Abstract
This chapter sheds light on British-Pakistani women’s multiple performances and celebrations of this hyphenated identity at a ‘women only’ dinner dance, organised by two second-generation British-Pakistani sisters and their British-Pakistani friend. The influence of wealthy Pakistanis from Pakistan who had recently settled in Britain had an impact on the second-generation British-Pakistanis. They had brought with them an image of Pakistani culture far removed that portrayed in the British media. The celebration of cultural heritage was expressed through food, fashion, music, values and nostalgia. It was through their shared cultural background and interests that the women established belonging and recognition. Friendships among British-Pakistanis and participation and interest in Pakistani cultural events earned the women status and capital.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Andreouli, E., & Howarth, C. (2012). National identity, citizenship and immigration: Putting identity in context. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 43(3), 361–382.
Bennett, T., Savage, M., Silva, E., Warde, A., Gayo-Cal, M., & Wright, D. (2009). Culture, class, distinction. London: Routledge.
Bolognani, M. (2014). Visits to the country of origin: How second-generation British Pakistanis shape transnational identity and maintain power asymmetries. Global Networks, 14(1), 103–120.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste. London: Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 46–58). London: Greenwood Press.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Calhoun, C. (2002). The class consciousness of frequent travelers: Toward a critique of actually existing cosmopolitanism. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 101(4), 869–897.
Cederberg, M. (2012). Migrant networks and beyond: Exploring the value of the notion of social capital for making sense of ethnic inequalities. Acta Sociologica, 55(1), 59–72.
Charsley, K., & Bolognani, M. (2017). Being a freshie is (not) cool: Stigma, capital and disgust in British Pakistani stereotypes of new subcontinental migrants. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(1), 43–62.
D’Sylva, A., & Beagan, B. L. (2011). ‘Food is culture, but it’s also power’: The role of food in ethnic and gender identity construction among Goan Canadian women. Journal of Gender Studies, 20(3), 279–289.
Fathi, M. (2017). Intersectionality, class and migration: Narratives of Iranian women migrants in the UK. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gauntlett, D. (2011). Making is connecting. Available at https://www.makingisconnecting.org. Accessed 13 March 2015.
Glick Schiller, N. (2008). Beyond methodological ethnicity: Local and transnational pathways of immigrant incorporation (Willy Brandt Series of Working papers in International Migration and Ethnic Relations). Malmo: Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM) and Department of International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) Malmö University.
Glick Schiller, N., & Fouron, G. E. (1999). Terrains of blood and nation: Haitian transnational social fields. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2), 340–366.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. London: Penguin.
Guarnizo, L. E., Portes, A., & Haller, W. (2003). Assimilation and transnationalism: Determinants of transnational political action among contemporary migrants. American Journal of Sociology, 108(6), 1211–1248.
Lee, H. (2011). Rethinking transnationalism through the second generation. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 22, 295–313.
Levitt, P. (2009). Roots and routes: Understanding the lives of the second generation transnationally. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35(7), 1225–1242.
Levitt, P., & Glick Schiller, N. (2004). Conceptualizing simultaneity: A transnational social field approach to migration. International Migration Review, 38(3), 1002–1039.
Maghbouleh, N. (2010). ‘Inherited nostalgia’ among second-generation Iranian Americans: A case study at a Southern California University. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 31(2), 199–218.
Maira, S. (2002). Desis in the house: Indian American youth culture in New York City. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Maqsood, A. (2017). The new Pakistani middle-class. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Moscovici, S. (1973). Foreward. In C. Herzlich (Ed.), Health and illness: A social psychological analysis. London: Academic Press [for] the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology.
Portes, A. (1998). Social capital: Its origins and application in modern sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 1–24.
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. London: Touchstone.
Raj, D. (2003). Where are you from? Middle-class migrants in the modern world. London: University of California Press.
Roggeveen, S., & Van Meeteren, M. (2013). Beyond community: An analysis of social capital and the social networks of Brazilian migrants in Amsterdam. Current Sociology, 61(7), 1078–1096.
Rytter, M. (2010a). In-laws and outlaws: Black magic among Pakistani migrants in Denmark. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), 16, 46–63.
Rytter, M. (2010b). A sunbeam of hope: Negotiations of identity and belonging among Pakistanis in Denmark. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36(4), 599–617.
Shankar, S. (2008). Desi Land. Durham: Duke University Press.
Siisiäinen, M. (2000). Two concepts of social capital: Bourdieu vs. Putnam (Conference paper). Available at http://www.istr.org/resource/resmgr/working_papers_dublin/siisiainen.pdf. Accessed 13 March 2015.
Skeggs, B. (1997). Formations of class and gender. London: Sage.
Tyler, K. (2011). New ethnicities and old classities: Respectability and diaspora. Social Identities, 17(4), 523–542.
Warr, D. J. (2006). Gender, class, and the art and craft of social capital. The Sociological Quarterly, 47, 497–520.
Weller, S. (2010). Young people’s social capital: Complex identities, dynamic networks. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33(5), 872–888.
Werbner, P. (1990). The migration process: Capital, gifts and offerings among British Pakistanis. Oxford: Berg.
Werbner, P. (1997). Essentialising essentialism, essentialising silence: Ambivalence and multiplicity in the constructions of racism and ethnicity. In P. Werbner & T. Modood (Eds.), Debating cultural hybridity: Multi-cultural identities and the politics of anti-racism (pp. 226–254). London: Zed Books.
Werbner, P., & Fumanti, M. (2013). The aesthetics of diaspora: Ownership and appropriation. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, 78(2), 149–174.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mirza, N. (2020). Performance of a British-Pakistani Identity. In: Navigating the Everyday as Middle-Class British-Pakistani Women. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49312-7_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49312-7_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-49311-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-49312-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)