ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses heterogeneity of transnational practices, particularly with regard to the relationship to diasporic space and spatialization. It explores the ways in which transnational social fields are sites of struggle where processes of distinction operate and where accumulation of social/symbolic capital, strategies of status and competing politics of representation influence diasporic practices and identifications. The chapter differentiates between several distinctive, yet sometimes overlapping and interrelated, social fields within a broader Bangladeshi diasporic sphere to address issues of politics of transnationalism, space and power. The politicization of Bangladeshi migrants through the independence struggle paved the way for the institutionalization of an ethno-national identity based on secular, nationalist and socialist values. The chapter explores how the local/global dialectics of spatialization among Bangladeshis in Britain related to different political and community contexts. It also explores the diversity of Bangladeshi religious dynamics, especially the different socio-spatial scales of Islamic activities.
