Synopses & Reviews
This book should be highly relevant to the growing number of people in cross-cultural marriages, as well as to professionals in the fields of marriage guidance, child welfare and academics interested in ethnicity and kinship.
· the legal and social factors influencing cross-cultural marriages;
· the personality factors and positive or negative stereotypes of ‘otherness that influence spouse choice;
· notions of identity, gender and personhood, and definitions of difference, and how these are often tied up in emotive stereotypes;
· how all these factors affect the ongoing process of living together and the ability to cope;
· and how the children of such marriages come to terms with identity choices.
This book should be highly relevant to the growing number of people in cross-cultural marriages, as well as to professionals in the fields of marriage guidance, child welfare and academics interested in ethnicity and kinship.
Review
"Throws light on the existence of tolerant and intolerable enclaves, and the ability of one spouse to cope in a strange or hostile situation . . . should be of special interest to professional community workers and educators." --
Oxford: The Journal of the Oxford Society"A welcome addition to the dearth of literature in the field." --Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education
"This book represents one of the first systematic collections of work on this topic . . . [It] represents an attempt to fill a gap in our knowledge about a socially important phenomenon." --Contemporary Psychology
"A welcome addition to the dearth of literature in the field." --Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education
Synopsis
As societies world-wide become increasingly multicultural, so the issues of identity, belonging, tolerance and racism become imperative to understand in their various forms. This book adds to the discussion by examining the interface between the lived, personal experiences of people in cross-cultural marriages and wider socio-political issues. One major contribution this book offers is that the marriages discussed are from a very broad range of cultures and classes. Amongst other issues, contributors examine: the legal and social factors influencing cross-cultural marriages; the personality factors and positive or negative stereotypes of otherness that influence spouse choice; notions of identity, gender and personhood, and definitions of difference, and how these are often tied up in emotive stereotypes; how all these factors affect the ongoing process of living together and the ability to cope; and how the children of such marriages come to terms with identity choices. This book should be highly relevant to the growing number of people in cross-cultural marriages, as well as to professionals in the fields of marriage guidance, child welfare and academics interested in ethnicity and kinship.
About the Author
Edited by
Rosemary Breger, The Centre for Cross-Cultural Research on Women and
Rosanna Hill,
Freelance Researcher
Table of Contents
Preface / Rosemary Breger and Rosanna Hill -- Notes on contributors -- Introducing mixed marriages / Rosemary Breger and Rosanna Hill -- Crossing over : mixing, matching and marriage in Mallorca / Jackie Waldren -- Chance, choice and circumstance : a study of women in cross-cultural marriages / Jane Khatib-Chahidi, Rosanna Hill and Renâee Paton -- The seduction of the exotic : notes on mixed marriage in East Nepal / Tamara Kohn -- Crossing racialized boundaries : intermarriage between 'Africans' and 'Indians' in contemporary Guyana / Yoshiko Shibata -- The politics of cross-cultural marriage : an examination of a Ghanaian/African-American case / Yvette Alex-Assensoh and A.B. Assensoh -- Freedom of choice or Pandora's box? : legal pluralism and the regulation of cross-cultural marriages in Uganda / Sanyu Semafumu -- Love and the State : women, mixed marriages and the law in Germany / Rosemary Breger -- Cross-cultural marriage within Islam : ideals and reality / Mai Yamani -- English and North American daughters-in-law in the Hindu joint family / Mary Sissons Joshi and Meena Krishna -- Gender identity and gender role patterns in cross-cultural marriages : the Japanese-Dutch case / Kirsten Refsing -- Not all issues are black and white : some voices from the offspring of cross-cultural marriages / Audrey Maxwell.