(Not) Embodying the Nation

The following chapter investigates the effect of the doing and making of embodied memory on processes of identification with a special focus on the nation. Considering both Britishness and Bangladeshiness as possible frameworks to locate pasts through dance, it will become clear that while the nation is an essential mnemonic landscape for many British Bangladeshi women, it is also a tainted and unreliable terrain for them, which can mark them as embodied reminders of difference. Forms of national belonging are productive of complicated discourses among British Bangladeshis as they are highly dependent on the validation of others in social encounters. While dancing, claims to Britishness and Bangladeshiness are undoubtedly made, though their shared gender identity emerges as central to the location, communication, transmission, and preservation of memory among British Bangladeshi women, as well as other intersecting identities, which go above and beyond the nation.