Transnational Marriage within South Asian Communities

The following three chapters will compare examples of cross-border marriage migration from across the globe. The focus throughout will be on how these marriages are negotiated by individual agents and communities acting within structures represented by international migration regimes as well as the structures imposed by social and cultural norms. This part of the book will also explore the notion of transnationalism as it relates to cross-border marriage. It is my view that cross-border marriages are both a consequence and an instigator of transnationalism. Marriages across borders can initiate cross-national connections and can represent the first steps in the creation of the international links necessary for transnational networks and structures. Cross-border marriages are also frequently made because of pre-existing, transnational connections. The literature review presented as Chapter 4 of this book has already introduced the concept of transnationalism and the following three chapters will consider whether and which cross-border marriages can be considered ‘transnational’. In Chapter 4, I discussed theories of transnationalism and in the following section I will use a combination of Steve Vertovec’s (1999), Michael Peter Smith’s (2001) and Thomas Faist’s (2000) definitions of transnationalism to analyse different forms of cross-border marriage.