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Gender, Class and Race in the Transnational Marriage Market in Taiwan

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Gender, Class and Race in the Transnational Marriage Market in Taiwan Stratified Foreign Bodies and Geopolitics of Desire: Gender, Class and Race in the Transnational Marriage Market in Taiwan Hsun‐Hui Tseng A dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2012 Reading Committee: Ann Anagnost, Co‐chair Stevan Harrell, Co‐chair Tani Barlow Laada Bilanuik Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Anthropology University of Washington Abstract Stratified Foreign Bodies and Geopolitics of Desire: Gender, Class and Race in the Transnational Marriage Market in Taiwan Hsun‐Hui Tseng Co‐chairs of Supervisory Committee: Professor Ann Anagnost, Professor Stevan Harrell Department of Anthropology This dissertation investigates the market formation of transnational brokered marriages between Taiwanese men and foreign women mainly from China, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. It aims to look at what kind of desire and needs in the rapidly global circulation of capital and labor is created to trigger the formation of the transnational marriage market. Adopting a multi‐sited ethnographic approach and a feminist perspective, I followed marriage groups to bride‐sending countries including Vietnam, China and Ukraine to conduct participatory observation. Main issues of this dissertation includes: First, how “foreign brides” became a social phenomenon and how their bodies are racialized, sexualized and commodified according to their geographic origins. Secondly, how the politics of gender and representation work together in creating a market demand, and how economic relations become intertwined with ideas of romantic love embodied in the business of transnational brokering marriage in the context of consumer capitalism. Thirdly, how men’s and women’s motivations and desires for transnational marriages are triggered economically and non‐economically and how they perceive themselves in the market process. Lastly, how the governments and women’s groups respond to the bride trade and the flow of migration—the circulation of desire, needs, hope, labor and capital in the transnational bride trade. Through illustrating the interconnectionality among poverty, structural violence and neoliberal desire of migrant women, I challenge the binaries of victim/perpetrator and real/fake marriage, demonstrate a dual sense of subjugation and agency of these women, and blur the distinction between liberation and exploitation in the making of “foreign brides” in the affective economy. Last, I argue that foreign brides are not a homogeneous subaltern group that can be essentialized and represented by a representative. Instead, we need trans‐national and trans‐ class perspectives to understand the differences among them. In addition to listening to their various voices, we should also seek to decipher the meaning of their silence. Without this careful consideration, the governmental policy of banning the profit‐oriented marriage brokerage will end up serving the liberal middle‐class feminist imagination of global moral order. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 Geopolitics of Desire and the Value of “Foreign Brides” 2 “Foreign Brides”: a Catachresis Analysis 5 Getting into the Field 11 In the Making of Multi-Sited Transnational Ethnography 16 CHAPTER TWO: “FOREIGN BRIDES” AS A CULTURAL PHENOMENON 21 Capital Flows and Marriage Migration in Transnational Asia 26 Discursive Formation of “Foreign Brides” 31 The Paradoxical “Foreignness” 47 Cultural Citizenship as Subjectification and beyond 58 CHAPTER THREE: WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION AND THE GEOPOLITICS OF DESIRE 64 The Trend of Transnational Marriages 76 Racialized Bodies: How are Foreign Women Advertised? 81 (Romantic) Love and Its Discontent: Men’s Struggle in the Face of Social Stigma 103 CHAPTER FOUR: WOMEN’S AGENCY AND GENDER DYNAMICS IN THE COMMODIFIED MARRIAGE 114 The Feminization of “Survival” 118 Women’s Agency in Decision Making 137 Commodification of Women in the Brokered Marriage 151 Commodification and Affect 159 CHAPTER FIVE: THE STATE, MARKET, AND ANTI-TRAFFICKING CAMPAIGN 167 Discussions of the Policy Debate 173 Market Competition, Women’s Exploitation and State Regulation Reconsidered 176 State Regulation and Market Responses 185 Can the “Foreign Brides” Speak? 