[Reader-list] Abstract of the Presentation- Strangers in the City: The lives and longings of Bagladeshi immigrants in Guwahati.

[abdus salam]

To understand certain meanings of immigration, of acceptance, of
crossing the bridge from being an immigrant to a native, the
researcher criss-crossed the length of Guwahati city looking at the
clusters of Bengali-origin immigrants in Guwahati. While such clusters
can be located all over, for the presentation three specific areas of
major concentration- Six-Mile/Panjabari, Hatigaon and Dehan Garigaon/
Bidyanagar would be described in detail. The presentation would
involve a decription of conversations the researcher had with
representative samples from these aforementioned areas. The
acceptance, resentment and co-existence of the 'ethnic Assamese' is
also factored in.
The researcher felt marrying the 'academic' and 'journalistic'
perspectives made for a useful methodoligal device for the paper.The
basic theoretical framework is thus derived from two seminal works on
Assam by Sanjib Baruah and Sanjoy Hazarika. The researcher was able to
lay hand on other related literature of an inflammatory hue that
served as an interesting counterpoint and a register of the angst felt
by the local community.
The researcher initially thought of an expansive section on the
Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, to elucidate how
Bengali-origin people have been held hostage to it, but with its
scrapping by the SC, the section has been substantially pruned.
The presentation would also make use of photographs the researcher
took during the five-month-long project. A video-clip, illustrative of
the 'Bengali' element creeping its way into regional visual media,
would also be made use of, provided there is no system malfunction!!

Abdus Salam.