In this article, we attempt to place the issue of international marriage in an institutionalized profit-oriented social context, which is described as "the commodification process". The starting point included measuring the scale of the international marriage market in Taiwan.Socio-demographic change in Taiwan and Viet Nam has created a market for profit-pursuing marriage agents. Agents scattered in different social spheres have gradually linked to form a profitable industry. Two different industrial organization types have emerged in the matchmaking process to meet different market constraints. As the cross-border marriage market matures, more and more people enter the market, and competitive price, good quality and delivery on time become the necessary conditions for success. In this competitive process, female migrant partners become increasingly commodified to conform to the new situation. They are required to accept reduced prices, to be "good enough" to marry and to be married when there is demand. The social networks of individuals are gradually transformed by agents in pursuit of profit.

This paper explores how contradictory social structures influence power relations between “Vietnamese brides” and their Taiwanese family members. By analyzing two aspects of interaction between “Vietnamese brides” and their husbands’ families, i.e., how the families require them to integrate into Taiwanese society and what strategies they employ to escape from these constraints, we argue that contradictory social relations together with commodified marriage and liminality help them to develop strategies of escape into the “hidden space.” The development of these strategies indicates one thing: hegemony is never fully achieved – it is always negotiated and contested.

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This paper explores how a liberal democratic state keeps migrant workers in temporary status by preventing their permanent settlement. Using Taiwan’s guestworker policy as an example, we argue that through expertise discourses and strategies of “governance at a distance” involving private sector, the Taiwan government has formulated policies and implemented measures that effectively kept guestworkers in temporary status. Analyzing Taiwan’s guestworker policy helps us to understand how the state and its collaborators work together to enhance the control capacity over migrants, while at the same time, enabling the state to keep its liberal pretense.