This book analyses how children from transnational Japanese-Singaporean families are educated. The author demonstrates that the negotiated educational pathways of these children have significant bearing on the ways in which individual identities of mixedness may be constructed or contested – where notions of mixedness are necessarily recognised for their inherent fluidity, contextuality and contingency. This interdisciplinary book will be of interest to students and scholars across the fields of education, neoliberalism, globalization, multiculturalism, mobility and cross-border migration.
Illuminating how international marriages are negotiated, arranged, and experienced, Cross-Border Marriages is the first book to chart marital migrations involving women and men of diverse national, ethnic, and class backgrounds. The migrations studied here cross geographical borders of provinces, rural-urban borders within nation-states, and international boundaries, including those of China, Japan, South Korea, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, the United States, and Canada. Looking at assumptions about the connection between international marriages and poverty, opportunism, and women's mobility, the book draws attention to ideas about global patterns of inequality that are thought to pressure poor women to emigrate to richer countries, while simultaneously suggesting the limitations of such views. Breaking from studies that regard the international bride as a victim of circumstance and the mechanisms of international marriage as traffic in commodified women, these essays challenge any simple idea of global hypergamy and present a nuanced understanding where a variety of factors, not the least of which is desire, come into play. Indeed, most contemporary marriage-scapes involve women who relocate in order to marry; rarely is it the men. But Nicole Constable and the volume contributors demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, these brides are not necessarily poor, nor do they categorically marry men who are above them on the socioeconomic ladder. Although often women may appear to be moving "up" from a less developed country to a more developed one, they do not necessarily move higher on the chain of economic resources. Complicating these and other assumptions about international marriages, the essays in this volume draw from interviews and rich ethnographic materials to examine women's and men's agency, their motivations for marriage, and the importance of familial pressures and obligations, cultural imaginings, fantasies, and desires, in addition to personal and economic factors. Border-crossing marriages are significant for what they reveal about the intersection of local and global processes in the everyday lives of women and men whose marital opportunities variably yield both rich possibilities and bitter disappointments.
This book provides an in-depth exploration and analysis of marriages between Japanese nationals and migrants from three broad ethnic/cultural groups - spouses from the former Soviet Union countries, the Philippines, and Western countries. It reveals how the marriage migrants navigate the intricacies and trajectories of their marriages with Japanese people while living in Japan. Seen from the lens of ‘gendered geographies of power’, the book explores how state-level politics and policies towards marriage, migration, and gender affect the personal power politics in operation within the relationships of these international couples. Overall, the book discusses how ethnic identity intersects with gender in the negotiation of spaces and power relations between and amongst couples; and the role states and structural inequalities play in these processes, resulting in a reconfiguration of our notions of what international marriages are and how powerful gender and the state are in understanding the power relations in these unions.
"Asian Cross-border Marriage Migration: Demographic Patterns and Social Issues is an interdisciplinary and comparative study on the rapid increase of the intra-Asia flow of cross-border marriage migration. This book contains in-depth research conducted by scholars in the fields of demography, sociology, anthropology and pedagogy, including demographic studies based on large-scale surveys on migration and marital patterns as well as micro case studies on migrants%7Bu2019%7D liv%7Bu00AD%7Ding experiences and strategies. Together these papers examine and challenge the existing assumptions in the immigration policies and popular discourse and lay the foundation for further comparative research." -- Back cover.
With a relatively recent rapid increase in international marriages, Korea provides a fascinating case study in cross-cultural pastoral care at a time of increasing global movement and migration. This book presents a pastoral care model based on interviews with a relatively under-researched demographic of international women marriage migrants. The pastoral care model was developed by listening to the many experiences of women from Western countries who are raising their biracial children in Korea, a country which is still wrestling with the concept of multiculturalism. At a time when many pastors will find themselves with expatriates, repatriates, or international marriages in their congregation, this book presents a model for approaching pastoral care, particularly if such women are mothers.
