Welcome upon Conditions: On Visiting a Multigenerational Immigrant House(hold)

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter builds upon extensive ethnographic research with South Asian diasporas in Britain. To depict and disentangle the complexity of such migrant collectives, three case studies are considered, with different national and religious backgrounds, and diverse times of migration. Mapping out as many Black-and-Minority-Ethnic districts in London, I revisit my fieldwork with a Bangladeshi family in Newham, a Sinhala in Wembley and a Sikh one in Ealing. Drawing from reiterated visits and stays at their homes as a guest-and-ethnographer, I reflect on how house(holding) is maintained in each of these dwellings, where up to four generations live under one roof. In observing their hybrid material cultures, I am also sharing petty practices of domesticity and recording biographical stories from several kin members. Walks-along with informants in the neighborhood extend the appreciation of homemaking past one’s doorstep and add a political dimension to the everyday experience of living in a racialized diaspora. What snoozes under the tag of British-Asians, and to what extent being invited to their abundant dinner table allows an anthropologist into the cultural intimacy of multigenerational migrant households where interests and subjectivities coalesce and compete?