Shifting boundaries of self, religion and ethnicity: cultural adaptation of Bangladeshi Muslim migrant women in Australia
Creators: name: BEGUM, Sufia
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 440107
subject: Social and cultural anthropology
classificationCode: 440303
subject: Migration

description: This study explored the adaptations made by Bangladeshi Muslim migrant women as they integrate into Australian culture, including the influences of their own culture, religion and gender relations in shaping their ways of raising children and creating their cultural identity. It also determined whether Bangladeshi migrant women employ strategies to raise children that connect ethnic identity, religious beliefs, community relations and family.

Through the lens of cultural fluidity, this study examined how Bangladeshi women create connectivity between their family, ethnic representation, community relations and religious practices. It identified the struggle of Bangladeshi Muslim migrant women in preserving ethnic and religious identity within family and social spheres. It also explored the social and cultural challenges Bangladeshi migrant women face as they aim to transfer ethnic and religious intergenerational values to their children.

To understand the identity construction of the Bangladeshi community, a comparative study of these two polarisations is important. This study used case study groups to investigate the emergence of two distinct Bangladeshi migrant communities in Melbourne, Australia, based on their religious and ethnic identity practices. The research was conducted by applying qualitative research methods. Informed by ethnographic research methodologies, this study applied semi-structured, in-depth interviews and participant observation research methods. Thirty Bangladeshi Muslim migrant women who have children were interviewed to obtain detailed information about their experiences and views regarding cultural adaptation, and their strategies about raising children. In this study, 15 women from the southern suburbs and 15 women from the northern suburbs of Melbourne were interviewed. By comparing these two groups, this study explored which identity is more important to each group and the components upon which importance is based.

The first key finding of this study is the different perceptions of the migrant women regarding their own social and religious cultures, and the social and religious cultures of their home and host communities. Many women found that the absence of religious festivals and ethnic programs affected them very much because the festivity style and levels are not the same in their host country. Many women in both suburban areas also expressed that unfamiliar social environments and living far from extended family members can create anxiety and a sense of emptiness in their daily lives.

The second key finding is how the women determine their guidelines about raising children in a different cultural context in Australia. They are eager to achieve better education, better food, better health and security. For this reason, they aspire to live in a good suburb with a good community, where they may find people from Bangladeshi backgrounds. They also find themselves in a situation of continuous balancing and comparing life in both the host country and the source country.

The third finding is the challenges faced by Bangladeshi migrant women as they negotiate to preserve their cultural identity, and, at the same time, find pressure from family and society to keep their religious rules, norms and values alive among their children. They go through a continuous process of negotiation and shifting between these two identities - ethnic identity and religious identity - and their representation with regular practices. The study reveals that in the Northern suburban case group the women adopt to use religious guidelines whilst in the Southern suburban case group the women use their ethnic practices as guidelines to raise their children.

The fourth finding is that most of the Bangladeshi Muslim women are influenced by their local suburban cultural atmosphere and their embodiment, and, with the influence of these elements, they build the strategies to adapt in a new cultural setting and gradually engage in their surrounding community. After the initial settlement process of displacement, women are in a fragile state when they start their path of transferring identity to their children. Hence, they find a way of building their own social space to create a comfort zone and transfer their identity to their children.

The fifth finding is that Bangladeshi Muslim women actively participate in the process of both gender performativity and religious performativity in their everyday life activities that include daily childrearing, food preparation, household chores and religious teachings to their children. All these tasks create a larger responsibility for women compared to their husbands. As women, they follow gender performativity and, as Muslims, they follow religious performativity. I explored the term religious performativity as one of the important findings of this study, which provides a lens through which to understand migrant Muslim women's life experiences in Australia.

This study will contribute to the scholarship of multiculturalism and migration studies. The most significant contributions of this thesis are the insights it provides into the quest for identity and the challenges faced by migrant women in Australia. Further, it presents evidence for how determining the guidelines for raising children encourages the building of networks that offer Bangladeshi Muslim migrant women opportunity to build a community.