台灣的族群及婚姻: 以非裔台灣人跨國婚姻為例

Abstract

• Abstract • • This study examines the cross border marriages migration of Africans to Taiwan. It is based on one year and six month fieldwork among Afro-Taiwanese couples currently living in Taiwan. Most of the African interviewees are from West Africa, Central and South Africa. They came to Taiwan under different types of visas such as student visa, tourist visa, working visa and family visit visa. • The empirical findings of my research showed that the Afro-Taiwanese cross-border marriage has been increasing most consistently and becoming a global trend rather than something exotic. On the one hand, it has its source in the effect of Taiwanese men’s migration to Africa for work and African migration to Taiwan for tourism, work, and studies on the other hand. It is mostly African men who marry Taiwanese women, but African women marrying Taiwanese men are less common. • The primary reason the Taiwanese women chose to marry African men rather than Taiwanese men, American or Japanese men is their desire to find a lifelong partner. Similarly, the reason Taiwanese men married African women rather than local women are because they are fed up with local women’s materialistic tendencies. However, most of my informants stated that they marry their spouses because they love them. The specificity of the Afro-Taiwanese marriage is that none of my informants met his/her respective partner through the marriage agencies. • My informants are well educated and belong mostly to middle class families. Parents from both sides opposed their children cross-border marriages because they believe that their children have married down. Moreover, sharing a common religion combined with their sexual life has played a significant role in their domestic power relationships and in dealing with cultural differentials. Finally, the African grooms are mostly involved in private businesses. • This research aims to investigate the Afro-Taiwanese couples in cross-border marriages as there has never been in the past any study in my understanding made to specifically focus on the phenomenon. The thesis will generate new insights not ever been recorded in the literature, enlightening the differences between the Afro-Taiwanese cross-border marriages with the Southeast Asian cross-border marriages in Taiwan.

• Abstract This study examines the cross border marriages migration of Africans to Taiwan. It is based on one year and six month fieldwork among Afro-Taiwanese couples currently living in Taiwan. Most of the African interviewees are from West Africa, Central and South Africa. They came to Taiwan under different types of visas such as student visa, tourist visa, working visa and family visit visa. • The empirical findings of my research showed that the Afro-Taiwanese cross-border marriage has been increasing most consistently and becoming a global trend rather than something exotic. On the one hand, it has its source in the effect of Taiwanese men’s migration to Africa for work and African migration to Taiwan for tourism, work, and studies on the other hand. It is mostly African men who marry Taiwanese women, but African women marrying Taiwanese men are less common. • The primary reason the Taiwanese women chose to marry African men rather than Taiwanese men, American or Japanese men is their desire to find a lifelong partner. Similarly, the reason Taiwanese men married African women rather than local women are because they are fed up with local women’s materialistic tendencies. However, most of my informants stated that they marry their spouses because they love them. The specificity of the Afro-Taiwanese marriage is that none of my informants met his/her respective partner through the marriage agencies. • My informants are well educated and belong mostly to middle class families. Parents from both sides opposed their children cross-border marriages because they believe that their children have married down. Moreover, sharing a common religion combined with their sexual life has played a significant role in their domestic power relationships and in dealing with cultural differentials. Finally, the African grooms are mostly involved in private businesses. • This research aims to investigate the Afro-Taiwanese couples in cross-border marriages as there has never been in the past any study in my understanding made to specifically focus on the phenomenon. The thesis will generate new insights not ever been recorded in the literature, enlightening the differences between the Afro-Taiwanese cross-border marriages with the Southeast Asian cross-border marriages in Taiwan.