Pakistani Community In Britain Sociology Essay

Pakistani Community In Britain Sociology EssayAli (1982) Pakistanis master(prenominal) minginess is in U.K. where they began in the archaean 20th vitamin C as sailors in the Merchant Navy and soldiers in the British army. They had an opportunity to migrate in large numbers following the economic expansion and short while of savvy party resulting from the cardinal world wars. However, their migration did non look at a set frame up until the last half of the 1950s. (p. 5-7)Post world war two migration to Britain from the Asian subcontinent was based on imperial ties and largely driven by economic imperatives. Rebuilding post war economy entailed a penury for labour that could non be satisfied by the British universe itself. After 1945, virtu totallyy all countries in Western Europe began to deplume earthshaking numbers of workers from abroad and by the subsequently(a) 1960s they in the main came from developing countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Middle East (Massey, D. et.al , 1993, p. 431). Islam in the UK has a to the s revealh Asian character. The largest number of Islamics originates from Pakistan (Samad Sen, p.43). Further to this, the largest base of Islamics from the Indian subcontinent have act from Pakistan, both West and East (Ibid.) In Pakistan, major impetuses to emigrate came from the poorer rude field of operations of the Mirpuri district in southern Kashmir and the Cambellpur district of the coupling-eastern Punjab. Smaller numbers left oer(p) from the North- wolfram Frontier Province next to the Afghani border. In the carapace of Mirpur, a go on factor was the disruption caused by the Mangla Dam get a line which started in 1960, and was ultimately to flood about 250 closures. In East Pakistan, which was posterior to become Bangladesh, the two main sources of immigration were in the Sylhet district in the north-east and the maritime region around Chittagong. Due to the struggles of a impertinently developed state and poverty, umteen Pakistanis took the opportunity to come and work in Britain. (Neilsen, 2004, p. 41)Before 1962, Pakistanis were British subjects (under the 1948 British Nationality Act) and could enter Britain without restriction. in that respect was a outstanding increase in the rate of immigration just before the creation Immigrants Act 19621was passed. Before the act of 1962 was passed about fifty thousand battalion entered Britain in spite of appearance 18 months, in comparing the 17,000 who entered amidst 1955 and 1960 (Shaw, 1998 25). The threat of Britains immigration controls withal coincided with a change in the Pakistani Govern custodyts policy on immigration. In 1961, when the 1962 Common wealth Act was imminent, Pakistani government withdrew restrictions on immigration and promoted the migration of 5,000 people in a move to compensate Mirpuri villagers who had been homeless of land by the construction of the dam (Shaw, 1998 25).Until the beginning of the 1960s, entry into the UK by the citizens of British colonies and member countries of the Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962, introduced restrictions on immigration to the UK. Although it was intended to discourage Pakistanis and people from Commonwealth countries from migrating to the country, it turned out to have the opposite effect. The unintended effect of the 1971 Immigration Act2was that a significant number of Pakistanis and from the different countries entered the UK to beat the ban (Shaw, 1994, as quoted in Samad Sen, 2007, p. 28). seventies family reunification marked a turning localize for the establishment of Islam in Europe. Along with emergence of community by dint of family reunification, well-nigh of the conventional norms root in genial relations, through the practice of Islam began to emerge (Ibid., p.38)These labour migrants disdain their social origins and qualification levels were largely confined to low-paid manual work and faces racia l discrimination when being fireed for jobs (Modood, 2005, p. 60). In the 1970s Ethnic minorities were branded as scroungers and the threat of overcrowding was becoming a grave concern. Enoch Powell, in 1967, openly advocated a policy of repatriation where he argued not for migrants families to be reunited in Britain but preferably that migrants should be returned home and reunited with families over there (J unitys and Wellhengama, 2000 16). Further to this, by emphasising that Britishness comprises vulgar biological roots, a common language and an allegiance to the Crown parliamentarians soft excluded certain migrants (Ibid, p. 31).With the consequences of state led policies of migration, and arrival and settlement of a evolution Pakistani community, emerged socio-economic problems that this new community had to face. The next part of the essay go out discuss the confused ways in which the British Pakistanis atomic number 18 injury and ways in which they responded to th e underlying and changing political, social and economic conditions in Britain. While the disadvantage of Pakistanis actually predates the rise of anti-Muslim prejudice, the latter threatens to exacerbate the causation and to prevent the formation of good pull up stakes required to act against the chronic disadvantage of Pakistanis in Britain. (Modood, 