Thesis (M.A.)--University of Chicago, 1950. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Chicago, 1950. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

China-Vietnam marriages attract increasing public attention in China and trigger many discussions on the phenomenon of “Vietnamese brides”. The discussions are often linked to the rapid modernization of the border areas since the 1990s, caused by the re-opening of the border, the prosperity of the transnational economy, and the increase of cross-border mobility between the two countries. However, modernity in the borderlands has been “compressed” and unsystematic, which has a major impact on cross-border marriages. This study, thus, is designed to examine how individuals in China-Vietnam marriages have gone through the situation of compressed modernity. A qualitative research paradigm was adopted to guide this study and twenty-nine Vietnamese brides were identified as key informants and interviewed carefully for data collection. The aim is not only to refute the popular discourses that see Vietnamese brides as “traditional”, “money-loving” and “ignorant” women, but also to present how they construct a modern self, reclaim and reshape their identities as “Vietnamese brides”, and create different life chances and spaces through their cross border marriage and mobility. Findings and analyses show that Vietnamese brides’ making of a modern self is a continuing disembedment and re-embedment process within which gender relations are re-negotiated, reshaped, and reproduced. In terms of their different social class and positions, they have resorted to different ideals of femininities to recreate their images and identities as “Vietnamese brides”. Useful tactics, such as making concessions, running away, or excelling, have been developed or strategically adopted by these women to claim their agency and subjectivity in intimate relationships. Importantly, the specific context of the China-Vietnam border has provided varied opportunities and resources for Vietnamese brides to go beyond the state’s regulations and constraints on citizenship and to experiment the alternatives. Through taking advantage of the situations of 乱(chaos) and the benefits of living in the space “inbetween”, Vietnamese brides have developed different transnational networks and practiced their maternal citizenship at these border zones. Modernity is the outcome of globally connected histories but with uneven consequences. Although individuals are all included in modernity, they are differently positioned within it. Thus modernity is not monolithic and it is experienced differently and has varied consequences for gendered and sexual relations in different parts of the world. This research on Vietnamese brides has engaged with current academic debates around modernity and intimacy, and the purpose is to reveal the increasing complexity and diversity of patterns of intimacy in compressed modernity. It provides a good empirical case to elucidate that even within a relatively small specific region of the borderlands, there is also a highly complex and fluid social system of compressed modernity. Vietnamese brides’ varying practices of intimacy not only question the Western-centric theorization of modernity but also indicate their different ways to participate in and engage with modernity. / published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2002. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Social Sciences, Humanities and Education. Bibliography: leaves 277-294.

This is a research on Chinese women’s marriage migration to South Korea. I explore this topic by adopting the perspective of politics of intimacy. It aims to find out how the broad political and economic transformations in China and South Korea structure this migration flow and how the operation of transnational matchmaking as a business shapes marriage relationship. In addition, how Chinese women negotiate their intimate life and adapt to Korean society. I highlight the issue of intimacy in Chinese women’s marriage migration. Capitalist development and the change of economic structure in China and South Korea generate potential migrants, and the gendered mobility structure shaped by South Korean immigration policies particularly favors women’s marriage migration. Transnational matchmaking, organized on market principles, provides a means for brides and grooms to know each other. However, it also contributes to generating a marriage relationship without emotional basis, which contradicts with the discourse of love. Economic political forces and the operation of matchmaking as a business shape it is particularly difficult for Chinese women to build up a marriage relationship structured around love and emotion. However, in a situation that love and emotion are considered as the basis of “modern” marriage, a relationship without it has to be dealt with. I thus discuss their negotiation of intimacy in both premarital and marital relationships. In premarital intimacy, the discourse of love is manipulated by marriage brokers on behalf of men in a way that entraps women. After marriage, as both parties only barely know each other, the version of companionship they negotiate is different from that in other marriages and is often manifested in the issues of money and reproduction. However, both money management and reproduction are sites of power struggle between men and women. Men tend to use money to control women, and they press women to bear a child. However, when women are not sure about the relationship, they are usually reluctant to do so. Despite that women possess certain emotional power; in general they are in a weak position. Thus, they use the weapons of the weak, secret, non-confrontational methods to deal with the reproductive pressure. I thus demonstrate that intimacy is not negotiated by women and men of equal standing, but existing gender conventions are played out in the process of negotiation. Overall, I argue that it is important to discuss the issue of intimacy in transnational marriage as this is a perspective to avoid conflating women’s marriage migration with labor migration and reveal the emotional and human aspect of their marriage and experience. / published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 1982. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-118).

Applied research project (D. Min.)--School of Theology and Missions, Oral Roberts University, 2008. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-164).

Applied research project (D. Min.)--School of Theology and Missions, Oral Roberts University, 2008. / Includes abstract and vita. Translated from Korean. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-174).

The overall purpose of this preliminary study is to generate more information in the area of intercultural marriage. The specific objectives of the study are to explore the extent to which families of intercultural marriage are aware of the issues of biculturalism that are discussed as significant in the literature; the extent to which partners of intercultural marriage discuss these issues with one another or with their children; the extent to which the family members' subjective reports of "awareness" are consistent.

This dissertation concerns the structures and individual agency of Filipina brides who met their American husbands through Internet or pen pal advertisements. Popular media, legal scholars, and some feminists have largely described the phenomenon in terms of its oppressiveness toward the women involved, thus dismissing any agency on the part of the women. Similarly, much of the scholarship has located the American Internet grooms as ogres who are out to exploit these women for domestic and sexual services. If prominent researchers of this phenomenon are correct in their assessments that Filipina Internet brides operate as effective agents, then one also assumes these women continue that agency when they settle into their new lives as Filipina wives married to American men. Therefore, my central research question is: How has this agency manifested itself, and has this manifestation been problematic for the American groom, who, from the typical Internet ad's text and images and couple d with prevailing American cultural assumptions, assumed he was getting a submissive wife? To explore possible answers to these questions I performed a rhetorical analysis of two typical Internet advertisements. The focus on the ads is important to my study because the Internet advertisements both shape and reflect the popular view of the so-called Filipina "mail-order bride." Next, in order to gain the Internet brides' and grooms' perspectives of the phenomenon, I interviewed three Filipina-Americano couples currently living in South Florida between November, 2005, and October, 2007. My findings support the scholars who forefront the brides' agency and, therefore, reject the stereotypes projected on the Internet advertisements. My findings also reject the stereotype of the exploitative husband. From my interview data, the women appeared agentive and the men encouraged their wives' agency. / An unanticipated and paradoxical outcropping of the interview descriptions of their courtshand subsequent marriages. In this one area both the brides and grooms unanimously deemphasized their own agency, and instead highlighted romantic narratives with each insisting that they had "fallen in love." / by Pamela Sullivan Haley. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008 Mode of access: World Wide Web.