Transnational Marriage

This multidisciplinary collection investigates the ways in which marriage and partner migration processes have become the object of state scrutiny, and the site of sustained political interventions in several states around the world. Covering cases as varied as the United States, Canada, Japan, Iran, France, Belgium or the Netherlands, among others, contributors reveal how marriage and partner migration have become battlegrounds for political participation, control, and exclusion. Which forms of attachments (towards the family, the nation, or specific individuals) have become framed as risks to be managed? How do such preoccupations translate into policies? With what consequences for those affected by them, in terms of rights and access to citizenship? The book answers these questions by analyzing the interplay between issues of security, citizenship and rights from the perspectives of migrants and policymakers, but also from actors who negotiate encounters with the state, such as lawyers, non-governmental organizations, and translators.

Marriages spanning borders are not a new phenomenon, but occur with increasing frequency and contribute substantially to international mobility and transnational engagement. Perhaps because such migration has often been treated as 'secondary' to labor migration, marriage has until recent years been a neglected field in migration studies. In contemporary Europe, transnational marriages have become an increasingly focal issue for immigration regimes, for whom these border-crossing family formations represent a significant challenge. This timely volume brings together work from Europe and beyond, addressing the issue of transnational marriage from a range of perspectives (including legal frameworks, processes of integration, and gendered dynamics), presenting substantial new empirical material, and taking a fresh look at key concepts in this area.

This multi-sited ethnography provides a rich account of the costs of global neoliberal economic policy for families in the global south. With a focus on Senegalese migrants in Europe and their wives who are left behind, Hannaford illustrates how new understandings of intimacy, gender, and class are forged in a culture of migration.

The popular imagination of marriage migration has been influenced by stories of marriage of convenience, of forced marriage, trafficking and of so-called mail-order brides. This book presents a uniquely global view of an expanding field that challenges these and other stereotypes of cross-border marriage.

Marriages spanning borders are not a new phenomenon, but occur with increasing frequency and contribute substantially to international mobility and transnational engagement. Perhaps because such migration has often been treated as ‘secondary’ to labor migration, marriage has until recent years been a neglected field in migration studies. In contemporary Europe, transnational marriages have become an increasingly focal issue for immigration regimes, for whom these border-crossing family formations represent a significant challenge. This timely volume brings together work from Europe and beyond, addressing the issue of transnational marriage from a range of perspectives (including legal frameworks, processes of integration, and gendered dynamics), presenting substantial new empirical material, and taking a fresh look at key concepts in this area.

This book uniquely focuses on the role of family law in transnational marriages. The author demonstrates how family law is of critical importance in understanding transnational family life. Based on extensive field research in Morocco, Egypt and the Netherlands, the book examines how, during marriage and divorce, transnational families deal with the interactions of two different legal systems. Sportel studies the interactions of European and Islamic family law, addressing its interconnections with migration and everyday life, within the context of highly politicised debates on gender, Islam, migration and the family. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of family sociology, migration and diaspora studies, transnational families, family law, and sociology of law.

"Asian Cross-border Marriage Migration: Demographic Patterns and Social Issues is an interdisciplinary and comparative study on the rapid increase of the intra-Asia flow of cross-border marriage migration. This book contains in-depth research conducted by scholars in the fields of demography, sociology, anthropology and pedagogy, including demographic studies based on large-scale surveys on migration and marital patterns as well as micro case studies on migrants%7Bu2019%7D liv%7Bu00AD%7Ding experiences and strategies. Together these papers examine and challenge the existing assumptions in the immigration policies and popular discourse and lay the foundation for further comparative research." -- Back cover.

The civil war between the Sri Lankan state and Tamil militants, which ended in 2009, lasted more than three decades and led to mass migration, mainly to India, Canada, England, and continental Europe. In Marrying for a Future, Sidharthan Maunaguru argues that the social institution of marriage has emerged as a critical means of building alliances between dispersed segments of Tamil communities, allowing scattered groups to reunite across national borders. Maunaguru explores how these fragmented communities were rekindled by connections fostered by key participants in and elements of the marriage process, such as wedding photographers, marriage brokers, legal documents, and transit places. Marrying for a Future contributes to transnational and diaspora marriage studies by looking at the temporary spaces through which migrants and refugees travel in addition to their home and host countries. It provides a new conceptual framework for studies on kinship and marriage and addresses a community that has been separated across borders as a result of war.

While marriage has lost its popularity in many developed countries and is no longer an obligatory path to family formation, it has gained momentum among binational couples as states reinforce their control over human migration. Focusing on the case of Southeast Asian women who have been epitomized on the global marriage market as ‘ideal’ brides and wives, this volume examines these women’s experiences of international marriage, migration, and states' governmentality. Drawing from ethnographic research and policy analyses, this book sheds light on the way many countries in Southeast Asia and beyond have redefined marriage and national belonging through their regime of ‘marital citizenship’ (that is, a legal status granted by a state to a migrant by virtue of his/her marriage to one of its citizens). These regimes influence the familial and social incorporation of Southeast Asian migrant women, notably their access to socio-political and civic rights in their receiving countries. The case studies analysed in this volume highlight these women’s subjectivity and agency as they embrace, resist, and navigate the intricate legal and socio-cultural frameworks of citizenship. As such, it will appeal to sociologists, geographers, socio-legal scholars, and anthropologists with interests in migration, family formation, intimate relations, and gender.