Studying marriage migration to Europe from below: informal practices of government,border struggles and multiple entanglements

The growing importance of marriage as a migration strategy has been accompanied by a problematisation and securitization of marriages between binational couples in media and policy discourse. Moreover, marriage migration has received increased scholarly attention. In this article, we propose an analytical framework for the study of marriage migration and its government that permits to transcend three biases and related blind spots that we identify in the existing literature. While this literature offers rich insights into marriage migration and states’ ever more laboured attempts to control and regulate it, this literature is, nevertheless, characterised by an implementation gap bias, a control bias and, finally, a destination country bias. To address these biases, we propose an analytical framework that is inspired by the autonomy of migration approach. We propose to ethnographically study binational couples’ encounters with marriage migration related authorities in countries of destination and citizenship with a particular focus on binational couples’ struggles for visas, resident permits and a right to family life. Illustrated through ethnographic research, we show that this methodology permits to highlight three aspects of marriage migration that have not been sufficiently considered so far. These include the securitization of marriage migration ‘from below’ through informal practices of government on the ‘street-level’, binational couples’ inherently political border struggles and their capacity to negotiate restrictive legislations and bureaucratic hurdles and, finally, what we call the multiple entanglements of binational couples in the border and citizenship regimes of two or more nation-state orders.     

Julius Drachsler's Intermarriage in New York City

Abstract

Julius Drachsler's 1921 book, Intermarriage in New York City, examined 171,356 individual marriage license applications from New York City in the years 1908–12. The author found little intermarriage across social lines among immigrants but a considerable amount among their U.S.-born children. This study replicates Drachsler's by taking a 1% sample (N = 1,714 cases) of the same set of marriage license applications for the same years. The replication results show that Drachsler correctly found an increasing trend to intermarriage between the first and second generations, and with close to the same proportions as Drachsler's work. The replication study of New York City marriage licenses is also consistent with the results from a 1910 sample of married couples living in New York City, taken from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample. The replication study differs from Drachsler's reported findings on the extent of intermarriages across social lines of nationality and race, mainly due to the idiosyncratic way that Drachsler defined those two constructs. The New York City marriage license files offer the researcher further opportunities to pose and answer questions about intermarriage.     

COMPUTERS AS CARTOGRAPHIC TOOLS

Abstract

In their exploration of an alternative approach to large historical databases, the authors aim to bridge the gap between the anticipations regarding Web-based collaborative work and the prevailing practices and academic culture in social and economic history. Until now, the collaboratory model has been derived from examples in the natural sciences. Moreover, publications on collaboratories in the social sciences and humanities revolved primarily around the potential of this model and were rarely based on actual research practices. In this article, the authors report on practices, risks, and opportunities of collaboratories in the field of social and economic history. The collaboratory model is a feasible alternative for the creation of large historical databases, but the practical challenges of such an enterprise are greater than generally assumed. In the concluding section, the authors formulate a number of guidelines for scholars interested in setting up collaboratories.     

Ultra-low fertility in East Asia: policy responses and challenges*

ABSTRACT

In the countries of East and Southeast Asia where fertility has reached ultra-low levels, there has been a flurry of developments in pro-natalist policy over the past five years or so, but its impact appears to be limited. This paper addresses the strong obstacles hindering the success of pro-natalist policies in the region, suggests key interventions that are needed, and stresses that the policies in these countries should also be considering other ways of addressing the issues. Social policy has certainly moved ahead in positive ways in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, as evidenced by parental leave policy and childcare reform, but workplace cultures have yet to follow suit. The slow changes in gender norms, along with the pressures of educating children and finding housing in the big cities where most people in the region live, are the continuing realities facing couples considering marriage and childbearing.     

