A redeemed biography? Migration as an intra-family redemption device

This contribution is the result of a wider research aimed at deepening the understanding of the social construction of masculinity during the migration experience from Bangladesh to Italy, analysing how the social construction of masculinity is shaped by this experience and, at the same time, how the migration path contributes to its unravelling. Specifically, the article is based on the life story of Hassan, a Bangladeshi man interviewed in Chandpur, Bangladesh, and the younger brother of Mukul, a migrant resident in Italy. Hassan’s biography is intertwined with the profound social transformations that have emerged in Bangladesh and Italy since the 1970s and intersected by the different migratory trajectories experienced by his family. The analysis of Hassan’s biography allows us to observe, on the one hand, the pressures and expectations of the socio-cultural context, which, in a given historical moment, have impacted his family, especially its male members, as a consequence of their class position. On the other hand, it is possible to observe the way in which such norms and expectations have been translated into a discipline that Hassan’s family has imposed on him and, at the same time, shaped the biographical and migratory trajectories of other male family members.