International Marriages and Marital Citizenship ─ Southeast Asian Women on the Move

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 and anthropologists with interests in migration, family formation, the sociology of intimate relations and gender.

Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot is a Radboud Excellence Initiative fellow at the Centre for Migration Law/Institute for the Sociology of Law of Radboud University, the Netherlands.

Gwenola Ricordeau is associate professor of sociology at the Lille Center for Sociological and Economic Research (CLERSE) of the University Lille-I, France.