2005, p. 80)As the Labour force survey (Spring, 2000 as quoted in Saman Sen, p. 45) illustrates, Pakistanis be two and a half times to a greater extent(prenominal)(prenominal) likely than the blanched commonwealth to be unemployed and nearly iii times more likely to be in low-paid jobs. harmonize to Cessari (p. 58) the socio-economic marginality of Pakistanis is roughly often attended by residential segregation. She argues that the data from the British census fancy that Pakistani immigrants tend to live in the near tattered or blistery housing conditions.Chain migration assistes have a bullnecked influence on locating minorities in clusters. Hostility from the society within which the settlement takes place can reduce the ability of the group to pass on and defence may be an important element in clustering. There are both substantiative and negative reasons for clustering in approximately heathenish clustering patterns and, given their simultaneous presence in legion(predicate) situations, it is difficult to disentangle dominant from recessive factors. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that not all segregation results from negative factors much(prenominal) as white racism (P distributively, 1996, p. 228)Rex and Moore (1967) demo exalted levels of discrimination against immigrants, particularly against Pakistanis, in their field compass of Sparkbrook in Birmingham. They showed amply duckings of Pakistans in their lowest housing class, the rooming house. Work by Dahya (1974), on the opposite hand, argued that Pakistani con centimeimeration in multi-occupied accommodation was a preferred, not an enforced, strategy. He argued that chain migration by village and family, the desire to maximize savings, divided language and theology, culinary needs and so forth all argued in favour of sharing accommodation. Thus, although discrimination existed, it was not material to the patterns of concentration that arose.Many of the early Pakistani migrants to Britain have been the most reluctant to pound a British identity to themselves. With the effects of globalisation, Pakistanis are likewise broken about losing their usances, customs and values and hence hold onto the security of their restricting knit society with a hesitance in accepting anything British (Jacobson, 1997, 185).Pakistani British Muslims have been vastly influenced by cultures and customs emanating from the subcontinent, and this get out restrain to happen for another propagation or two. The scene within which they practice their religion is after all, Pakistani iodine not all because th ey younger generation learned about Islam from their Pakistani parents but excessively because Pakistanis are the dominant group within the local Muslim community. They are used to hearing Urdu spoken in mosque, eating Pakistani intellectual nourishment and wearing Pakistani clothes at religious festivals, follow Pakistani customs at weddings and other religiousceremonies and abide by and rail against definitions of deterrent example behaviour which have more to do with the norms of Pakistani village spiritedness. For them the interconnections amidst pagan culture and religion are dense and intricate (Jacobson, J. 2003, p. 147)V.S. caravan inn (1979), writing on Mirpuris in Bradford, discusses the effect of migration on those arriving in Britain and ways in which this shapes their socio- heathen behavior. He maintains that the very means of coping with migration could lead to intact stresses, in that the knowledge of traditional culture in the homeland, continuous rating th rough the process of migration to Britain and prior expectations have a direct run into on the migrants life-style and values. The stressful experience of migration is in additiona crucial determinant of a migrants perception of his situation, and the actual options open to him. While many of the supportive institutions of village life buffer confrontation with the new and alien world in Britain, in the long term they not yet restrict price of admission to it, but also hinder the attainment of things valued (Ibid. p. 55)Werbner discusses similar factors the social stresses experienced by Pakistani migrants in Britain derive fromthree main arenas the traditional culture and emigration compass the migrationprocess and settlement in the new environment and society (1990 37).Her abstract however, presents a more positive view of the adaptability of Pakistanis to new circumstances, in particular to those concerning women, and regarding the expansion of family relationship networks to teach friends and members of other sub- clans. (Imtiaz, 1997, p. 36)Significance of BradfordThe Bradford Metropolitan District is situated west of Leeds north of the trans- Pennine highway. To the north and east lies North Yorkshire, with its manor houses, farms and cathedral cities, age to the west and north lies the Lake District.The city has been the centre of the sheepskin trade since the 18th century and, until recently, wool dominated the local economy. Even the engineering and chemical industries were associated with the wool trade by supplying the needs of the textile industry. Throughout the nineteenth century it was mainly a working class city structure around a low wage economy. The global networks, stretching out to the colonies, in