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形成国际移民中的作用。大多数关于移徙的社会科学研究集中于国家和国际人口流动及其在国家和区域一级的影响。如果在这类研究中考虑到婚姻，那么跨国婚姻的存在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：家庭层面和社区层面的过程产生它们。这种进程包括男女利用婚姻和家庭团聚一方面使移徙和维持跨国关系，另一方面也为他们自己的地方一级和社区一级的目标服务的情况。从下至上的角度看待移民问题，将有助于澄清这个问题的因果关系，而这个问题对当代社会科学理论和有效的移民政策都至关重要。这项研究将在法国农村进行，因为存在一组由法国农村男子和来自马达加斯加岛的非洲妇女组成的两国夫妇。数据的收集将采用多种民族志方法，包括在工作场所的参与性观察，与夫妻一起或单独访谈，与家庭成员和社区专家访谈，以及从历史和比较档案中分析相关材料。这些数据将使研究者能够阐明先前存在的婚姻、性别和亲属关系如何影响和产生跨国婚姻；婚姻反过来又如何改变了亲属关系和家庭习俗；以及这些安排如何影响夫妻的社区融合以及他们融入的社区。研究结果将有助于当代移民的原因和后果的社会科学理论。这项研究将进一步有助于有兴趣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的政府官员和非政府工作人员。

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.