The locations
We selected four field sites in India and Bangladesh and four in the United Kingdom, where large numbers of Bengali Muslim migrants had settled.
In South Asia, we interviewed people living in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, where there are camps settled by Urdu-speaking migrants and refugees; in Dinajpur and Syedpur in the northern India/Bangladesh border areas and Satkhira, in the south in the Sundarbans delta area. These sites were chosen because of the density of settlement, but also because they represent areas with very different histories and different kinds of people who had moved there.
In the United Kingdom, we interviewed people in Tower Hamlets, London and Oldham, Greater Manchester, where the oldest and most densely populated Bengali communities are to be found. We also spoke to people in Newham, East London and an open network of restaurant workers and brides throughout the UK. This allowed us to explore how Bengalis in Britain were also moving within the UK itself, creating new communities and new patterns of settlement.