particular, were constructed around importing wool and reprocessing it for export. These networks persisted into the mid-twentieth century (Samad Eade, Community Laison Unit)Although Pakistani Muslims settled in various parts of the get together Kingdom, Bradford still has ane of the highest concentrations of Pakistani Muslims in the country (and more than any other Yorkshire and Humber region) (Din, 2006). Bradford is one of many towns and cities that have ethnically diverse communitys in terms of religion as well such places as Tower Hamlets, Birmingham and Slough (National Census, 2001). The Bradford area also has one of the highest numbers of individuals who were born distant the European uniting (National Census, 2001).The bulk of Muslims in Bradford have roots in rural areas, with a large majority of Pakistanis from Mirpur in Azad Kashmir, a mountainous region and one of the least northern areas of Pakistan. This Pakistani community has a growing underprivileged with a significant section of young men under achieving in schools. They are generally characterised by low educational qualifications and occupational concentrations in restaurants and taxi driving. Along with low participation of women in the formal labour market and union at an early age, fewer eld of education, bring low educational skills and large average family and household size contributes to multiple deprivations (Lewis, 2007).Bradford has a rich religious, ethnic and cultural diversity. With a get of ethnic communities, it is preponderantly Muslim (16.1 per cent) and largely of Pakistani origin with 14.5 percent of the total population of the city (National Statistics, 2003 as quoted in Gilligan, 2005). The Pakistani communities are very a great deal concentrated in the inner wards of the city, where they tend to live amidst a relatively self-contained world of businesses and institutions, religious and cultural, which they have created to service, their specific needs (Lewis, 2002, p. 203.) Compared to other majority white communities, Bradfords Asian population is relatively young (National Statistics, 2003). They also tend to be located in areas facing relatively high levels of deprivation and disa dvantage (DETR, 2000 Cantle, 2001 Denham, 2001 as quoted in Gilligan Akhtar, 2005).According to the Change Institutes theme on the Pakistani Muslim Community in England, (2009) currently Bradford has the largest coincidence of its total population (15%) identifying itself as of Pakistani origin in England. The composing suggests that the latest estimates (from Bradford Metropolitan District Council) have indicated that the South Asian population has grown considerably over the last decade to 94,250, and that the people of Pakistani/Kashmiri origin number about 73,900. It encourage states that the South Asian population now represents about 19 per cent of the total population of Bradford and 16 per cent of Bradfords residents are Muslims, compared to the national average of 3 per cent.Therefore, the fire majority of Pakistanis (young and old) have an attachment to Bradford. For many older Pakistanis, who arrived in the late 1950s and early 60s, Bradford is Mirpur is their home from home. For the young generations of Pakistanis it is their home (Din, 2006)Studies on Mirpuris untold of the literature on Pakistanis in Britain, particularly from the late 1970s up to the late 1980s, tends to be based on studies of communities in particular towns, such as Anwar (1979) on Rochdale, Currer (1983) on Bradford, Jeffrey (1979) on Bristol, Shaw (1988) on Oxford, and Werbner (1985 1990) on Manchester.A number of studies have explored the extent of Asian (or Pakistani) migration and settlement across various geographical towns and cities (see Khan, 1974, 1979 Anwar, 1979 Shaw, 1988, 1994 Werbner, 1990). Some have had a particular focus on employment and housing issues (in particular Dahya, 1974 Werbner and Anwar, 1991 Anwar, 1991). Measuring the economic position of communities is easier to look what is more difficult is to examine the experiences and attitudes of young people towards their parents/elders their community and the wider British society.There is an enor mous amount of published work on the early immigrants (Rose et al, 1969 Dahya, 1974 Khan 1979). Rose et al (1969) is a good starting point for cultural studies relating to the Pakistani community. Rose explored issues such as the need to recruit labour immigrants to meet the needs of the British economy and the settlement process of the early immigrants in textile cities like Bradford. In addition he explored the problems encountered, such as obtaining suitable accommodation, access to public services, integration and the problems of adapting to a very different way of life. The experiences of families of early settlers joining their husbands in the United Kingdom have also, to an extent, been explored. This shows close-knit family ties which exist in Pakistani families, put wedlocks, biraderi and gender inequalities in Pakistani households (Khan, 1979).One of the earliest writers on Pakistanis in England is Dahya (1973 1974), who began his research in Birmingham and Bradford in 1956 and continued to publish into the 1980s. He stiff amongst a hand full of researchers who have endeavoured to describe daily life amongst