Japanese women, marriage migration and cultural identity: thinking through globalisation, diaspora and transnationalism

Marriage migration is a growing field of study which focuses predominately on women in general and third world women in particular. Most studies of marriage migration and international marriage offer detailed accounts of international mobility and call on theories of globalisation, diaspora and / or transnationalism to explain the phenomenon. This paper takes the historical and contemporary case of Japanese women marriage migrants to Australia to examine insights offered by these three approaches. In particular the paper shows how notions of diaspora and transnationalism offer useful ways to conceptualise the identity and mobility of past and contemporary marriage migrants whose physical, virtual and emotional connectivity zigzags back and forth from homeland to new home. The implications of this uneven situation for cultural and national identity is that at diferent points in time identities lapse and are renewed and revived in relation to diferent historical, economic and social conditions.