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Beginning in the 1990s large numbers of women from Mainland China and Southeast Asia married men in Taiwan. They now number over 400,000, warranting some to call them "Taiwan's Fifth Ethnic Group". This book argues that the rise of these marriages is a gendered and relational phenomenon, linked to the forces of globalization. Traditional ideas of marriage, such as the belief that a woman "marries out" of her natal family to be dependent upon her husband and his family, and the idea that a man should "marry down" to a woman of a lesser social and economic status, have not kept pace with changes in women's educational and career opportunities. How these relationships are formed, how they impact gendered understandings of women and men, how families are constituted and relationships developed, and how they affect the children of these families and their education, are the issues explored in this book. It breaks new ground in our understanding of transnational and cross-border marriages by looking at the long-term effects of such marriages on communities, families, and individuals.
List of contents
Contents: The «Advertized» Foreign Bride: A Semiotic and Discourse Analysis - Historical and contemporary marriage arrangements - What It Means to Be a «Foreign Spouse»: Gendered Understandings - Educating the «Foreign Spouse» and Her Children - The End of Brokered Marriage?
About the author
Todd L. Sandel (PhD, University of Illinois) is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Macau. A Fulbright Scholar, he is past Chair of the LSI Division of the National Communication Association, and President of the Association for Chinese Communication Studies.
Report
«From the first line, 'I bought a bride,' onward, this book provides a richly detailed and fascinating look at 'cross-border marriages.' Sandel's attention to folk knowledge and cultural ways of speaking, and how these are tied to gender and control give needed perspective and deep insight into this cross-border and global phenomenon. Readers will be richly rewarded not only with cultural understanding but with theoretical insights as well.»(Donal Carbaugh, University of Massachusetts Amherst)
«Sandel's study of cross-border marriages examines intercultural encounters at their most intimate, inside the family. In addition to his fluency in Mandarin Chinese, competence in Taiwanese, and decades of experience building strong networks in Taiwan, being himself a foreign spouse has given Sandel uncommon access. At different points in the analysis, Sandel treats communication as semiotic, socially constructed, culturally situated, or critical, thus also serving as a resource across multiple theoretical traditions.» (Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, University of Wisconsin-Parkside)
