Transnational land and property disputes: the British-Bangladeshi experience

This article examines the issue of ongoing transnational tensions and disputes around land and property ownership that the members of the British-Bangladeshi diaspora are encountering in rural Sylhet, their origin region in their home country. While the existing literature on transnational communities documents migrants’ land-purchasing and house-building practices in their country of origin, too often in a celebratory way, the material disputes and tensions that arise from these investments, and their effect on transnational personal, familial and social relationships, have yet to be exposed. For British Bangladeshis, these disputes are rife and in some cases are being articulated through intimidation and even violence. My research suggests that these evolving phenomena of land and property disputes threaten to disrupt the transnational relationships that were established and maintained by one generation after another.