Despite increasingly tense relations between China and Taiwan since official ties were renewed in 1987, the last two decades have witnessed more than 200,000 marriages across the Taiwan Strait. In this project, Dr. Sara Friedman will study the impact of these marriages on the legal and cultural notions of citizenship and national identity in Taiwan. She will examine debates about Taiwan's immigration and citizenship, shifts in formal definitions of citizenship, the role of cross-Strait marriages in changing those definitions, and how cross-Strait couples experience the effects of contentious official ties in their intimate relationships. She will use a variety of methodologies, including interviews, policy analysis, focus groups, web-based ethnography, and participant observation to investigate the formulation of citizenship standards and national identity in the encounters between marital immigrants, officials, social service providers, and Taiwanese citizens.
This ethnographic study of everyday citizenship practices will offer insights into what citizenship means to groups who have been socialized in different political contexts but who otherwise share cultural and ethnic similarities. The project will contribute to new theoretical developments in anthropology and legal studies concerning changing citizenship models in relation to transnational migration and regional forms of governance. The outcomes of this research will be of interest to policy makers, officials, and NGOs who seek to balance concerns about state sovereignty and democratic institutions with new immigration pressures. The research also may aid efforts to develop avenues for diminishing tensions across the Taiwan Strait
