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Marketing and Love: Representations of Thai Women on the Intermarriage Market

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Love and Intimacy in Online Cross-Cultural Relationships

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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.

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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

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-35119-3_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-35118-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-35119-3

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