Paper short abstract:

This study elaborates on how spousal power dynamics change with the accumulation process of different types of capital. Besides, the study highlights how patriarchy eventually established Chinese husbands’ domination and thus convinced their wives to agree to migrate to China.

Paper long abstract:

One of the major contributions of the body of literature on cross-border marriage is to de-victimize the migrant spouses, mostly women from the global South. Instead of being depicted as human trafficking victims or simply lured by economic incentives, scholars argue that marriage migrants are agentive beings with diverse motivations related to the global imaginations about the global North sites and men. However, neither China nor migrating to China was desired when Ethiopian women married their Chinese husbands, as I found during my ethnographic fieldwork in Ethiopia. In other words, Chinese husbands possessed insufficient power to persuade their local wives to reside in China when they had just formed their marriages. This study employs a Bourdieusian lens to elaborate on how spousal power dynamics change over time with the accumulation process of different types of capital in the field of Ethiopian extended family. Besides, the study highlights how patriarchy plays a critical role in affecting capital accumulation, which eventually established Chinese husbands’ domination over their wives. Some of these couples have already moved to China.