Rishtas: adding emotion to strategy in understanding British Pakistani transnational marriages

Abstract

General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms

Highly skilled migration between the Global North and South: gender, life courses and institutions

“…In highly skilled migrant couples the negotiation on the move and who follows is both culturally embedded as well as the context for opportunities for the partner (Kõu and Bailey 2014). Traditionally it has been women who followed their migrating husbands, but recently studies are emerging on men who are the followers in the migration project (Gallo 2006;Shaw and Charsley 2006). It is also important to acknowledge that, particularly in a transnational context, the family should not be regarded as being restricted to the nuclear family.…”

Domestic Space and Socio-spatial Relationships in Rural Pakistan

“…There is a growing literature regarding the maintenance of social networks and kinship circles by overseas migrant Pakistanis with their ancestral villages, through marriages as well as social and economic remittances (Bolognani & Lyon, 2011;Kalra, 2009;Shaw, 2000;Shaw & Charsley, 2006). This points to a ‗time-space compression' as an effect of globalisation, which Pakistani villages are experiencing in a rapidly globalising world (Harvey, 1990).…”

The family in question: immigrant and ethnic minorities in multicultural Europe

“…Not only will such spouses have been well aware of each other's existence long before the marriage took place, but the bride will enter a household in which either her mother-in-law or her father-inlaw will be a sibling of one of her parents, and will consequently have an active interest in the rista's successful implementation. So it is that for emotional reasons no less than in response to their parents' strategic concerns, British-based spouses frequently actively look forward to marrying their overseas-raised cousins (Shaw & Charsley 2006).…”

“…Not only will such spouses have been well aware of each other's existence long before the marriage took place, but the bride will enter a household in which either her mother-in-law or her father-inlaw will be a sibling of one of her parents, and will consequently have an active interest in the rista's successful implementation. So it is that for emotional reasons no less than in response to their parents' strategic concerns, British-based spouses frequently actively look forward to marrying their overseas-raised cousins (Shaw & Charsley 2006).Likewise the absence of courtship prior to marriage must also be placed in its appropriate context. Although the UK-resident spouse will be well aware of, and will in all probability have dabbled in, alternative modes of pre-marital engagement with members of the opposite sex, both will also have been brought up in domestic arenas in which nor-2 INSIDE AND OUTSIDE 65 mative conventions suggest that such behaviour is not only intrinsically shameful, but also in no way a necessary precursor to a successful marriage.…”