Amazon.com description: Product Description: Long-term migration is one of the most important factors in the formation of cultural identities in the modern world. Katy Gardner looks at the 'sending' communities (neglected by academic research) and covers major aspects of Bangladeshi life (land, family structure, marriage, and religion) to show how out-migration has become a central economic and social resource--the route to social, as well as physical, mobility, transforming those who gain access to it. At the heart of this important text is a presentation of the dynamic nature of migration and the possibility of self-transformation it holds for migrant cultures.