‘Las Vegas is not where we are’: Queer readings of the Civil Partnership Act

This article interrogates the United Kingdom's new Civil Partnership Act, which is intended to create a new legal status of ‘civil partner’. The Act confers benefits and imposes legal responsibilities on those same-sex couples who register their relationships. Analysing the Governmental material produced in support of the legislation, as well as Parliamentary debates, the article provides a critical analysis of the ideological underpinnings of civil partnership. A series of dichotomies—marriage/not marriage; sex/no sex; status/contract; conjugality/care; love/money; responsibilities/rights—informs the Government's construction of the category of ‘same-sex partner’. Those dichotomies lend themselves to a deconstructive analysis, applying the insights of queer theory. The result is a skepticism regarding the Act's replication of a marriage model for same-sex couples. Instead, the article concludes by advocating the search for more pluralistic and flexible legal models that better represent the diversity of relationship forms found today.     

Ohitorisama,Singlehood and Agency in Japan

Abstract:

Postwar Japanese society has experienced significant demographic shifts. Of particular note are trends in marriage delay, increased divorce, increased rates of lifelong singlehood and an increased proportion of life spent unmarried. In this context, singlehood is increasingly experienced by women, for at least some period in their adult lives. Nonetheless, while greater numbers of Japanese are living as singles for a greater portion of their lives, marriage and childbearing remain key markers of contemporary Japanese womanhood. Living outside marriage – as a single, divorced or widowed person – suggests divergence from the ideal, even if it is just an unavoidable temporary state. This paper explores singlehood as a contested space of ideals and practices, and presents the notion of ohitorisama as one model of contemporary female singlehood.     

Problematic Conjugations: Women’s Agency,Marriage and Domestic Violence in Indonesia

Abstract:

This paper examines women’s experience of domestic violence within marriage in Makassar, South Sulawesi. It analyses the meaning of marriage for men and women, the roles of men and women within marriage, shifts in marriage practices – particularly the shift from arranged to “love” marriage – and unequal gender positions within marriage. We discuss some salient issues in the “margins of marriage” in Indonesia: polygyny and constructions of masculinity that condone the practice of polygyny/affairs, and attitudes towards divorce, particularly for women. We then examine women’s perception of the causes and triggers of domestic violence as revealed by fieldwork data, using the lens of women’s agency. Our findings are that women perceive that their expressions of agency – for instance in challenging men’s authority, moral righteousness and adequacy as breadwinners – are the most common triggers for male violence within marriage. Finally, we discuss the difficulty for women of escaping domestic violence, thereby getting some purchase on the relative capacity of women to resist, deflect or deal with the violence.     

Royal inauguration and liturgical culture in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099–1187

ABSTRACT

While modern scholars have often assumed that the models of liturgical kingship which prevailed in Latin Christendom during the Early Middle Ages became less prominent in the Central Middle Ages, more recent work has suggested that royal dynasties including those of France and England maintained practices of liturgical kingship between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. This article contributes to this recent wave of historiography by examining the image of monarchy which was adopted in the kingdom of Jerusalem between 1099 and 1187. It takes as its focus the inauguration ceremonies and associated royal rituals performed by the monarch during this period, considering aspects of each ceremony, including the various constituent rituals, the place or places in which the rituals were held, the prelates who presided, the identity of other individuals who were recorded as having taken part, and the dates upon which the ceremonies were held. It is suggested that the royal dynasty of Jerusalem was attuned to the liturgical potential of inauguration ceremonies, and that it adopted rituals which were aimed at fostering consensus among the political community of the kingdom. The monarchy created an image of liturgical kingship which combined Western practices with elements that were unique to Jerusalem.     

Pluralising the walking interview: researching (im)mobilities with Muslim women

Abstract

Within writing on walking practices, walking has often been presented as pleasurable, relaxing, and even liberatory. Research using walking interviews has recognised that different kinds of bodies can be excluded from mobile methods, impacting upon place-based knowledge production. However, the social and cultural politics of the walking interview remains underplayed, an omission that is acutely apparent in a context of urban diversity. This article investigates the ways in which walking practices intersect with social difference, particularly in relation to faith, ethnicity and gender. It argues for the need to pluralise mobile methods in order to more subtly address social distinctions, and further offers empirical observations on the embodied experiences and socio-spatial practices of Muslim women in the city of Birmingham, U.K.     

