Dreaming of a Mail-Order Husband , livre ebook

205

pages

English

Ebooks

2007

Écrit par
Johnson Ericka Johnson

Publié par
Duke University Press

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

205

pages

English

Ebooks

2007

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

13 juillet 2007

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780822389750

Langue

English

In the American media, Russian mail-order brides are often portrayed either as docile victims or as gold diggers in search of money and green cards. Rarely are they allowed to speak for themselves. Until now. In Dreaming of a Mail-Order Husband, six Russian women who are in search of or have already found U.S. husbands via listings on the Internet tell their stories. Ericka Johnson, an American researcher of gender and technology, interviewed these women and others. The women, in their twenties and thirties, describe how they placed listings on the Internet and what they think about their contacts with Western men. They discuss their expectations about marriage in the United States and their reasons for wishing to emigrate. Their differing backgrounds, economic situations, and educational levels belie homogeneous characterizations of Russian mail-order brides.Each chapter presents one woman's story and then links it to a discussion of gender roles, the mail-order bride industry, and the severe economic and social constraints of life in Russia. The transitional economy has often left people, after a month's work, either unpaid or paid unexpectedly with a supply of sunflower oil or toilet paper. Women over twenty-three are considered virtually unmarriageable in Russian society. Russia has a large population of women who are single, divorced, or widowed, who would like to be married yet feel that they have no chance finding a Russian husband. Grim realities such as these motivate women to seek better lives abroad. For many of those seeking a mail-order husband, children or parents play significant roles in the search for better lives, and they play a role in Johnson's account as well. In addition to her research in the former Soviet Union, Johnson conducted interviews in the United States, and she shares the insights-about dating, marriage, and cross-cultural communication-of a Russian-American married couple who met via the Internet.

Voir

Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

13 juillet 2007

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780822389750

Langue

English

D¢eamin† of a Mail-Order Husband

R u s s i a n - A m e r i c a n I n t e rn e t R o m a n c e

Ericka Johnson

D u k e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s

D u r h a m a n d L o n d o n

2 0 0 7

∫2007 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$ Designed by Heather Hensley Typeset in Bembo by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data appear on the last printed page of this book.

The author has donated royalties to the Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation, which supports women’s organizations in conﬂict regions, strengthening women’s physical and psychological health and increasing their conﬁdence and ability to participate in building democratic societies.

To t h e w o m e n who have shared their stories with me.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Contents

1. A Catalogue of Women

2. Olga: Feminism or Femininity

3. Vera: A Catalogue of Men

4. Valentina: Searching for Companionship

5. Tanya: Trafﬁcking in Dreams

6. Marina: Culture Shock

7. Anastasia and John: Making a Marriage Work

8. A Catalogue of Hope

Notes

Bibliography

Index

107

128

146

163

183

191

Acknowledgments

uring the writing of this work, I received input and support ganDas research in development studies at the Queen Elizabeth House and from several di√erent intellectual communities. The project be-Somerville College, Oxford University, England. Its early form and gesta-tion owes much to the suggestions and guidance I received from David Mills and Cathie Lloyd. I was able to continue working on it thanks to the intellectual freedom and infrastructural space I have found at the Depart-ment of Technology and Social Change, Linköping University, Sweden. There, above all, I have been able to beneﬁt from a wonderful community of scholars interested in technology and gender, including Boel Berner, Nina Lykke, Ulf Mellström, Minna Salminen-Karlsson, Petra Jonvallen, and Francis Lee. Final work on the manuscript was done at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society in Graz, Austria, where I found the quiet calm that manuscript preparation requires com-bined with friendly exchange and encouragement from fellow scholars. Thank you to Michelle McGowan, Bettina Bock von Wülﬁngen, Kyra Landzelius, Günter Getzinger, and Harald Rohracher. The helpful com-ments from three anonymous reviewers and my editors, Miriam Angress and Pam Morrison, have shaped this book for the better. Alex Klimo√ helped me with Russian language questions, and, most important, in-spired me to study in Russia in the ﬁrst place. And if it were not for the personal encouragement, support, and help from Anders, Russ, and Win-nie, this book would never have been written. Thank you.

Voir