Searching for oriental simplicity: foreign brides and the Asian family in Singapore

Abstract

This article examines the oriental project of imagining migrant women through commercially arranged cross-border marriages. Taking the ‘foreign bride’ in Singapore as a subject of ‘oriental simplicity’, it shows how contemporary orientalism continues to shape practices and beliefs in something as familiar as searching for a wife and having a family. The article questions the gendered, classed and sexualised politics that render the migrant woman from less developed nations an ambivalent figure of desire, further complicating the already problematic articulation of womanhood and selfhood in the post-colonial state. By reinforcing a cultural marketability of ‘oriental simplicity’, commercially arranged cross-border marriages serve to naturalise patriarchal family structures and strengthen the hegemonic ideology of the Asian family.

Keywords:

• Cross-border marriage
• family
• foreign brides
• gender
• orientalism
• Singapore

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund funded the research project ‘State Boundaries, Cultural Politics and Gender Negotiations in International Marriages in Singapore and Malaysia’ (MOE AcRF Tier 2 Grant No: T208A4103). The Asia Research Institute rendered valuable infrastructural and administrative support.

Notes on contributors

Juan Zhang

Juan Zhang is Lecturer in Anthropology at the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Bristol. Her research interests include transnational mobilities, borders, labour migration, and casinos in Asia. Her recent co-edited book is entitled The Art of Neighbouring: Making Relations Across China's Borders (University of Amsterdam Press, 2017).

Brenda S. A. Yeoh

Brenda S.A. Yeoh is Raffles Professor of Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Research Leader of the Asian Migration Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, NUS. Her research interests include the politics of space in colonial and postcolonial cities, and gender and transnational migration in Asia.