Cross-cultural cyber-marriages: a global socio-economic strategy for young Jordanians

Abstract

The Internet is fast becoming a factor in international migration. Industrialized countries use the Internet to control immigration by checking immigrants’ statements and weeding out false information. But would-be immigrants also use Internet technology. Chat-room visitors from the Third World contract marriages with citizens of the highly industrialized countries, obtain visas, and migrate to the First World to join their cyber spouses. To build cross-cultural marriages, Internet users create new, culturally hybrid identities. The new medium requires new strategies for solving an old problem: how to establish a relationship of trust between members of very different societies. In this case study from Jordan, we explore the connections between cross-cultural marriage, migration, and the Internet.