Millstones north and south of the Scottish border

Abstract

It is perhaps surprising that there should be very considerable differences in the practices of millstone-making in Scotland on the one hand and in England and Wales on the other. However, it has been emerging from recent studies and discussions, that such is the case. Both those millstones incorporating pieces of imported French burr and those made entirely from indigenous rock show differences between the two national regions. The purpose of the present short article is to draw attention to the nature of these differences as so far observed, and to encourage further reporting and discussion on such an interesting topic.     

The Interactional Nature of Emotion Work in Thai Marriages: Anger,Romance and Guilt

Marriage has increasingly been recognised as a site of emotional interaction and satisfaction, in which the interactional, relational nature of emotion is evident, but most accounts of emotions in marriage rely on Western examples. What does the study of Thai marital emotions tell us about the culturally specific nature of marriage and emotional interaction? Using data derived from interviews with middle-class married couples in Bangkok, Thailand, this article focuses on three emotions that have particular significance in Thai marriage: anger, romance and guilt. I demonstrate the ways in which Thai married couples actively engage in emotion works, including by creating, decreasing, increasing and employing emotions, in order to fulfil their spousal roles and sustain a lasting marriage. I argue that emotion works are relational, and are performed in marital interactions within particular socio-cultural rules and contexts. Importantly, along with a Western idea of individualism, Thai traditional values, mainly marital harmony and endurance, influence emotional interaction in marriage.     

Religion,Community and The Infanticidal Mother: Evidence From 1840s Rural Wiltshire

Abstract

The existing literature on the history of infanticide has typically considered the crime as a reaction to a specifi c set of diffi cult individual circumstances, but has not attempted to place the infanticidal mother within a longer personal timeframe. Nor has the role of her religious belief been much examined. This article investigates three key elements in the case of Rebecca Smith (1807–1849), the last woman executed in England for the murder of her own infant: her bad marriage; her poverty; and her Baptist religion. These factors provide context for her socio-economic and psychological development, and thus for her status as England's best documented serial infant killer. The article suggests that, as a married woman, Smith's choices were infl uenced by conditions both wider and deeper than the more immediate issues which have tended to be associated with infanticide by unmarried women.     

Reappraising Victorian Literacy through Prison Records

Since the Registrar General began to count the signatures and marks made by brides and grooms in parish registers across England in 1839, contemporaries and later historians have used this data to describe rates of literacy during the Victorian period. Evidence from the marriage registers only tells us about the literacy of the marrying population at any given point in time. Moreover, by distinguishing between those who could read and write and those who could not, the marriage registers have helped to draw an artificial line between those who were literate and the rest of the population, ignoring the large number of semi-literates who played an important role in a society progressing towards mass literacy. This article uses data collected on the separate skills of literacy and the experience of schooling of those men, women and children who passed through the criminal justice system between c.1840 and c.1870 in an attempt to reconstruct patterns of skills acquisition among the lower classes during the Victorian period. Not only does this evidence further dispel myths about the existence of a so-called ‘criminal class’ with specific characteristics in Victorian England, but, even more importantly, it shows that the path towards mass literacy was uneven, far less predictable than previously allowed, and often only loosely tied to developments in formal schooling.     

La cohabitation de longue durée: Studying the 1997-2002 experience

This article examines the politics of what the French call 'cohabitation' in the period 1997-2002. It identifies two different ways in which cohabitation is studied. The first assumes that each of the three periods of cohabitation has occurred under a unique set of political circumstances. The second argues that there have been institutional similarities between each of the three periods of cohabitation and that fundamentally the political situation during each has been the same. The article provides evidence that supports both approaches, and concludes by suggesting that the second approach is the more useful.     

Enrichment Training Program and Successful Marriage in Kuwait: a Field Study on Kuwaiti Couples

