Beyond victimization: the empowerment of ‘foreign brides’ in resisting capitalist globalization

Abstract

Drawing on the author's direct participation in the empowerment of ‘foreign brides,’ this paper charts the gradual transformation of these highly stigmatized marriage immigrants from isolated and suppressed individuals to active participants in a growing immigrant movement in Taiwan. The ‘double‐bind structure’ prevalent in mainstream media narratives has constructed ‘foreign brides’ as either ‘passive victims’ or ‘materialist blood suckers,’ two logically contrasted stereotypes that jointly construct ‘foreign brides’ as an inferior other. While sympathetic with ‘foreign brides,’ most feminist discourse also portrays them as passive victims. This paper highlights the agency of ‘foreign brides,’ who strive for better lives via transnational marriages and, more importantly, have transformed themselves first from personal subject to communal subject and then to historical subject. This process of subjectivation is the result of active grassroots empowerment, which has provided the impetus for the building of a social movement.

摘要:：从作者多年涉入培力「外籍新娘」的经验出发， 本文分析在台湾被高度污名化的婚姻移民逐步突破孤立处境， 进而积极投入新移民运动的过程。 普遍存在于主流媒体叙事的「进退维谷结构」将外籍新娘建构为「无可奈何的受害者」和「唯利是图的吸血鬼」—两者看似矛盾， 实为统一地， 将外籍新娘建构为「低劣他者」。 许多女性主义者虽然同情外籍新娘， 但仍视其为无助的受害者。 本文强调外籍新娘的能动性， 指出她们不仅透过跨国婚姻追寻更好的未来， 更重要的是， 已从个人主体转化为社群主体， 甚至成为历史主体; ；而这主体化的过程是多年草根培力， 从而打造社会运动的结果。

Keywords:

• empowerment
• foreign brides
• immigrant movement
• globalization

Notes

1. The word ‘foreign bride’ is common parlance in Taiwan and reflects the discrimination against third world women. The quotation marks are used here to remind readers that the term is ideologically charged and to draw attention to the symbolic distance that these southeast Asian women have had to transverse in order to fight discrimination and become the historical subjects of social transformation.

2. The costs vary. The marriage brokers interviewed estimate that the range is from NT 320,000 to NT 400,000.

3. To discourage Taiwanese men from marrying Indonesian women, TETO stipulated that only ten couples would be interviewed daily, which resulted in many complaints. As a result, in 1995, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded that the offices in southeast Asian countries complete interview procedures within three months, and later, in 2000, it demanded immediate interviews upon a couple's application for marriage visas.

4. Hakka is an ethnic minority in Taiwan. Many farming men from Hakka communities married foreign brides. The community where I initiated the Chinese literacy programme was a Hakka rural community.

5. The italics are the sentences filled out by the foreign brides.