1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910807325603321

Autore

Constable Nicole

Titolo

Romance on a global stage : pen pals, virtual ethnography, and "mail-order" marriages / / Nicole Constable

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2003

ISBN

9786612359729

0-520-93722-8

1-282-35972-X

1-59734-877-5

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (295 p.)

Disciplina

306.84/5

Soggetti

Intercountry marriage - United States

Marriage brokerage - United States

Mail order brides - United States

Asians - United States

International correspondence - Social aspects

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Making introductions -- Ethnography in imagined virtual communities -- Feminism and myths of "mail-order" marriages -- Fairy tales, family values, and the global politics of romance -- Political economy and cultural logics of desire -- Women's agency and the gendered geography of marriage -- Tales of waiting : history, immigration, and the state -- Conclusion : marriage, migration, and transnational families.

Sommario/riassunto

By the year 2000 more than 350 Internet agencies were plying the email-order marriage trade, and the business of matching up mostly Western men with women from Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America had become an example of globalization writ large. This provocative work opens a window onto the complex motivations and experiences of the people behind the stereotypes and misconceptions that have exploded along with the practice of transnational courtship and marriage. Combining extensive Internet ethnography and face-to-face fieldwork, Romance on a Global Stage looks at the intimate realities of



Filipinas, Chinese women, and U.S. men corresponding in hopes of finding a suitable marriage partner. Through the experiences of those engaged in pen pal relationships-their stories of love, romance, migration, and long-distance dating-this book conveys the richness and dignity of women's and men's choices without reducing these correspondents to calculating opportunists or naive romantics. Attentive to the structural, cultural, and personal factors that prompt women and men to seek marriage partners abroad, Romance on a Global Stage questions the dichotomies so frequently drawn between structure and agency, and between global and local levels of analysis.