This book investigates the unique and dynamic approaches to key issues of changing images of child and childhood, by different countries in the Asia-Pacific. Key concepts considered are re-conceptualizing early childhood education and care, re-eaxming early learning standards and redefining professionalism. The Asia Pacific region includes countries belonging to both the Majority and Minority worlds and which vary widely in terms of their cultural geography, social-cultural beliefs, and levels of development, demographic profiles, political systems and government commitments to early childhood services. An international team of experienced researchers from different countries guarantees diverse perspectives. By examining different countries’ policy choices and evidence-based practices, the authors show how best to provide for young children based on their countries’ strategies.
The ease of transportation, the opening of international immigration policies, the growing refugee movements, and the increasing size of unauthorized immigrant populations suggest that immigration worldwide is a phenomenon of utmost importance to professionals who develop policies and programs for, or provide services to, immigrants. Immigration occurs in both the wealthy nations of the global North and the poorer countries of the global South; it involves individuals who arrive with substantial human capital and those with little. It has far-reaching implications for a nation's economy, public policies, social and health services, and culture. The purpose of this volume, therefore, is to explore current patterns and policies of immigration in key countries and regions across the globe and analyze the implications for these countries and their immigrant populations. Each of its chapters, written by an international and interdisciplinary group of experts, explores how country conditions, policies, values, politics, and attitudes influence the process of immigration and subsequently affect immigrants, migration, and the nation itself. No other volume explores the landscape of worldwide immigration as broadly as this does, with sweeping coverage of countries and empirical research, together with an analytic framework that sets the context of human migration against a wide backdrop of experiential factors that take shape long before an immigrant enters a host country. At once a sourcebook and an applied model of immigration studies, Immigration Worldwide is a valuable reference for scholars and students seeking a wide-ranging yet nuanced survey of the key issues salient to debates about the programs and policies that best serve immigrant populations and their host countries.
Men are disadvantaged in the marriage markets of many Asian countries, and in some cases their response is to look abroad for a partner. Receiving countries for marriage migrants include Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, while the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and parts of mainland China supply wives to these territories. In the absence of uniform international regulations concerning the rights and obligations of partners, such unions are treated differently in different jurisdiction. In extreme cases migrants or their children become stateless, and when marriages break down, migrants sometimes face major legal problems. In such circumstances, marriage migrants are often portrayed as powerless, uneducated victims. Rejecting this perspective, the authors in this volume explore the agency of women who migrate abroad to acquire opportunities unavailable to them in their homelands. They show that the trajectories of marriage migrants are often not a simple movement from home to destination but can involve return, repeated, or extended migrations, and that these transitions that can alter geographies of power in economics, nationality or ethnicity. Based on features shared by many marriage migrants, the book identifies them as an emerging minority at the frontier of the nation-state, a group whose status may well carry over to future generations.
Grounded in multi-generational stories from Kinmen in Taiwan, Visions of Marriage explores the historical entanglements between the pursuit of new personal and national futures. Focusing on the relational and future-making aspects of marriage, the ethnography highlights the intersection of transformations across familial generations and shifting political economies in Taiwan, and more globally. While theories of modernity often treat marriage as an index of social change, without adequate attention to its transformative capacities generated through personal and familial agency, this volume provides comparative insights on family change and demographic shifts in Asia.
Japan faces multiple challenges in an era of population decline. Problems such as aging and a decreasing working-age population are expected to increase in severity, so tackling these challenges and examining the contributions that immigrants can make to society are vital for Japan's future. What contributions do foreign residents make to Japan, especially in the labor market? How do national and local government policies effect the settlement and permanent residence of foreign nationals? Are issues - such as social mobility and quality of life of foreigners, the fertility of foreign women, and long-term trends in naturalization - important? What support does Japan offer to immigrants? As a 'new' country of immigration, the need to examine such questions is growing. This book takes a geographical perspective in examining the necessity of immigration and how foreign residents are helping to alleviate the problem of population decline in contemporary Japan. *** "Over the last thirty years Japan has become a country of immigration again. While the literature on migration to Japan is growing, reliable data on the issue is still scarce.Yoshitaka Ishikawa's edited volume is a major contribution to filling this void. Overall the papers compiled in the book are a good introduction to the complex and multifaceted realities of newcomer migrants and shed light on some understudied quantitative and qualitative aspects of migration to Japan. --Pacific Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 4, December 2016 (Series: Japanese Society) [Subject: Sociology, Japanese Studies, Asian Studies, Migration Studies, Labor Studies]
