Negotiating AJK Identity in Britain: Social Identity, Transnationalism, and Generational Change

Abstract

This study focuses on migrant communities from Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and British-born migrants with AJK family histories, and how they maintain and negotiate their social identity in the UK in the broader context of nativist challenges to and competing claims of belonging. A qualitative interpretivist case-study approach was used. Participants were recruited from Birmingham, Bradford, Luton, London and Manchester and were selected through purposive sampling and snowballing. Fifteen were recruited via purposive and snowball sampling and interviewed using semi-structured interviews. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Four themes that arose were language and family communication, religion, food and cultural traditions, transnational links with AJK and hybrid British-Kashmiri identity. Pahari language and Urdu continued to be significant indicators of heritage for the first generation of participants, but younger British-born participants showed a stronger sense of belonging to religion, family stories, food, their digital communication and multiple identities. Transnational ties were also established with AJK via visits, remittances, family duties and online communication. Participants often chose to consolidate rather than separate British, Kashmiri, Muslim and Pakistani identity. The study suggests that this pattern can be understood as dynamic continuity, where attachments to the cultural centre remain constant, but their expression varies from one generation to the next. The results have shown that cultural identity preservation and social integration in British society do not contradict each other, but can be carried out simultaneously.