An increase in the number of cross-border marriages since the 1980s has
added a new element to the growing cultural diversity in Japanese society.
This paper focuses on the case of cross-border marriages between Japanese
women and Pakistani migrants. Following the rapid rise in the number of
Pakistani migrants during the late 1980s, the number of marriages between
the migrants and local women increased. What are the challenges and dilemmas
these mixed couples face during the process of raising the next generation
and how do they try to overcome the difficulties in their given contexts?
Of particular importance is the emergence of the transnational family
in which the Japanese wives and their children move to Pakistan or a
third country while their Pakistani husbands remain in Japan to continue
their businesses. This phenomenon exemplifies a form of transnational practice
that emerged in the global circulation context that characterizes the contemporary
world. The paper sheds light on the processes in which families
are formed transnationally with attention to the cultural resources utilized in
such processes. The following discussion will first outline some of the basic
socio-economic features observed among the Pakistani community in Japan
after the late 1980s and then explore the differences in the meaning of Islam
for the Pakistani husbands and their Japanese wives. This paper will then go
on to examine an emerging pattern of transnational family and explore how
the cultural resources utilized to enable such a form of transnationalism are
intertwined with the on-going processes of their identity building.
Transnational Families in a Global Circulation Context : The Case of Cross-border Marriages between Japanese Women and Pakistani Migrants
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