Unorthodox Sisters

Abstract

This article explores the relation between women's active engagement with trans-national migration and transformations in the meanings and practices of marriage through the lens of gender relations and generational change. After reconstructing the history of Malayali migration in Italy, I will show how ideologies and practices surrounding marriage and dowry, far from being confined to one country, are subjects of negotiation between different contexts and heterogeneous household expectations. My conclusions are two-fold. I will argue that the relation between women's transnational migration and changes in household relations and practices should be understood as a dialectical process. Second, I will argue that the analysis of transnational marriages through the perspective of life-cycle transformations and generational change is a basic condition for understanding how multiple meanings of modernity inform processes of change in contemporary Malayali marriage.