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This article builds upon work which aims to 'de-exceptionalise' displacement [Cabot and Ramsey, 2021. Deexceptionalizing Displacement: An Introduction. Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 12(3):286–299] by describing two hitherto unresearched examples of 'unexceptional' displacement. Both involve abandonment and going missing, and both throw light on the ways in which gender, space and emplacement work together to produce particular vulnerabilities via what I have called 'spatial precarity'. In the first, lost or abandoned girls are held in a government-run Safe House on the outskirts of the city. In the second, women are displaced from their marriages when their husbands go missing. The context is a rapidly changing urban environment in which the rapacious development of property and infrastructure has led to a cityscape that is never stable. This environment, and the socio-political relations that are constitutive of it, have helped to create the conditions in which certain people get lost and others go missing, leading to highly gendered forms of displacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on ethnographic material gathered from villages surrounding the Bibiyana gas field operated by Chevron in north east Bangladesh, this paper explores the apparent paradox between the corporation's programmes of development and the response of residents who insist that the company ‘should do more’. The paper draws upon theories of the development gift which focus upon the ethics and moralities of corporate giving and the ways in which development gifts extend capitalist power, re-embed morality in the market and bind recipients into hierarchical positions of unequal exchange. In contrast, we know significantly less about the moralities and motivations of the populations to whom the gifts are offered. Aiming to fill the lacunae, the paper shows how at Bibiyana the ‘community engagement’ programmes take place in a specific moral terrain which pre-dates the arrival of Chevron and has profoundly affected how their development goods are perceived, utilized and contested. Whilst Chevron's ‘community engagement’ programme is underlain by ethics of detachment and aims to create disconnection via discourses of empowerment and sustainability, this is at odds with the local moral economy of connection, which is underlain by the ethics of Islamic charity and patronage, and in which hierarchical differences are explicit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the ways in which children negotiate complex transnational identities and roles. Based on research amongst Bangladeshi children living in East London in families who maintain transnational linkages with Bangladesh, the paper draws attention to the ways in which British-born Bangladeshi children are mobile not only across places but also across time. The paper also draws upon Katz' notion of ‘emplacement’, with its focus on political and economic processes, and indicates the significance of children's mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This introductory article sets out the main challenges that the study of children poses for the understanding of transnational migration. Children are not simply a neglected empirical group, whose perspectives are rarely considered; children can also provide researchers with important insights concerning the nature of transnationalism if the phenomenon is considered through their eyes. Research on transnational children brings to the fore issues concerning familial practices and discourses, the importance of the life-course and of generation, and the role of feelings in creating and changing transnational relationships and imaginaries. Focusing on children and children's places raises important questions concerning the relationship between the life-course and the global political economy. Finally, researching with children raises particular methodological challenges and approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues for a more precise and context specific understanding of mechanisms of 'informal social protection' in Bangladesh. The context is a 'Londoni' village in Sylhet which has high levels of internal and overseas migration. The economic boom caused by the latter provides important employment opportunities for people from much poorer areas of Bangladesh, who have moved into the area. Yet, as our findings show, the extent to which the poor can call upon the help and protection of rich overseas migrants depends upon the degree of closeness to, or separation from, them. This is marked both through real and fictive kinship as well as geography: those that come from nearby become 'our own poor', whereas those from further away are treated as 'outsiders', not qualifying for significant 'help'. As the paper argues, access to hierarchically ordered places is vital for the sustainability of precarious livelihoods. Yet whilst geographical movement is an important survival strategy for the poor, it is only when social relations are established with wealthy patrons that it can be said to contribute to informal social protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the circumstances surrounding death and bereavement among Bengali families in London, England. Changes in the death and ritual practices; Exclusion of women from the important processes of ritual grieving; Establishment of Muslim cemeteries.

This article uses material from a village in Sylhet to discuss some of the effects of overseas migration on the area. Studies of ‘sending areas’ such as Sylhet are important not only for understanding the migratory process, but also for a more balanced view of Sylhetis in Britain. Arguing that migration has not led to economic development in the area, I suggest that instead it has prompted ‘migration mama’ — a situation where foreign countries are invested in and glorified to the detriment of the homelands. This has far‐reaching social and economic effects, and is related to the hegemony of the international labour market as much as to the internal conditions of Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]