ABSTRACT
One has constantly to learn in two directions: outwardly, toward the culture of the new home and inwards, toward relearning what one knew from the old. These crossed frontiers mark their personal biographies. They are the lines of forgetting and remembering, as from family photographs, old letters, documents of passage and new memorials. While many of the journeys people shall be hearing about involve travel over space, a physical shifting of bodies from one location to the other. Life stories, experiences and feelings are not just expressed through what people say or write down. They are also conveyed through bodies and, in Judith Butler’s terms, the ‘performances’ that they give. Poverty and dependence on the British state, racism and ageism are not the exclusive experience of first-generation Bengalis living in Tower Hamlets. Nor are feelings of nostalgia for ‘the good old days’, or critical feelings towards the younger generation, or resentment at how society has changed.
