Massey Documents by Type

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.Interethnic marriage

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The everyday conduct of inter-ethnic marriages in Indonesia : participants navigating points of tension and cultivating harmony through adaptive socio-cultural practices : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2022) Yulianto, Jony Eko
    Inter-ethnic marriages are a pressing issue in many culturally diverse countries. In Indonesia, inter-ethnic marriages comprise approximately 11% of all marriages. Researchers have predicted that this number will increase due to increasingly positive public perceptions of inter-ethnic marriages among younger generations of Indonesians. However, more research is needed to deepen present understandings of the everyday conduct of such unions. This thesis explores the dynamic inter-cultural, relational, spatial and material dimensions of the everyday conduct of 10 inter-ethnic marriages between Javanese and Chinese persons in East Java, Indonesia. Particular attention is paid to how couples navigate points of inter-cultural tension in their shared efforts to realise harmony in their marriages. This is done through adaptive socio-cultural practices. I also consider how inter-ethnic marriages can function as encounter spaces within which people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds come together to cultivate shared and culturally hybrid lives that draw from the cultural traditions of both partners. This thesis is based around three international publications. The first article conceptualises inter-ethnic marriages as third spaces for inter-cultural re-assemblage. I document the use of various agentive social practices that enable participants to combine key elements of Javanese and Chinese Indonesian cultural assemblages within their inter-ethnic marriages. The second article explores how inter-cultural tensions in the conduct of inter-ethnic marriages are managed by participants through often mundane social practices that contribute to the socio-cultural construction of various locales, across which couples forge their lives together. The third article documents how money, related objects, and practices are often implicated in the inter-cultural relational dynamics, tensions and culturally hybrid practices that emerge when persons from different cultural backgrounds cooperate to forge new lives together. Overall, this thesis contributes to the psychology of inter-ethnic marriages by offering new insights into the ways in which Javanese and Chinese Indonesians conduct their everyday lives together. In particular, this thesis highlights the centrality of approaching inter-ethnic marriages between Javanese and Chinese Indonesians as an intimate and socio-structural process that needs to be understood within the broader context of historical inter-group relations. Accordingly, this research bridges the gap between local experiences of conducting inter-ethnic marriages and broader societal shifts in terms of how members of Javanese and Chinese cultural groups can strive agentively to cultivate more harmonious lives together.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Multicultural children : their cultural identities as communicated by their parents : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Communication and Journalism at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2007) Ogawa, Erina
    Parents from different cultural backgrounds may often lack information on helping their multicultural children to develop healthy cultural identities. The views and strategies of twenty parents regarding the cultural identities communicated to their children are presented in this interview-based case-study in the greater Tokyo area of Japan. Seventeen respondents are non-Japanese with children to Japanese partners; two are non-Japanese with a non-Japanese partner with a different cultural background; and one is Japanese married to a non-Japanese partner. Six respondents chose to identify their children as Japanese; another six chose a Combined identity; and eight chose a Global identity. Six major factors in the development of a healthy cultural identity emerged: language, visits to parents' home countries, schooling and/or peer groups, religious and/or cultural activities, names, and physical appearance. Suggestions are made to parents of multicultural children to develop linguistic abilities, to facilitate immersion in target cultures, to develop awareness of relevant cultural activities, and to provide culturally-appropriate names. Parents are encouraged to combine different cultural aspects in different areas of their children's lives, to teach their children about their own cultures, and to remember that each child is unique. In addition, the iceberg metaphor of culture presented by Ting-Toomey and Chung (2005) has been adapted to illustrate multicultural identities. This study has confirmed the need for further qualitative and quantitative studies on the development of cultural identities in multicultural children.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Anomalous children : orphans and interlineage marriages in Malawi : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Anthropology at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2015) Donovan, Elaine
    Although lineage studies have largely been forgotten by contemporary anthropology, tracing descent through either the maternal or paternal line remains a meaningful feature of everyday relatedness for people in Malawi. Following Harré’s discursive approach, this thesis reconceptualises matriliny and patriliny as clusters of relatedness practices avoiding a tendency to reify lineages as social structures, ascribing them erroneously with agency. This ethnographic study explores what it is to be an orphan in Malawi today and why orphans of interlineage marriages, that is, marriages between patrilineal women and matrilineal men, seem to be rendered the most vulnerable to mistreatment. The term orphanhood suggests a fixed state, defined by the death(s) of parent(s), from which children cannot escape until they reach adulthood. However, I found that in Malawi, being an orphan is more of a process, as people can be positioned as no longer an orphan when their living conditions improve. Being an orphan in Malawi is to be in need both materially and emotionally, having lost family support through death, illness or abandonment. It is a position often characterised by feelings of loneliness and isolation due being excluded from family sharing practices. Orphans of interlineage marriages seem to be the most vulnerable, due to falling between two contrasting discursive constructions of children's belongingness. In matrilineal groups, children belong to their mother’s family. Conversely, in patrilineal communities, children are affiliated to their father’s family providing the bridewealth requirements have been fulfilled. Thus, children of interlineage marriages are anomalously positioned as belonging nowhere. Matters become more complex if the matrilineal family pay the patrilineal custom of bridewealth as they (mis)interpret it as providing indisputable rights to the children. This (mis)interpretation originates from the colonial period when bridewealth became an official and enforceable means of determining to whom children belonged, particularly in cases of interlineage marriages. Thus, matrilineal families claim the children based on a (mis)perceived transaction-based entitlement, only to then mistreat them. They claim the children belong to them not as kin, characterised by bi-directional belonging (belonging to each other) but in terms of unidirectional (transactional) belonging, as in property.