The Reciprocal Dynamics of Family Transformation through International Marriage Migration

詹妮弗·科尔博士(芝加哥大学)将研究改变婚姻和家庭习俗在影响国际移徙方面的作用。大多数关于移徙的社会科学研究都侧重于国家和国际人口流动及其在国家和区域一级的影响。如果在这些研究中完全考虑婚姻，那么两国婚姻的存在就被视为东道国社会同化的一种衡量标准。科尔博士将从相反的角度研究国际移民和婚姻：产生国际移民和婚姻的家庭和社区层面的过程。这类进程包括男女利用婚姻和家庭团聚一方面促进移徙和维持跨国关系，另一方面也服务于他们自己的地方一级、社区一级的目标。自下而上观察移民将有助于澄清一个对当代社会科学理论和有效移民政策都至关重要的问题的因果关系。这项研究将在法国农村进行，因为存在一对由来自马达加斯加的法国农村男性和非洲女性组成的双国籍夫妇队列。将使用各种人种学方法收集数据，包括工作场所的参与者观察、夫妇在一起和分开的访谈、对家庭成员和社区专家的访谈以及对历史和比较档案中相关材料的分析。这些数据将使研究人员能够阐明先前存在的关于婚姻、性别和亲属关系的观念如何影响和产生两国婚姻；这些婚姻反过来又如何产生改变的亲属关系和家庭习俗；以及这种安排如何影响夫妇和他们融入的社区的社区融合。这项研究的发现将有助于社会科学理论对当代移民的原因和后果的研究。这项研究将进一步有助于政府官员和非政府工作人员了解促进移徙和促进或阻碍移徙者融入东道国社会的因素。

Dr. Jennifer Cole (University of Chicago) will undertake research on the role of changing marriage and family practices in shaping international migration. Most social scientific studies of migration have focused on national and international population movements and their effects at the national and regional levels. If marriages are considered at all in such studies, the existence of bi-national marriages is taken as a measure of host society assimilation. Dr. Cole will study international migration and marriage from the opposite perspective: the family-level and community-level processes that produce them. Such processes include situations where men and women use marriage and family reunification to enable migration and to maintain transnational relationships, on the one hand, while also serving their own local-level, community-level goals on the other. Looking at migration from the bottom-up will help to clarify causes and effects around an issue that is of central importance to both contemporary social science theory and effective migration policy.The research will be conducted in rural France because of the existence of a cohort of bi-national couples comprised of rural French men and African women from the island of Madagascar. Data will be collected using a variety of ethnographic methods including participant observation in the workplace, interviews with couples both together and separately, interviews with family members and community experts, and analysis of relevant materials from historical and comparative archives. The data will enable the researcher to elucidate how preexisting ideas of marriage, gender, and kinship affect and produce bi-national marriages; how the marriages, in turn, produce changed kinship and family practices; and how such arrangements affect the community integration of the couples and the communities into which they are integrated. Findings from the research will contribute to social science theory of the causes and consequences of contemporary migration. This research will further be of use to government officials and non-government workers interested in understanding the factors that promote migration and that contribute to, or hinder, the integration of migrants into their host societies.