Katharine Charsley

Marriages spanning borders are not a new phenomenon, but occur with increasing frequency and contribute substantially to international mobility and transnational engagement. Perhaps because such migration has often been treated as ‘secondary’ to labor migration, marriage has until recent years been a neglected field in migration studies. In contemporary Europe, transnational marriages have become an increasingly focal issue for immigration regimes, for whom these border-crossing family formations represent a significant challenge. This timely volume brings together work from Europe and beyond, addressing the issue of transnational marriage from a range of perspectives (including legal frameworks, processes of integration, and gendered dynamics), presenting substantial new empirical material, and taking a fresh look at key concepts in this area.

New Perspectives from Europe and Beyond

Transnational Marriage

Sarah Spencer

Marta Bolognani

Evelyn Ersanilli

This book provides the first sustained empirical evidence on the relationships between marriage migration and processes of integration, focusing on two of the largest British ethnic minority groups involved in these kinds of transnational marriages – Pakistani Muslims and Indian Sikhs. In Britain, and across Europe, concern has been increasingly expressed over the implications of marriage-related migration for integration. Children and grandchildren of former immigrants marrying partners from their ancestral ‘homelands’ is often presented as problematic in forming a 'first generation in every generation,’ and inhibiting processes of individual and group integration, impeding socio-economic participation and cultural change. As a result, immigration restrictions have been justified on the grounds of promoting integration, despite limited evidence. Marriage Migration and Integration provides much needed new grounding for both academic and policy debates. This book draws on both quantitative and qualitative data to compare transnational ‘homeland’ marriages with intra-ethnic marriages within the UK. Using a distinctive holistic model of integration, the authors examine processes in multiple interacting domains, such as employment, education, social networks, extended family living, gender relations and belonging. It will be of use to students and scholars across sociology, social anthropology, and social policy with a focus on migration, integration, family studies, gender, and ethnic studies, as well as policy-makers and service providers in the UK and across Europe.

Katharine Charsley

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