Being Bangladeshi in Britain

Blog post by Anushka Chaudhuri, University of Bristol, UK

As a byproduct of competing nationalist discourses of secular Bengali and Muslim Bangladeshi identities since Bangladeshi independence in 1971, debates between who or what is ‘Bangladeshi’, including what ‘authenticity’ looks like, have emerged in Bangladesh and its diasporas. The British Bangladeshi diaspora particularly embodies these debates: their roots pre-dating the modern Bangladeshi state and connecting them to empire illustrate that migration and intergenerational settlement can facilitate continuity of cultural practices and social norms as well as bring forth change through hybridity, adaptation, and reclamation of previously stigmatized identities. In this regard, diasporas represent capacity for both continuity and change.
 
In my Identities article, ‘Appropriately Bangladeshi? Invisible labour and class distinction in the construction of British Bangladeshi identity’, I examine and challenge the notion that there is one Bangladeshi identity and examine Bangladeshi identities plural. Drawing on 33 semi-structured and narrative interviews with British Bangladeshis across England, I examine how regional origin, language and Islamic religiosity are three crucial and classed identity markers from Bangladesh that remain significant, albeit contested, in long-distance constructions of diasporic Bangladeshi identity. Specifically, I centre the underexplored British Bangladeshi self-identification and boundary maintenance in relation to being part of the ‘Sylheti’ ethno-cultural majority or the ‘non-Sylheti’ minority, where these identity markers suggest variable understandings of being Bangladeshi ‘properly’ and ‘respectably’ in different social-cultural spaces in Britain and are subsequently reproduced or transgressed. 

These findings present a uniquely British Bangladeshi diasporic reconfiguration as uneven regional development and migration patterns in and from Bangladesh have produced a Sylheti majority community of British Bangladeshis. Historically marginalized in Bangladesh due to assumed rurality and infrastructural underdevelopment, and facing structural racism, classism and Islamophobia in Britain, this largely working-class community has come to culturally represent Bangladesh and the wider Bengal region (West Bengal in India and the nation of Bangladesh) through their numeric vitality, in contrast with the smaller – although growing – population of ‘non-Sylheti’ Bangladeshis from other urban or rural regions outside of Sylhet, namely the capital of Dhaka, who hold cultural dominance in Bangladesh.
 
For readers both familiar and unfamiliar with conceptions and articulations of Bangladeshi identity or the emergent discipline of Bangladeshi diaspora studies, I outline traditional and divergent notions of cultural propriety before commencing my empirically driven, theoretically informed analysis. In my article, I explain how holding heritage in economically developed urban regions, such as Dhaka; speaking the standard register of Bengali – the national language of Bangladesh; and ‘sufficiently’ engaging in Islamic practices have traditionally held dominance in Bangladesh and among its diasporas. For Sylheti Bangladeshis, traditional constructs of Bangladeshi identity and propriety may hold different meanings. Centring the Sylheti many, Bangladeshi identity is predominantly reframed in Britain according to Sylheti notions of Bangladeshiness by using the Sylheti dialect or prioritizing regionally inflected Islamic heritage. Thus, in my work, I examine how such dynamics lend to the creation of, and consolidate, Bangladeshi identities existing in plurality while, simultaneously, reflecting ongoing debates about social (im)propriety that are being renegotiated by diasporas.
 
In the article, I draw upon Bourdieu’s (1984, 1986) concept of ‘class distinction’ and Radhakrishnan’s (2011) intersectional work on ‘appropriate’ identities. These two bodies of work underscore the messy, relational and contextual nature of identity formation – including the way social class and aspirations for respectability influence the performance of identities as transplanted from Bangladesh, the nation of origin, and the navigation of challenges imposed from the top-down in Britain, the nation of domicile. Through this, I show that identities do not exist in a vacuum but are socially shaped. At the same time, I offer a critique exemplifying how much of this self/other identification and classification as ‘Sylheti’ or ‘non-Sylheti’ is a reaction that reflects class position and class boundaries alongside uneven opportunities in Bangladesh and Britain.
 
Whilst I centre individual stories in my article, my participants’ experiences are situated amidst a wider and more complex context. The 2024 overthrow of the authoritarian Hasina-led government in Bangladesh and waves of Far Right, anti-immigration mobilizations across Britain since 2024 are two contemporary examples where questions – or expectations – about identity, belonging, otherness, and ‘doing it right’ have come explicitly to fore. British Bangladeshis grapple with not only the long-distance and affective consequences of politics in Bangladesh but also an increasingly hostile political terrain in Britain. Witnessing these events and changing political climates, we are reminded that the identity question, then, is not new. Nonetheless, when narratives or political projects that cast doubt upon belonging or interrogate differences are on the rise, this enquiry is critical.

Further, with Bangladeshis underexplored within South Asian studies’ India focus, oversimplified within existing British Bangladeshi diaspora research, and impacted by structural asymmetries in their everyday lives, deeper examinations of identity, belonging, home/away, transnationality and structure/agency are necessary for nuanced understanding of British Bangladeshis as a heterogeneous diaspora. By analyzing classed boundary marking and internal diversities and divisions, I offer critical insights into British Bangladeshi diasporic identity which are crucial to consider in a global climate characterised by classed boundaries, hardening identities, religious revivalism and political reactionaries. In other words, the stories that I unpack in my article demonstrate British Bangladeshi agency and ambition amid inequalities and injustices.

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Image credit: Photo by Idin Ebrahimi on Unsplash

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Read the Identities article:
Chaudhuri, A. (2026). Appropriately Bangladeshi? Invisible labour and class distinction in the construction of British Bangladeshi identity. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2026.2641370​   OPEN ACCESS

Read further in Identities:

From desh to bidesh: history of migration and activism of British Bangladeshi Muslims in East London   OPEN ACCESS

​The brown/desi girl scape: diasporic young Bangladeshi women on social media   OPEN ACCESS

Ambivalences of the emotional logics of migration and family reunification: emotions, experiences and aspirations of Bangladeshi husbands and wives in Italy