Bulletin n. 1/2013
June 2013
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Chatterji Joya
    Dispositions and Destinations: Refugee Agency and “Mobility Capital” in the Bengal Diaspora, 1947–2007
    in Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 55, Issue 2, April ,  2013 ,  273-304
    This study seeks to illuminate patterns of refugee settlement in the Bengali Muslim diaspora since 1947, which replicate global trends identified by Aristide Zolberg in new nation-states. Based on historical research and oral testimony gathered from over two hundred migrants in different settings in India, Bangladesh, and Britain, it suggests why some Muslims crossed borders after India's partition and others did not; why most moved only short distances within the delta; and why so many huddled in the shadow of the new national borders and so few traveled to the West. I uncover the subtle interplay between migrants' agency and structures of coercion, and between histories of mobility and of affect, in the shaping of migration choices, and explain how the recurrent patterns identified by Zolberg were produced in a regional context of critical but unexplored significance. The essay explores the impact of nation-state formation on older forms of mobility in the region, and the continuing interconnections between local micro-mobilities and regional, national, international, and trans-oceanic migrations. I suggest that the concept of “mobility capital” can help to explain not only patterns of migration, but also patterns of staying on. I conclude by questioning “cumulative causation theory,” which has inadvertently lent credence to fears that the developed countries of the West will be “swamped” by immigrants drawn from ever-expanding migratory networks based in the “third world.”
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