Negotiating Everyday Transnationalism

A Qualitative Inquiry Into the Marital Lives of International Students in China and Their Chinese Partners

Bibliographic Data

ID4263131
AuthorsRameez Raja (0000-0002-1498-3998, School of Foreign Languages Shaoxing University Shaoxing Zhejiang China), Miaoyan Yang (0000-0001-9463-9806, Sociology Department, School of Sociology and Anthropology Xiamen University Xiamen Fujian China, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume25
Issue4
Publication date2025-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobal Networks (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1470-2266 • E-ISSN: 1471-0374
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/glob.70030
OpenAlexW4413301760
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited39

This study explores how transnational marriages between international students in China and their Chinese partners foster everyday transnationalism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it examines how everyday transnationalism is continually negotiated in the transnational social fields developed through long-term friendships, emotional bonds and intercultural negotiations. Everyday transnationalism in these marriages is characterized by religious adaptation, fluid translingual communication, hybrid domestic routines and expanded transnational identities. Unlike economically driven migration marriages, these unions are voluntary, emotionally grounded, educationally embedded, culturally conscious and gender-intersected. By highlighting love, adaptability and mutual respect as defining features, this study challenges dominant narratives that frame transnational marriages as strategic or transactional. Theoretically, this study contributes to transnationalism and cultural hybridity debates by foregrounding education-based mobility and marriage. Empirically, it offers new insights into the post-graduation lives of international students by focusing on family formations, identity transformations and intercultural negotiations within the globalizing context of Chinese higher education

China · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Qualitative research · Social science · Sociology · Transnationalism · Anthropology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Psychology

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