Making a new home in the diaspora: opportunities and dilemmas in the British South Asian experience

Abstract

This special issue focuses on the diverse experiences of the South Asian Diaspora in Britain as its members make new homes and identities outside the subcontinent. It has two main intentions. First, it attempts to show how it is possible to bring together much of the small-scale case-study literature on the diaspora by concentrating on significant and continuing themes in the diaspora experience. All members of diasporas have core tasks to perform as they make new homes for themselves outside their countries of origin. Here, our authors pay particular attention to the work of creating sacred and domestic space being done by South Asians in Britain—work that has to be continued through successive generations and well beyond the first stage of movement outside South Asia. Second, the authors hope to indicate why scholars and other readers beyond those who particularly study diasporas should be concerned with the British South Asian experience. Not only is this particular ethnic diaspora a persistent part of the subcontinent's own history, it also is significant for an understanding of Britain's social, economic, political and cultural history. The British South Asian experience is particularly important in the light of the attacks on the London transport system in July 2005. These raised important issues concerning diaspora community identity and cohesion, and religious authority and leadership, particularly the disengagement of many young South Asians from traditional religious institutions, which is a central theme in many of the contributions.