ABSTRACT
Terms such as ‘hybridity’, ‘global migrants’ and the ‘new ethnicities’ clearly have much to offer in the analysis of contemporary global cultures. This chapter shows how the identities of one specific group of British settlers – first generation male migrants from Sylhet, Bangladesh – whilst certainly multiple, fluid and frequently contradictory, are also closely tied to the stages they have reached in the life-cycle. The chapter discusses the research carried out at St Hilda’s East Community Centre in Shoreditch, which runs a day centre for Bengali elders. It argues that the identities and perceptions of desh and bidesh of the first generation Sylheti elders have depended to a large degree upon the stages they have reached in their life-cycles, as well as the wider historical context. For many of the informants the late 1970s and 1980s was a period in which their lives became increasingly orientated towards family, community, and a more strongly Muslim identity.
