Cross-Border Intimacies - (Governing Intimacies in the Global South) by Lara Momesso (Hardcover)

About the Book

Cross-border intimacies draws on over a decade of frontline research to explore the lives of Chinese migrants who move to Taiwan for marriage. It highlights the complex interplay between emotional and affective processes in shaping marriage migration between China and Taiwan.

Book Synopsis

Since the early 1990s, economic exchanges between China and Taiwan have paved the way to migration across a previously closed border and to social and cultural interactions between the two populations. Despite these broader changes, the unresolved issue of Taiwan sovereignty has tainted not only the relations between the two governments but also the everyday life of those who move across the Taiwan Strait. In this politicised environment, intimate and affective practices linked to cross-border marriage and family formation are never just private. Instead, they are deeply entangled with the emotional and affective processes generated at the macro and meso level of political and social life and revolving around national interests. Tracing the intimate, emotional and affective practices linked to family creation, identity formation and integration with the local and national communities, this ethnographic study offers a subjective, dynamic, and complex picture of what it means to be a mainland spouse in Taiwan.

From the Back Cover

Cross-border intimacies draws on over a decade of frontline research to explore the lives of Chinese migrants who move to Taiwan for marriage. Spanning generations, it highlights the complex interplay between emotional and affective processes in shaping marriage migration between China and Taiwan. It argues that this phenomenon is the product of the interplay between the spheres of politics, the other, and the self. At the level of politics, cross-Strait marriage migration is manipulated by political actors to mobilise public opinion through a sentimental narrative legitimising inclusion and exclusion patterns. Cross-Strait marriage migration is also about the dynamic interactions between others - migrants and non-migrants, influenced by emotions and affect - in which meanings of family, inclusion, and integration are co-constructed and transformed over time. Finally, cross-Strait marriage migration is about the emotional and affective experiences of marriage migrants - the self - as they navigate discrimination and integration, develop a sense of belonging, and engage in intimate and homemaking practices. Importantly, this book demonstrates that as these three dimensions continually interact and negotiate with one another, they create new pathways, emotional and affective processes, and changing migration experiences, resulting in an ever-evolving phenomenon. This book contributes to empirical literature on marriage migration and emerging scholarship exploring the role of emotions and affect in migration phenomena.

About the Author

Lara Momesso is Senior Lecturer in Asia Pacific Studies at University of Central Lancashire.
Lara is founder and Co-Director of the Northern Institute of Taiwan Studies and founder and Co-Deputy Director of the Centre for Migration, Diaspora and Exile at the University of Central Lancashire. Lara also is Research Associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS (the University of London, UK), Associate Fellow at the European Research Centre of Contemporary Taiwan (University of Tuebingen, Germany) and elected executive board member of the European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS).