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148 The lives of international migrants are shaped by their national origins. This is no less so for international migrants who are Muslims. Indeed, for Bangladeshi Muslim migrants, as we have seen, their country of origin exerts a powerful and multidimensional influence. Among the many ways in which it does so is through the dynamics of global national image and their effects on the reception accorded to migrants of Bangladeshi origin when they are abroad. As a result, migration tends to carry with it for them an enhanced awareness of Bangladesh in the world, specifically its relatively weak position and image in the global hierarchy of nations. The meaning and significance of being Bangladeshi becomes a central dilemma of identity that informs their strategies of affiliation and belonging. I have used a comparative approach in this book, looking at Muslim migrant communities that hail from the same country but go to different parts of the world. I believe that the approach has offered a finely focused lens, one that has revealed both the significance of national origins as well as its varied consequences for migrants, depending on their social class backgrounds, the immigration laws of the receiving country, and many other conditions. Future studies may extend this transnational lens in a variety of ways, by including research that focuses specifically on the development of connections between migrant communities of shared national origin throughout the world. There is also the possibility of further comparison, perhaps by looking at Muslim migrants from several countries that also differ in their global stature and image. In this regard, it is important to note that by emphasizing the role of weak global national image in the Bangladeshi diaspora, I do not in any way mean to suggest that the current image of Bangladesh or of any other country for that matter is immutable or even long term in its duration. The global status and image of countries are constantly evolving matters. There have, for example, been important shifts in the early twenty-first century in popular Muslim Migrants national origins and revivalist islam chapter 7  muslim migrants 149 Western perceptions of China and India, from backward and stagnant to economically dynamic and powerful countries. Studies that look closely at such periods of national transformation and their repercussions for migrants who originate from these countries can offer important insights into the relationship of national origins to experiences of migration. This includes the dynamics of racialization for migrants or the production of ideologies of difference within the receiving society that are used to marginalize migrants, to establish their difference from those of the receiving society. International migrants, however, are not simply subject to global national image; they are also active in molding it. They may do so in a favorable direction when they are successful in their political and economic activities abroad and are presumed to be representatives of their national group. In a more direct sense, they can foster social and economic development in the homeland through investments and other involvements, thereby also contributing to the enhancement of homeland image. In this regard, the intense concern and anxiety of Bangladeshis abroad about the unfavorable image of their homeland may be viewed as an asset rather than liability by the Bangladeshi state in its efforts to foster diaspora investments in the country. Since the 2000s, successive governments in Bangladesh have urged the diaspora to uphold the country’s image abroad by refraining from public criticism of the country, especially with regard to the government’s own performance. Instead, the Bangladesh government might do better to consider how it could mobilize the eagerness of its diaspora to see a strong and prosperous Bangladesh. While this desire is propelled by many different motivations, including nationalist sentiment, a powerful sense that the well-being of Bangladesh affects how they themselves are treated abroad is one of them. In the societies of North America and Europe, there is a tendency to see Muslims in homogeneous and one-dimensional terms and concurrently to assume that identities other than that of Muslim are of no great significance to them. But just like any other identity, that of Muslim coexists with others in fluid and contingent ways. We have seen that for Bangladeshi Muslim migrants, across the varied destinations explored in this book, the dynamics of Muslim identity are deeply intertwined with those of Bangladeshi identity. Homeland politics is one arena in which this relationship is powerfully...

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