Panel 2: Reconstructing identity
10:10 -11:00
​Rushna Ali-Sadler
10:10 - 10:35
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Key words
Identity, Muslim, Bengali, British Women
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Biography
My entire academic experience has been at the university of Leeds, from certHE, BA and Masters, culminating in the germination of ideas for my current phD and the development of my research interests: Primarily, issues pertaining to identity and belonging amongst Muslims in the UK, specifically British born Muslim Women of Bangladeshi heritage, additionally in the history of Islam in Bengal and Sufism. My background, paid and voluntary, comprises over 15 years of grassroots project development and consultation works, aimed at providing opportunities for a better quality of life for local communities in the London borough of Tower Hamlets.
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Supervisor(s)
Dr Tajul Islam and Dr Mustapha Sheikh
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Birth and Belonging in this Sceptre’d Isle: How free are free choices in (re) formulating identity for Young Muslim Women?
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The ‘what’ of Islam and the ‘who’ of Muslims continue to garner much attention. Many studies suggest British Muslim women are distinguishing a religious over a cultural identity in order to oppose endemic prejudices and patriarchal oppressions, (Pollen, 2002; Bhopal, 1997; Brah 1996; Parmar 1982 Et al) Within Bengali communities growing concerns on conflicting notions of Bengali-ness with Muslim-ness accentuate stresses and causes further tensions on ideas of identity and belonging (Ahmed, 2006) Whilst pertinent they highlight a paucity of research exploring the ramifications of the post 9/11 climate on identity that is of gender, ethnicity and age specificity. This chronological thematic auto-ethnographical research delves beyond common nomenclature on identity with lived reality insights to enable a deeper understanding of the research’s more contextual elements, and, facilitate a more nuanced reading of it. The Study combines Bangladeshi and British contexts to explore the evolving nature of identity (re) formulation within the nexus of the Bengali notions of desh (home) and bidesh (abroad) – popularised by sojourners to articulate the duality of their lives, (Gardner, 1993) thus conceptualising identity around home and belonging: 1) The reality of desh-bidesh, elaborates on the concept and relatedness to identity. 2) The conflation of desh-bidesh, discusses 1960s sojourners, 1980s family reunifications and the mobilisation of the Bengali communities. 3) The myth of desh-bidesh, considers the perspectives of identity and belonging amongst young British born young Muslim women of Sylheti Bengali heritage, and specifically enquires how current sociopolitical pressures endorse arguments of ‘an alien ancestral homeland’ and a ‘hostile place of birth’, (Eade and Garbin, 2006, Gardener and Shukur, 1994 Et al) the consequences on informing and influencing their choices on identity (re) formulation, their sense of belonging, and their concomitant relationships with Britain, Bangladesh and the global Muslim Ummah.
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Ahmed, S. (2006). Constructing Bangladesh, Religion, Ethnicity, and Language in an Islamic Nation. USA: The university of North Carolina Press.
Brah, A. (1996) Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities, London: Routledge
Bhopal, K. (1997) Gender, ‘Race’ and Patriarchy: A study of South Asian Women, Aldershot: Ashgate
Eade, J. and Garbin, D. (2006). Competing Visions of Identity and Space: Bangladeshi Muslims in Britain. Contemporary South Asia, 14(2).
Gardner, K. (1993). Desh-Bidesh: Sylheti Images of Home and Away. [online] JStor. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/ [Accessed 3 Oct. 2018].
Gardner, K. & Shakur, A. (1994) ‘I’m Bengali, I’m Asian, and I’m Living Here: The Changing identity of British Bengalis’ in Ballard, R. (ed) Desh Pardesh, The South Asian Presence in Britain, London:
Identity Contradiction: A Socio-cultural Investigation of Saudis’ Translations of Orientalists’ Writings about the History of Saudi Arabia
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How Europeans and Americans depict Saudi identity is a contentious issue that has been investigated in a wide range of studies. Nevertheless, how Saudis view the Western’s perceptions of the Saudi national identity may not have been subject to a close examination so far, particularly in the field of Translation Studies. The translator’s role is no longer expected to be neutral nor value-free, aiming to transmit the exact message of the original author of the text. Thus, the cultural and sociological lenses in Translation Studies enabled researchers to pay more attention to the translators, and situate translation products in their socio-cultural contexts. The present study aims to examine whether the ideological affiliations and political inclinations of the Saudi translators of Orientalists’ texts about Saudi history can shape their translation products.
To achieve the aim of the paper, three socio-cultural approaches are employed: namely, Toury’s (1995) norms, Lefevere’s (1992) ideology, and the translator’s agency, or in Bourdieu’s (1990) words: habitus. The paratextual zone, which surrounds the text, of three Saudi translations of Orientalists’ books about Arabia are used as a testing ground for the current paper. The case study is composed of three notable Saudi translators of Orientalists’ writings on Saudi history, who are ‘Abd Allah Al ‘UthaÄ«mÄ«n, ‘Abd Allah Al ‘Askar and MansÅ«r Al KhuraÄ«jÄ«. The previous socio-cultural studies in the field of translation in Saudi Arabia such as Alkhamis (2012) and Alsiary (2016) failed to focus on the Saudi translators (the human agents of the field). However, the current study focuses on the translators by positioning them as its case study. The results reveal that the Saudi translators’ ideology and political stand are mostly reflected first and foremost in the paratextual elements of their translations of Orientalists’ writings on Saudi history.
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Alkhamis, A. 2012. Socio-cultural perspectives on translation activities in Saudi Arabia: A Bourdieusean account. Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester.
Alsiary, H. A. 2016. Mapping the 􀂦eld of children's literature translation in Saudi Arabia: Translation flow in accordance with socio-cultural norms, Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds.
Bourdieu, P. 1990. In Other Words. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lefevere, A. 1992b. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame.London: Routledge.
Toury, G. 1995. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.