1st Edition

Transnational Divorce Understanding intimacies and inequalities from Singapore

By Sharon Ee Ling Quah Copyright 2020
    148 Pages
    by Routledge

    148 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book explores the transnational aspects of divorce experiences.



    Transnational Divorce uncovers the stories of four main groups of transnational divorcees at the field site of Singapore, including low-income marriage migrant women from less wealthy countries, low-income citizen men, middle-class living apart together divorced parents and overseas-based citizen divorced mothers. Employing transnational, intersectional feminist perspectives, the book extends the author’s earlier conceptualisation of divorce biography to propose a new framework of transnational divorce biography. The transnational divorce biography framework provides readers a useful analytical tool to make sense of transnational divorced individuals’ messy experiences in working out their transborder intimacy practices. Meandering through their accounts, the author weaves together a strong narrative of inequalities and privileges at the site of intimate life. The book ends with an epilogue on fire dragon feminism where the author discusses place-based feminist mission of activism and resistance.



    Transnational Divorce will appeal to researchers and policy makers interested in transnational relationships, family studies and sociology in general.

    List of illustrations

    Acknowledgements

    1 Introduction

    2 Transnational divorce biography

    3 Encountering borderland violence: constricted intimacies

    4 Assembling masculinity projects: instrumental intimacies

    5 Innovating for the sake of children: privileged intimacies

    6 Being neither here nor there: entangled intimacies

    7 Epilogue: fire dragon feminism

    Appendix: Feminist methodological and reflection notes on decolonising research

    References

    Index

    Biography

    Sharon Ee Ling Quah is Senior Lecturer in Sociology with the University of Wollongong. Formerly a postdoctoral fellow and research fellow with the National University of Singapore, Asia Research Institute, she holds a PhD in Sociology awarded by the University of Sydney. She is the author of Transnational Divorce: Understanding Intimacies and Inequalities from Singapore (2020), and Perspectives on Marital Dissolution: Divorce Biographies in Singapore (2015). Her research interests include decoloniality, feminisms, genders, sexualities, intimacies, emotions, families, race, migration, inequalities and social justice.