Against the Grain: International Marriages between African Men and Japanese Women

Abstract

International marriages (kokusai kekkon) in Japan have been steadily increasing with one out of eighteen matches involving a foreign spouse in 2008. Class intersects with race and gender in the discourse of international marriage in Japan. Whereas most research focuses on international marriages between rural Japanese men and Asian brides, the media's emphasis is on Japanese women who marry Western men. The main aim of this article is to expand the discussion on international marriage by looking at couples in which the male spouse is coming from a developing country. I will do this by looking at Sub-Saharan African spouses of Japanese women in Japan. By switching the perspective to men coming from developing countries marrying women in wealthier nations, new insights on the intersections of gender, class and race can be explored while conventional notions surrounding international marriage, such as hypergamy, are challenged.