the single, male migrants and the control exercised over them by heads of families back in Pakistan. He clearly explained the nature of the links mingled with the migrants in England and the social structures in operation(p) in Pakistan, based on the need for the migrant, whose family has sent him abroad in order for him to send back remittances and thus benefit not only immediate relatives but also the whole of the biraderi or kinship group. He concludes that the Pakistani migrant community is in a very substantial sense a transitional society going through the descriptor of development from a rural to an urban industrial society (1973 p, 275). Today, with the constant movement between the villages of origin of Pakistani migrants and their places of inhabitancy in Britain, surface way for a constant, rapid social and economic change in both societies, his conclusion tends to be within a situational context of a time, when both were much more separate than they are today.Jamal (1998) carried out a research to explore food consumption experiences the British-Pakistanis in Bradford, UK and the ways the British Pakistanis perceive their food, and their perception of English food in the UK. He identify that the first generation of British-Pakistanis perceive their own food to be traditional, chaste but oily and problematic. Various English foods are perceived by them as foreign, bland, but nonetheless, healthy. The young generation of British-Pakistanis are change magnitudely eat mainstream English foods while also consuming traditional Pakistani food.Rex and Moore (1967) demonstrated high levels of discrimination against immigrants, particularly against Pakistanis, in their field area of Sparkbrook in Birmingham. They showed high concentrations of Pakistans in their lowest housing class, the rooming house. Work by Dahya (1974), on the other hand, argued that Pakistani concentration in multi-occupied accommodation was a preferred, not an enforced, strategy. He argued that chain migration by village and family, the desire to maximize savings, shared language and religion, culinary needs and so forth all argued in favour of sharing accommodation. Thus, although discrimination existed, it was not material to the patterns of concentration that arose.According to the Labour force survey (Spring, 2000 as quoted in Saman Sen, p. 45), Pakistanis are two and a half times more likely than the white population to be unemployed and nearly three times more likely to be in low-paid jobs. According to Cessari (p. 58) the socio-economic marginality of Pakistanis is most often accompanied by residential segregation. She argues that the data from the British census show that Pakistani immigrants tend to live in the most dilapidated or unhealthy housing conditions.Another canvass of south Asian Muslims in Bra dford by Khan (2009) refutes the commonly held belief that British Muslim alienation is an completely Islamist narrative. In fact, the subjects of the study are alienated not only from British society but also from the cultural traditions and values of their own families. The motive of the study was struck by their disconnected individualism and described them as libertines. This clearly contradicts the stereotype of Islamists radicalised by a hatred of Western society. novel study by Bolgnani (2007) highlights forms of homeland attachment and analyses their significance among due south- and third-generation British Pakistanis by comparison with the myth of return that characterised the early pioneer phase of Pakistani migration to Britain. He highlights that Homeland attachment for young British Pakistanis is constituted through school holidays spent in Pakistan, participation there in life-cycle rituals involving the wider kinship network, and the older generations promotion of the idea of Pakistan as a spiritual and cultural homeland. It further suggests that, for the pioneer generation, the myth of return justified a socio-economically do migration. He further argues that for the second and third generations, the homeland attachments and the idea of a possible return toPakistan is a response to contemporary political tensions and Islamophobia. Therefore, he concludes that while myth of return still remains, for the majority, that myth has been revitalised and has a new political significance in the contemporary political context of British Pakistanis.However, another study of south Asian Muslims in Bradford by Khan (2009) refutes the commonly held belief that British Muslim alienation is an entirely Islamist narrative. In fact, the subjects of the study are alienated not only from British society but also from the cultural traditions and values of their own families. The indite of the study was struck by their disconnected individualism and described them as libertines. This clearly contradicts the stereotype of Islamists radicalised by a hatred of Western society.MarriagesThe governing body principle of marital choice in any community is homogamy the choice of a render from a similar social background shaped, for example, by race, class, ethnicity, religion, age and education, thus those who do not conform to these norms, in approximately circumstances, have got sanctions, ranging from disapproval to ostracism (Bradford Commission Report 1996).For Pakistanis, the