The Politics of International Marriage in Japan

By Viktoriya Kim, Nelia G. Balgoa, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto

SERIES: Politics of Marriage and Gender: Global Issues in Local Contexts

Rutgers University Press

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.

A welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship focused on gender and marriage migration in Japan. Shedding light on various aspects of cross-border relationships, cross-cultural parenting and family formation, The Politics of International Marriage in Japan vibrantly illuminates individual engagement in the dynamics and differences of gender, capital, culture, and nation that are embedded in marriage and migration. Kumiko Nemoto, author of Too Few Women at the Top: The Persistence of Inequality in Japan

A novel and valuable contribution to the growing field of research on international marriages. Bringing together three bodies of research on different nationality groups of migrant spouses, with key themes in the study of marriage-related migration, and the Japanese framework of uchi/soto, this book provides a distinctive and ambitious analysis of the diversity of international marriages in Japan. Katharine Charsley, co-author of Marriage Migration and Integration

New Books Network interview with Viktoriya Kim, Nelia Balgoa, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto New Books Network - Japanese Studies

International Marriage in Japan: Russian-Speaking Women Married to Japanese Men,' by Viktoriya Kim Hurights Osaka newsletter

This is a useful book for any discussion of contemporary marriage practices in Japan. I would use this book as a secondary source in my Japanese literature classes. It provides important background information as well as nice case studies that I could use as points of comparison with the fiction I assign for my students to read. Anne Sokolsky, International Institute for Asian Studies

VIKTORIYA KIM is an associate professor in the Human Sciences International Undergraduate Degree Program, Osaka University, Japan.

NELIA G. BALGOA is a professor in the Department of English and Culture and Arts Studies Center of the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology, Mindanao, Philippines.

BEVERLEY YAMAMOTO is a professor of Transformative Education, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Japan.

List of Tables and Figures
Series Foreword by Péter Berta
Introduction. The Politics of International Marriage in Japan
1 Cross-Border Marriage Studies Through the ‘Lens’
2 Historical Roots and Contemporary Changes in International Marriages
3 Who Marries Whom?
4 The Politics of Love: Migration Regimes, Individuals and Images
5 Spaces for Negotiation
6 Choices and Constraints
7 Parents’ Strategies to Raise Bilingual/Bicultural Children
8 International Divorce Politics and Transnational Strategies of Spouses
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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