Immersia 2024: Who's Marrying Who? Exploring Global Intimacies

Gender and Sexuality in Immersia: A trio of public book launches by CHL women authors

In collaboration with the ANU Gender Institute

Intercultural marriage is an important part of the personal lives of many Australians in this multicultural society. But pejorative stereotypes endure of marriages between Asian women and ‘Aussie’ men, especially if they have been brokered, or developed through correspondence courtship.

Join us for the official launch of a signature, path-breaking book that addresses this theme: Marriage Migration, Intercultural Families and Global Intimacies, authored by CHL's Professor Emerita Kathryn Robinson.

The so-called ‘Mail Order’ bride stereotype, and families formed through transnational correspondence courtship, are explored in this book. It begins with an anthropologist’s perspective on the institution of ‘marriage’ and  unselected assumptions about its historical and cultural attributes; assumptions that lead to the view of transnational brokered marriages as ‘illegitimate’.

Through this title, Emerita Professor Robinson explores the history of brokered marriage in Australia, beginning with ‘bride ships’ that brought women to the convict settlement of NSW, to correct the sex imbalance of the convict population. This story involves her own family history, and ‘demographic corrections’ have been a feature of immigration policy since Federation and the creation of the nation in 1901.

Ethnographic research reveals the experiences of brokered transnational courtship (these days via the internet) and the dynamics of families and local communities formed through correspondence marriage. While these transnational unions represent ‘adventures in identity’ they also share characteristics with other Australian marriages and families. The stereotypes are a poor basis for understanding the experience of the social actors, but nonetheless the negativity haunts many of the partners.

The book will be launched at a panel discussion with the author, led by Professor Kim Rubenstein and Lulu Raspall-Turner, a Filiipina leader in Canberra’s multicultural community, and Indonesian-Australian partners Avi Mahaningtyas and Patrick Anderson.

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