This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Häkkinen, Anne Title: Dating Secretly : The Role of the Internet in Shaping Transnational Couple Formation in the Kurdish Diaspora Year: 2016 Version: Published version Copyright: © 2016 Ethnologia Europaea Rights: CC BY 4.0 Rights url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Please cite the original version: Häkkinen, A. (2016). Dating Secretly : The Role of the Internet in Shaping Transnational Couple Formation in the Kurdish Diaspora. Ethnologia Europaea, 46(1), 10-24. https://ee.openlibhums.org/article/id/1174/ Museum Tusculanum Press :: University of Copenhagen :: www.mtp.dk ::
[email protected] DATING SECRETLY The Role of the Internet in Shaping Transnational Couple Formation in the Kurdish Diaspora Anne Häkkinen, University of Jyväskylä Drawing on twenty-one in-depth interviews, this article discusses the Internet’s role in the forma tion of transnational marriages among migrant Kurds who live in Finland. In contrast to what is presented in the European media, my findings suggest that transnational couple formation among migrants should be seen as highly diverse and more than just practices that maintain and preserve “traditional” marriage customs. Transnational online dating practices make visible how young adult Kurds actively engage in partner formation and spousal selection. Online dating enables in dividual autonomy by widening the circle of potential partners outside familial circles and offers a private social space in which people can create relationships on their own terms and evade social monitoring and possibly harmful rumors. Keywords : online dating, transnational marriage, Kurds, couple formation, ethnography Introduction border marriages are not taken into closer discus In the field of migration studies, it has been ty pical sion here, since their social and cultural contexts are for researchers to make a distinction between differ considerably different.