Comments on: Home is where I’m alienated*

By: Fascinating new ethnography of British-Pakistani transnationals in London | CLERA blog

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 10:15:52 +0000

[…] ‘Home is where I’m alienated’, Ingrid Piller reports on a new ethnographic study (Qureshi 2012) of British-Pakistani […]

By: Khan

Khan — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:32:13 +0000

Dear Ingrid,

I forgot to mention the current work in the area of labour migration from Pakistan to UK. It is a doctoral research being carried by a colleague, Anthony Capstick at lancaster University. In his ethnography of migration. Capstick is looking at the literacy practices of the second generation Pakistani Mirpuri settled in UK. He was here in Pakistan for year to do the ethnography in Mirpur and he is currently analysing his data. He also gave an excellent paper in Karachi based on his initial findings. We had some very good discussions on e-seminar on your work as he read the transcript of it and was sorry that that he missed it.

Best wishes,

Khan

By: Khan

Khan — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 10:40:07 +0000

Dear Ingrid,
Thanks very much for the wonderful analysis showing the implications of labour migration from Pakistan to UK as way to bring the issue of transnationalism. “The effects of labour migration from Pakistan” (Ballard 1989: 112) is largely a Marxist perspective/ account of the migration. Ballard makes two factual observations in this essay: (A) that the remittances sent by overseas Pakistani labour is perhaps the greatest source of GDP (which is probably still the case) (B) the parts of rural Pakistani from where heavy overseas migration has taken place are now effectively rich but these resources/ remittances are not fed into the local economic system to generate to cultivate benefits.
Let me share my personal account/experiences of visiting several times a village/town situated right against the Indian boarder in the southern tip of Azad Kashmir, called Mirpur. The labour migration to UK started from the job search of peasants of this region as though terrain conditions and poor economic activity forced men to seek job outside Mirpur. Ballord notes that it began with Mirpuris (people of Mirpur) taking jobs as stokers on board British streamers sailing out of Bombay at the turn of the century and it was ex-seamen who were drafted to work in munitions factories in Birmingam and Bradford during the Second World War. These were the pioneers who began the migration from Mirpur to UK.
When you visit the area now, you immediately notice the material manifestation of transmigration at different levels: gadgetry, dress, sports instruments and frequent reference to English cuisine, important places and events in the interaction of those who have not been there yet. The major current pattern of migration is through marrying a relative. The diaspora take it as their moral duty to marry their off springs back home to make migration possible. The families of Mirpur who I have met personally show very interesting literacy practices: their second or third generation born, brought up and schooled in the UK speak like other people born there but their literacy abilities/practices are very at a pretty low level than the average white people of their social economic background. Perhaps as a result of it most of the Mirpuris are employed in lower tiers of the current British economy. When they come back to Pakistan usually on a short visit, they often find it useless to spend their remittances in the local economy. Naturally in a country where power cut-off is eight hours every day on end and 35,000 people have lost their lives in last two days, who is going to invest in local economy.
As a result, the remittances have led to superficial prosperity of migrant families but have not boosted the local economy in any ways. One important beneficiary of such massive transaction is the superstructure: people in government who get paid the interest over such transactions. The peasant remains peasant.

Reference:
Ballard, R. (1989) Effects of labour migration from Pakistan. In sociology of “Developing societies” South Asia (eds.) Alavi and Harriss.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 11:58:29 +0000

I don’t know what I am. I had a French father, a German mother, my parents communicated in Esperanto, then I lived in England, then in Australia. I spent my holidays with people from many different countries speaking Esperanto. I spent one year learning Japanese at Macquarie uni, I tend to forget my French and German, but English is still foreign to me, especially the spoken English. I’ve written a little book for children Foreign languages: what they don’t often tell you. When I have time, I’ll certainly read some more of your articles.

By: Christof Demont-Heinrich

Christof Demont-Heinrich — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 16:43:09 +0000

It is true that there is a lot of celebratory academic work/discourse (dare I say rhetoric?) out there about transnationals, transnationalism, the whole TRANS discourse, as in if only we could just transcend the current backwardness (especially nationalism), then we’d suddenly be in a hierarchy-free utopia, where, of course, we’d all speak English 😉

And it is important to draw attention, scholarly, and critical, to those who are not enjoying the privilege of transnational identity, living, etc., as Quereshi clearly does.

On the other hand, as critical as I am of un-critical celebration of transnational identity, the whole TRANS-everything discourse, and the lack of attention to the ways in which cultural, economic and educational privilege come so crucially into play in terms of people being able to enjoy the fruits of the “trans” or not, I also find it very appealing, and, frankly, agree with the criticisms of nationalism as largely backward, imprisoning, etc. And I know I’m not alone, in particular when it comes to others who, like me, are among the culturally and educationally privileged global academic elite, in sharing this view.

I think the “trans” can stand as a laudable ideal, but we also must never lose sight of the fact that, in the end, there is never a total, and complete transcendence from the messy, unequal, contested web of human social life in which we’re all enmeshed.

By: Alia Amir

Alia Amir — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 03:02:55 +0000

Dear Ingrid, Thank you for writing about Pakistani Diaspora community in Britain and introducing the work of Qureshi.This is an amazing post with insightful analyses. As you have written that few researchers look at the actual bodies on the move, definitely this is a pioneering work in the field of transnationalism and its complexities.
As a second generation Pakistani expatriate, this blog post is close to my heart as well 🙂