Men who ‘Marry Out’: unsettling masculinity,kinship, and nation through migration across the Taiwan Strait

Family reunification has become a widely recognized means to move across borders in the contemporary world. As a migration strategy, family reunification redefines the relationship of kinship to nation, diversifying the ‘national family’ and its gendered role expectations. This article uses cross-border marriages between Chinese and Taiwanese to interrogate how immigration affects the experiences of men who migrate through or in conjunction with marriage, integrating scales of family, citizenship, and nation in an analysis of migrant masculinity. Migrant husbands describe their disempowerment as male providers and citizens through the patrilineal and patrilocal kinship language of having ‘married out.’ The article examines the salience of this kinship model for immigrant husbands seeking to redefine their relationship to patrilineal gender privileges and secure citizenship status. How do men who migrate through marriage negotiate gendered kinship principles that may work to their benefit in their home country but undermine their status once they migrate? How does the experience of migrating as a kin-dependent threaten men’s self-image as family providers? By investigating these challenges to hegemonic masculinity, the article asks how migration reconfigures the gendered foundations of family formation by undermining kinship-based models of normative masculinity and creating a gender crisis for some migrant husbands.     

Heterogeneity and Labour Agency in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo

This article considers the broad question of how to improve the conditions of workers in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM), which relies on predominantly informal activities. While acknowledging that formalization can provide ASGM miners with tenure security and protection of labour rights, it is important to highlight that not all workers are likely to benefit from formalization in the same way, and that decent work ambitions should extend to all workers, regardless of whether or not they are formalized. It is therefore crucial to understand the heterogeneity in the ASGM workforce. This article describes working conditions for different categories of workers based on a survey carried out in the Watsa and Shabunda territories in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. It analyses labour agency and shows that workers are diversely integrated in the labour process and may use power resources in various ways. The discussion reflects on ways to consider the heterogeneity in ASGM labour and to push the ASGM agenda beyond formalization.     

Ajvatovica: A Bridge Between Tradition and National and Religious Identity

The religious/cultural event Ajvatovica, the most attended Muslim gathering in Europe, provides a vivid example of the “cooperation” that exists between the nation and religion in contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Although officially a religious event, it has a special place in the ambiguous nation-building project of BiH, relating specifically to the nation-building process of Bosniaks. In this paper, I will address this religious event in its historical and social context, and point to its significance and symbolism. I will pay particular attention to the attitudes of the socialist authorities towards this event, the motives behind its revival and its context, and the modifications made to it during the 1990s, which were closely related to the social and political changes taking place in BiH.     

Perspektiver for forskningen ved Nordisk Samisk Institutt

Nordisk Samisk Institutt (Sámi Instituhtta) i Kautokeino er den første samiske forskningsinstitusjon plassert til et sted med samisk majoritet. Instituttet startet sin virksomhet i 1974 med seks ansatte. I dag er 30 personer tilknyttet instituttet alt i alt. Forskningsinstitusjonen skal ivareta ulike interesser innen grunnforskning, utviklingsarbeid, administrasjon og praktisk veiledning i samisk hverdagssammenheng.