life-cycle with weddings, births and funerals is particularly lived in a shared way by the family elongated and split over two continents, Europe and Asia. Adults make return trips for various reasons, but most centrally to arrange or perform a childs marriage (Ballard 1987, p. 21 Shaw 2001, p. 319-325).Among British Pakistanis marriage is not only within the same ethnic group, but kin(predicate)-arranged with relatives-according to clan as well as caste system s. In a complex context of ethnicity and caste, marriage is often seen as the chosen mechanism to consolidate biradari3loyalties. Furthermore, due to chain migration, stronger village and kin networks were created, that were later reinforced by transnational arranged marriages, often with cousins from the same area or village.Pakistanis, like many other groups, consider it an important agnate responsibility to find spouses for their children. They prefer to select someone they know well, to be sure that he or she has the qualities they appreciate and go forth make a caring partner. However, Khan (1977) argues in his research that ethnic minorities such as Pakistanis, face two problems namely the limited availability of suitable persons in the restricted local community, and another the fact that their circle of acquaintance in the country of origin tends to shrink within the limits of the extended family. Therefore, for groups with a tradition of blood-related marriage, it is o nly natural for the choice of partner to fall increasely closer within the family circle. This argument is supported by Rao Inbaraj (1979) who give establish to support this view from South India, arguing that for South Asians monogamous, close consanguineous marriage has been practised for thousands of years.Moreover, Bano (1991) discussed the upward social mobility through the institution of marriage amongst British Pakistanis, which she sees as being marked in the Netherlands in comparison to Pakistan. She described the practice of cousin marriages explaining their common prevalence amongst relatively wealthy, rural, as well as landowning families. She then discusses the extension of cousin marriage (Ibid. p.15), proposing that it could include partners being chosen from distant family, or from the same religious tendency, or from the parents close business contacts.According to a research conducted by boilersuit and Nichols (2001), the U.K. Asian population, particularly with in the Pakistani communities, tends to have high levels of consanguineous unions which are correlated with high rates of morbidity and mortality (Darr and Modell 1988 terrycloth et al. 1985 Bundey et al. 1991 as quoted in Overall Nickols, 2001). It is not unusual to observe a remainder of first-cousin marriages of around 50% (Darr and Modell 1988).Modood et al. argue that the Asian older generation prefers marriages to be arranged by families within the clan or extended family and that love marriages were not the most appropriate way of finding a life-partner. The most frequent argument supporting this view was that love marriages are equated with high levels of break up. Arranged marriages are seen as diminishing the likelihood of divorce because the partners are chosen for their compatibility and suitable family backgrounds (Modood et al. 1997).According to most researchers there is a continuing prevalence for high rates of intercontinental and intra-caste marriages (over 50%) between British Pakistani spouses and brides or grooms in Pakistan (Charsley, 2003 Shaw, 2001). It is suggested that the pressure for such marriages is seemingly exerted by close relatives in Pakistan who use marriage as a route for their children to migrate legally to Britain. According to recent research, however, the spouses marrying into Britain often suffer isolation, and have poor employment prospects (Charsley, 2003). Furthermore, most Pakistani children are conformable and agree, however reluctantly, to cousin and intercontinental marriages (Jacobson, 1998). The Home Office statistics show an influx of 15,000 prospective marriage partners (male and female) from the Indian sub-continent arriving in Britain in 2001 alone, the vast majority arranged by parents for their British-born children (Werbner, 2005). Charsley (2003) reports that, in 2000, there were 10,000 people both men and women, who married into Braitian. Werbner (2005) explains this phenomenon by arguing that Is lam permits marriage with a wide range of close kin and affines, and according to recent researches, the majority of Pakistani marriages continue to take place within the biradari a local agnatic declension and, more widely, an ego-focused kindred of traceable affines and consanguineous kin. She argues that this notion of biradari helps mediate between kinship, locality and zat (caste), and that such biradaris are ranked and reflect class and caste status in the Pakistani society (Werbner, 2005).Darr and Modell (1988) conducted a research that carried inculcated an examination answered by 100 randomly selected British Pakistani mothers in the postpartum wards of two hospitals in West Yorkshire, Bradford, showed that 55 were married to their first cousins, while only 33 cases had individuals whether their mother had been married to her first cousin. Darr and Modell argued that there