, is one reason why the Bangladeshi state denies its so-called indigenous people the right to officially call themselves ‘indigenous’. The construction of the identity of the Bangladeshi state as well as the global discourse on the ‘indigenous’ people draw heavily on both ‘histories of oppression’ and ongoing struggles for cultural survival. This propensity to self-victimisation makes it difficult for those classified as ‘dominated’ on a global scale to recognise that they may also be ‘dominant’ at a different level, which may contribute to the perpetuation of socioeconomic inequalities. Furthermore, through this analysis of the film Bideśinī – From Bangladesh With Love it becomes apparent that members of a putatively ‘dominated’ entity, as in this case Bangladesh, try to compensate for their marginalised global position by the self-attribution of specific positive characteristics that they assume members of ‘dominant’/‘dominating’ entities to be generally lacking.
