5 - Weddings as Transnational Household Rituals: Marriage and Other Intimate Relationships

Summary

In Chapter 5, I turn to ritualised practices of relatedness, specifically the weddings of those in London, approaching them as transnational household rituals, which contribute to the reproduction and reconfiguration of families across space. In examining migrant weddings as moments in individual and familial life cycles, I consider how these rituals offer opportunities for negotiating relations within a discourse of ‘tradition’. Moreover, I suggest that the emotionally and morally significant community of belonging, which weddings help to constitute, further mediate kinship relations. At the same time, the chapter considers non-normative weddings (registry ceremonies) and intimate relationships (come-we-stay’, or cohabiting, relationships), as well as singledom, exploring their impact on the making of persons and relations. Together, they reveal how marital and parental status shape expectations and practices of relatedness across space and moral economies of transnational kinship more generally.