results indicated an increasing rate of consanguineous marriage in the relatively small group studied , contrasting with the decreasing rate which was observed in some other countries. They had enquired 900 women in hospitals in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1983 showing 36% first cousin marriages, 4% first cousin once removed, 8% second cousin, and 53% unrelated (of which 25% were in the Biraderi (same kinship). These figures are almost identical with those account in Britain for the grand parental generation (who were married while they were in Pakistan), and supported their conclusion that the frequency of close consanguineous marriage was increasing among British Pakistanis (p. 189).According to another research by Modell (1991) both in Pakistan and the UK about 75% of marriages are between relatives, but the frequency of most consanguineous marriage has increased with migration, about 55% of couples of reproductive age in England being married to a first cousin. In many cases the relationship is closer than first cousins because of previous consanguineous marriages in the family. The proportion of cousin marriages is likely to fall but the absolute number will increase, at least for the next generation, because the population is growing.According to the results of a study by Alam Husband (2006), Muslims comprise the UKs largest religious minority, and are the object of analysis and concern within various policy arenas and popular debates, including immigration, marriage and partner selection, social cohesion and integration. Their research analysed experiences and narratives from 25 men aged 16 to 38, their accounts shedding light on what it means to be a Bradfordian of Pakistani and Muslim heritage. It also highlighted the policy context surrounding the mens attitudes toward various facets of their lives, including marriage, family, work, the city in general, and the neighbourhood in which they lived. Alam Husband concluded that although there were some generational continuity of cultural values and norms, several significant changes were also simultaneously taking place.Shaw (2001) began his study by supposing that in the 1990s, forty years after Pakistani migration to Britain began, the rate of consanguineous marriage among British Pakistanis would show signs of decline, as the urbanized and British-educated descendants of pioneer immigrants adopt the values of many contemporary Westerners and reject arranged marriages. However, on the contrary based on the statistical data he gathered, he saw that Pakistani marriage patterns showed no such clear trend, and instead there was some turn out that, within certain groups of British Pakistanis, the rate of first-cousin marriage had increased kind of than declined. The study offered an analysis and interpretation of a high rate of marriage to relatives, especially first cousins, in a sample of second-generation British Pakistanis. It argued that the high rate of such marriage is not a simple saying of a cultural preference. The research also underlines the inadequacy of a concealment cat egory Pakistani in relation to marriage patterns and choices. Shaw suggested that certain variations in region of origin, caste, socio-economic status, and upbringing must be considered in analysis in order to reveal the processes that have generated this pattern and allowed it to persist.Simpson (1997) claims that in Bradford 50 per cent of marriages are trans-continental, i.e. the partner sare from Pakistan. He has proposed two reasons that help explain the reasons for choosing partners from outside Britain, and has analysed the ways these reasons operate independently or may reinforce each other. Firstly, there is a cultural preference for consanguinity, usually marriage to a cousin, which is prevalent among the Pakistani community. As Sarah Bundey et al. (1990) showed in her research that 69 per cent of Birmingham Pakistani marriages are consanguineous and it is expected that if current researchers were carried out they will show similar levels in Bradford, considerably higher t han in Pakistan itself. Simpson (1997) further argues that since emigration from Pakistan to Britain is usually seen as a positive achievement, marriage also functions specifically to fulfil a commitment to improve the family fortunes. He gives the second reason that many Muslim young people in Bradford post a cultural preference for partners with traditional values and that sentiment is echoed by their parents who then arrange or help to arrange their marriage partners from Pakistan. Simpson even points out that, this trend should not be seen as simply a preference for subservient wives albeit this may be true for some. He further points out that there is qualitative evidence that some young Muslim women see men with traditional values from Pakistan as providing a more secure family future than the more liberal friends with whom they have grown up in Bradford. This Simpson points out may coincide both with the strong Muslim and the strong Pakistani identities that are noted among Bradford young women, based on researchers by Kim Knott and Sajda Khokher (1993) and by Kauser Mirza (1989).Modood and Berthoud (1997) carried out a research to show that among ethnic minority groups 20 per cent of African-Caribbeans