Identity negotiation of Han women in Han-Hui-Muslim intermarriage in China: A dialogical-self theory approach

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Intermarriage between different religions and ethnicities can lead to diversity and conflicts due to differing social preferences and incompatible value orientations. This is especially true when a nonreligious Han woman (87% of Chinese mainland adults are nonreligious) marries a Hui Muslim man, as Islam requires religious endogamy. The strict conversion doctrines and Islamic rules can make family life more difficult and conflicting for these Han women compared to those who have not chosen mixed marriages. This study examines how this group of Han women negotiate their identities and handle conflicts in a multicultural context. Drawing on Hermans’ Dialogical Self Theory (DST), this study identifies four strategies the women use to negotiate conflicts between their identifications during interactions with Han and Hui families, and finds that the women develop new, hybrid I-positions, as a way to achieve internal stability, continuity, and belonging while resisting uncertainty, bi-marginalization, and insecuritization. By providing insights into understanding how these individual and micro struggles help to resist macro-societal prejudice and insecuritization for those whose marriage choices do not conform to mainstream standards, this paper holds that a combination of sociolinguistic analysis and psychological perspective can help us grasp the minute and complicated variations and struggles for identity negotiation and the construction of those in mixed marriages.