ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the formation and transformation of the Bengali Muslim community in Britain through a focus on two key sites and through the narratives of pioneer migrants who helped shape diasporic spaces. Tracing the changing contours of the Bengali community historically and paying attention to its contested contemporary boundaries, it explores the process of community formation in Tower Hamlets in east London and Oldham in Greater Manchester. A comparison between Tower Hamlets and Oldham reveals shared experiences of labour migration and deindustrialization, struggles against racism, and the routes and roots of community formation. Tower Hamlets is home to over two-fifths of the Bangladeshi population of greater London. The chapter explores the formation of two iconic British Bengali communities through the stories of Bengali pioneer migrants whose lives, histories, and experiences have shaped and been shaped by the process of arrival and of settlement.