The main purpose of the current study was to determine whether a marriage enrichment program could effectively increase and improve marital satisfaction and marital communication of Kuwaiti couples. In addition, most of the previous studies which focused on marriage enrichment programs have been conducted with predominantly white, North American married couples (Yelsma, 1988). The study of the impact of the marriage enrichment will provide insight into the ways couples from other cultural backgrounds interact with each other in achieving marital satisfaction, especially, couples from Muslim countries. Participants were 62 married couples (16 couples in the experimental group; 16 couples in the control group) — their marital duration ranging from one year to thirty‐one years. The study examined whether a marital enhancement program could make any change in the marital satisfaction of Kuwaiti couples. The study focused on the following research questions: 1) Do socio‐demo‐graphic factors (age, income, education, duration of marriage, children) play a role on the marital satisfaction level of Kuwaiti couples? 2) Is there a difference in the marital satisfaction scale between male and female in the pre‐test, post‐test marital satisfaction scale? 3) Does the marriage enhancement training program in the Social Development Office (SDO) influence the post‐test level of the marital satisfaction of the participants? The study concluded that the marriage enrichment program in the SDO of Kuwait has had a significant positive effect on marital communication and marital adjustment immediately following the enrichment experience.     

A gilded cage? Help and control in early Norwegian social policy

Between 1902 and 1972, Norway was the only country in Western Europe in which cohabitation without marriage was forbidden by law ("the concubinage clause"). Thirteen years after his arguably repressive clause was written into the criminal code, the Children Acts were introduced, giving Norwegian children born out of wedlock stronger social rights than in any other country at the time. Norway thus granted strong protection for children born outside marriage while extramarital sex in itself-in some circumstances- was forbidden. How can this paradox be understood? It has been argued that the Children Acts presupposed the concubinage clause, that the silk glove of the welfare state was only made possible by the iron fist of criminal law. This article studies the political debates preceding the two provisions and argues that both grew out of a particular understanding of the relationship between men and women. Extramarital sex was seen as something men did to women; thus, it could be argued that strengthening women's position in relation to that of men would lead to less immorality. Both the concubinage clause and the Children Acts were seen as means to this end.     

Measuring Inequality: A Fortran Program for the Geni Index,Schutz Coefficient,and Lorenz Curve

Abstract

A new occupational stratification scale, “HISCAM” (historical CAMSIS), has been developed to facilitate the analysis of data coded to the Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations. This article describes the derivation and properties of the HISCAM measure. The scale was derived using patterns of inter-generational occupational connections, replicating a method of “social interaction distance” analysis which is widely used in contemporary sociology. Analysis was performed on data for the period of 1800–1938, principally derived from marriage registers covering Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, and encompassing over two million inter-generational relationships. Researchers report how several different HISCAM scales were evaluated and show how this approach can explain social stratification and inequality in the past.     

Pre‐Soviet pasts of reindeer‐herding collectives: Ethnographies of transition in Murmansk region

This article summarizes observations from field studies with reindeer herders in northwest Russia (Murmansk Region) carried out between 1994 and 1999. The work has been done by living with reindeer‐herding crews at their seasonal tundra camps.

For a large majority of the herders and their families, the concept and practices of the Soviet State Farm (.sovkhoz) tend to represent not only the most desirable form of livelihood, but indeed the only conceivable, although now seriously shattered, reality. In the face of a grim present, new reinterpretations of the sovkhoz are constantly being tried out. The pool of options is found in pre‐Soviet traditions and tends to reveal links between the Sami pogost (siji) social organisation and practices and those of the Soviet and post‐Soviet reindeer‐herding crew (brigadd).The article pursues these connections and discusses the sovkhoz not as destroying all previous tradition, but as drawing from and incorporating pre‐Soviet pasts. The underlying continuity with such pasts may explain the tenacity of the sovkhoz concept in this particular Arctic setting and, possibly, in a variety of others.     

Accounting for Research: a Critical Assessment of English Heritage's Research Strategy and Agenda 2005–2010

Abstract

Social scientists and anthropologists have recently critiqued the proliferation of accountability practices, such as auditing and the creation of strategic documents, in a variety of working contexts across the globe. While practitioners in archaeology and the historic environment sector more broadly have been involved for some time in generating and implementing such documents and practices, there has been little direct discussion of why these came about or what roles they actually perform. This article addresses this omission by forefronting the recent English Heritage research strategy and Agenda 2005–2010 as objects for critical review. As well as assessing these documents in detail, it provides a broader consideration of the role of strategic practices such as these in archaeological research. While the documents under consideration are essentially English in scope, many of the points that are raised in relation to them have resonance at a wider, global scale.