189 i Knowledge Production of Real/Fake Marriage and Trafficking in Women 199 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION 217 BIBLIOGRAPHY 227 ii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Number Page 1. Field trips to the bride‐sending countries 20 2. Example of Pictures of Vietnamese and Ukrainian Brides in Online Catalogs 89 3. Advertisement of Vietnamese Brides 112 4. Matchmaking Venue in a Village of Hai Coi 112 5. Matchmaking Meeting 113 6. Engagement Ceremony After the Matchmaking Meeting 113 7. Chinghui’s wedding photos 125 iii LIST OF TABLES Table Number Page 1. Estimated Number of Transnational Marriages by Nationality of Spouses, 1994‐2009 77 2. Numbers of the Unmarried Population and the Fertility Rate, 1999‐2009 78 3. Educational Attainment of Population aged 20‐54, 2005 80 4. Number of Foreign Spouses and Foreign Migrant Workers by Sex and Nationality 95 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I still vividly remember that when I decided to pursue a doctoral degree in anthropology in the US, I promised my parents several things in order to reduce their worries about my study abroad. I said I would finish my Ph.D study in a certain number of years as they expected, marry someone whom they liked by certain age, and find a job with a good salary so as to live an economically stable life as they do. Time flies. Now I am ready to go back home. Yet unfortunately, I only have a dissertation about which they have little idea, and a cat that they do not know how to get along with to present to them. Apparently, I fail to fulfill my filial obligations, because I broke my promise and made them worry about me a lot. As a traditional Chinese parent in Taiwan, my mother invested in her daughters’ higher education as a dowry for a good match. However, without carefully calculating the risk of encouraging children to study hard in the beginning, she let things get out of control in the end— in the marriage market, owning a Ph.D degree is by no means a blessing for a woman. I acquired interests in feminism in college and in anthropology in graduate school, one discipline that would scare away traditional men and one discipline that would keep my life humble forever. I feel sorry for my parents and appreciate them for not asking me to give up, while I am happy for myself to be on the right track to live in a meaningful life: anthropology has opened my eyes to the big world and made me experience it in a way different from others. However, it is never an easy job to commit oneself to an academic life. It is a life trip of no return. I must equip myself with passion and confidence in order to get to the end. I am grateful that my advisors did not scare me away when I just got on the road, but have been very supportive all the way. I thank my co-advisor Stevan Harrell for always encouraging me, giving me confidence in my writing and thoughts. As an international student, I especially thank him for carefully reading my drafts, critically commenting and patiently editing them. My gratefulness also goes to Ann Anagnost, another co-advisor of mine. Ann is an intellectually sharp scholar and always gives me critical feedback. She v inspires me a lot and often provides useful concepts through which to push me think further. Besides, Tani Barlow and Laada Bilaniuk, my committee members, deserve my deepest gratitude as well. Tani’s works influenced me a lot when I shaped my analytical approach at the initial stage of dissertation writing. Laada showed enthusiasm for my work and always kindly pointed out problems in my draft for me. I enjoyed her overall counsel and the warm atmosphere she created in our conversations. I am also indebted to the following institutes that provided funding for my research and writing: the Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington for pilot research grants, the China Times Cultural Foundation for the Young Scholar Award, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for the Dissertation Fellowship, and the China Studies Program at University of Washington for the China Fritz Fellowship. In addition, I would like to extend my gratitude to the following conferences that offered me travel grants to have a chance of sitting closely with other scholars working on similar topics: the conference on New Cultures of Intimacy and Togetherness in Asia in New Delhi (2008) and the conference on Transacted Intimacy at the National University of Singapore (2010). I benefited from several participants who kindly shared their research with me and gave insightful comments on my work. I thank Geeta Patel in particular for her enthusiasm on my project and invaluable suggestions that helped frame my dissertation outline. I have also accumulated debts to people who participated in my research. Hsin- Cheng Lin, Jing-Chi Wu, and Captain Huang who worked at National Immigration Agency in Taiwan helped me with data explanation and provided legal consultation. I also thank the immigration officials for allowing me to sit in their official meetings and visa interviews in Vietnam. Jane Ko at the TECO in Vietnam generously provided me with useful information and introduced me to many key figures. Jack Tsai, the president of Hong Yi Travel Service Corporation, was very supportive too. He knew a lot about the business and helped me build up my connections at the initial stage of my fieldwork. Nai- Hui Huang, a public figure who also married a Cambodian wife, took me with him to the events he was invited to, which allowed me to observe NGOs and local governments from a close distance. In addition, I am thankful to Hongzen Wang for his openhanded share with me his well-established scholarship and research resources, and Yuan-Hao Liao for vi sharing his rich knowledge about the legal regulation on immigration.
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