In the official literature in Britain there is a depressing catalogue of educational failure amongst those who come from diverse cultural and/or linguistic heritages. This has become exacerbated as the official curriculum in Britain has become increasingly anglocentric, narrow and prescriptive. Although some groups fare better than others those being 'left behind' are still predominantly from linguistically and culturally diverse heritages. The Bangladeshi community are part of that group.However, the nature of communities has changed. To some extent in the modern world we are all exiles. We are all living in translation. Alongside a steady determination to get what is ours, the great majority of us need wide cultural and linguistic repertoires, merely to survive. Identity can not now be viewed in essentialist terms. Identity is multiple, syncretic and often contradictory. Yet in the sphere of education, policy is often premised on static views of identity. Often these emanate from crude 'scientific' and 'objective' approaches.. However, there has been little systematic analysis of the syncretic processes involved. In' The Monkey's Mask: Identity, memory, narrative and voice' ,(Trentham Books, 2003, which was based on research with six academically successful adults fro various cultural heritages, I argued that culturaI change from generation to generation was not as complete or pervasive as a strong reading of postmodernism would suggest. In that book I devised an analytical too to examine the complex syncretism which was emerging through their life histories. I am currently working on a project, which will to take this research further. The project examines cultural changes over three generations. In particular we shall be investigating how the various generations receive and use the new technologies, which are said to precipitate massive changes in outlook. It is envisaged that participants will use digital photography and video to record important people places and events in their own lives and we will use unstructured/semi structured interviews to study the commonalities and differences among the generations. In this way they will have significant control of representation of themselves. In this paper, I shall be exploring the promise and dilemmas of such an approach and how new and relatively cheap technologies can be used for ethnographic research in meaningful and ethical ways.