Transnational marriages in Yiwu, China: tensions over money

Abstract

In this article, I explore the role of transnational marriages in the activities and strategies of trading networks, through the lens of money and uncertainty in marriage. I argue that uncertainty in spousal relations challenges the durability of such unions and hence the effectiveness of their role in trading activities. These uncertainties are shaped by intertwined factors, including especially the embedded relationship between commercial and social networks (for example, business partners, kinship, friendship) and spousal relations, the differing cultural values and practices of the partners to such unions, stereotypes, varying forms and degrees of trust and mistrust, and the dynamics of global markets and state policy. Uncertainties driven by these factors exacerbate mistrust in both marriages and trading relations; they also shape shifting orientations toward future life. Therefore, I argue that the role of marriage in trading activities should be neither simplified nor romanticized.

The Effects of Cross-Cultural Relationships on Society

“…Cross-cultural relationships can also have different ideas on how to raise children, split finances, and other necessary components of married life. When these conflicts are not properly resolved it can create a hostile environment for other in space of the couple, and it can bring about mistrust and dishonesty (Sha, 2020). Parenting styles between different cultures can differ depending on personal beliefs, Disagreement in parenting styles can also create conflict in relationships.…”

The Unbearable Lightness of Trust: Trade, conviviality, and the life-world of Indian export agents in Yiwu, China

“…The agents I met were mostly below the age of 50, usually married (but with wives and children living in India 6 ), and might have Chinese lovers or girlfriends in Yiwu. A handful of these men have married Chinese women with whom they now run their export business (see Lan 2015; Joseph et al 2017; Sha 2020). Agents combine regular business trips to India with visits to their home and family, but while in Yiwu, most of them lead what they describe as a ‘bachelor life’ (Bristol-Rhys and Osella 2016).…”

“…Here I draw on Tom Chambers' (2019) insightful discussion of instances of 'everyday convivial interactions' in a Muslim woodworking neighbourhood in a North Indian city. See alsoMarsden and Reeves (2019), and Freitag (2014and 2020 for non-normative practices and understandings of conviviality.…”

Money, memory objects and material practices in the everyday conduct of inter-ethnic marriages in Indonesia

“…Reflecting Simmel’s (1978 [1900]) seminal scholarship on the complex social functions of money and related monetary practices in human relationships, recent international research documents how cultural differences that surfice in inter-ethnic marriages not only contribute to conflicts, but can also lead to agentive efforts to cultivate a shared sense of affection and mutual responsibility (Lapanun, 2020), and support efforts to meet different cultural expectations (Sha, 2020). Money and its everyday materialities have been implicated in human beings forging particular ways-of-being and relationships with others (Lapanun, 2020; Kuchler, 2021; Simmel, 1978 [1900]; Sha, 2020). Building on this emerging scholarshp, this article approaches money as a multifaceted everyday mimetic object 1 that is implicated in the conduct of inter-ethnic marriages.…”

“…Scholars such as Holzkamp (2016) have argued that such top-down, quantitative and abstract approaches to investigating relationships often offer limited perspectives on everyday relational experiences, and how people make sense of and adjust themselves to their interpersonal situations. We need to find out more about how people come to navigate the complexities involved in inter-cultural unions, and how key tensions and cultural negotiations manifest every day through the use of particular material objects in general and/or memory objects in particular (Marschall, 2019; Sha, 2020). Such a focus is important for documenting and extending present understandings of how people from different cultures can co-create lives for themselves and their children.…”