Abstract
The discussion in this chapter advances debates about women’s agency on intermarriage dating sites. The process of searching for a partner through an intermarriage dating site is a conjunction of intense subjectivism and the objectivization of the encounter through technology and through the market strategies of the sites. Women then must deal with the ambiguities and contradictions that arise from the normative and practical tensions between love and the market environment. As a form of advertising, women tend to highlight their desired features in intermarriage markets to maximize their chances of being selected by Western men. Because of this, the ways in which women represent themselves are still clearly derived from stereotypes of traditional Thai women in order to attract Western men.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Angeles, L., & Sunanta, S. (2007). Exotic love at your fingertips: Intermarriage websites, gendered representations and the transnational migration of Filipino and Thai women. Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies, 22(1), 3–31.
Bishop, R., & Robinson, L. (1998). Night market: Sexual cultures and the Thai economic miracle. London: Routledge.
Boyd, D., & Heer, J. (2006). Profiles as conversation: Networked identity performance on Friendster. In Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-39), Persistent Conversation Track. Kauai, HI: IEEE Computer Society, January 4–7.
Cabrera, M. (2007). The role of cyberspace in marriage migration in Asia: Claiming spaces for intervention. Women in Action, 3, 50–56.
Charoensri, C. (2011). Thai daughters, English wives: A critical ethnography of transnational lives. PhD thesis, University of Essex.
Cohen, E. (1996). Thai tourism: Hill tribes, islands, and open-ended prostitution. Bangkok: White Lotus.
Constable, N. (2003). Romance on a global stage: Pen pals, virtual ethnography, and mail-order marriages. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Droge, K., & Voirol, O. (2011). Online dating: The tensions between romantic love and economic rationalization. Zeitschrift filr Familienforschung—Joumal of Family Research, 23(3), 337–357.
Esara, P. (2009). Imagining the Western husband: Thai women’s desires for matrimony, status and beauty. Ethnos: Journal of Antropology, 74(3), 403–426.
Glodava, M., & Richard, O. (1994). Mail-order brides: Women for sale. Fort Collins: Colo Alaken, Inc.
Goffman, E. (1963). Sigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York: A. Touchstone Book.
Illouz, E. (2007). Cold intimacies: The making of emotional capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jagger, E. (2001). Marketing molly and melville: Dating in a postmodern, consumer society. Sociology, 35(1), 39–57.
Lee, D. (1998). Mail fantasy: Global sexual exploitation in the mail-order-bride industry and proposed legal solutions. Asian Law Journal, 5, 139–179.
Limanonda, B. (2007). Motivation and process of marriage migration: A case study of Thailand. Population and Society, 3(2), 79–118.
Lloyd, K. (2000). Wives for sale: The modern international mail-order bride industry. Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business, 20, 341–354.
NESDB (2004). A survey of Thai women marrying foreigners in Northeastern Thailand. Khon Kaen: The National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB).
Orloff, L., & Sarangapani, H. (2007). Governmental and industry roles and responsibilities with regard to international marriage brokers: Equalizing the balance of power between foreign fiancés and spouses. Violence Against Women, 13(5), 469–485.
Robinson, K. (2007). Marriage migration, gender transformations, and family values in the ‘global ecumene’. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 14(4), 483–497.
Schlenker, B. (2003). Self-presentation. In M. Leary & J. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity. New York: Guilford Press.
Shulich, T. (2009). Love in the time of money: Intimate and economic affiliations between men in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Saarbrücken: Lap-Lambert Academic Publishing.
Smith, A. (2005). Exploring online dating and customer relationship management. Online Information Review, 29(1), 18–33.
Suksomboon, P. (2009). Thai migrant women in the Netherlands: Cross-cultural marriages and families. PhD thesis, Leiden University.
Tosakul, R. (2010). Cross-border marriages: Experiences of village women from Northeastern Thailand with Western men. In W. Yang & M. Lu (Eds.), Asian cross-border marriage migration: Demographic patterns and social issues. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Whitty, M. (2007). Introduction. In M. Whitty, A. Baker, & J. Inman (Eds.), Online matchmaking. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Yurchisin, J., Watchravesringkan, K., & McCabe, B. (2005). An exploration of identity re-creation in the context of Internet dating. Social Behavior and Personality, 33(8), 735–750.
Zabyelina, Y. (2009). Mail-order brides: Content analysis of Eastern European Internet marriage agencies. Slovo, 21(2), 86–101.
Zhao, S. (2005). The digital self: Through the looking glass of telecopresent others. Symbolic Interaction, 28(3), 387–405.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pananakhonsab, W. (2016). Marketing and Love: Representations of Thai Women on the Intermarriage Market. In: Love and Intimacy in Online Cross-Cultural Relationships. Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-35119-3_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-35119-3_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-35118-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-35119-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)