Japanese Migrant Women’s Transnational Gendered Identity Politics in International Marriages in Australia

In recent decades, there has been an increase in the number of Japanese female residents in Australia who are holders of Australian permanent residency. Embarking on an intimate relationship with an Australian national or permanent resident, either before or after entering into the country, and applying for residency as a ‘partner/spouse’ is one pathway for these individuals. Interviews with Japanese migrant women in international marriages in Australia reveal their processes of configuring and reconfiguring gendered selves in transnational settings with a backdrop of local and global discourses of Japan, marriage, migration, and gender relations. In this article, I will investigate my interviewees’ processes of learning and practising gender ideas through examining their experiences in their natal families in Japan and marital families in Australia. By focusing on their considerations and negotiations behind their acts of gendered self-making, I will show how their gendered identity politics have functioned to connect Japan and Australia. I will reconsider meanings of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ Japanese women in crosscultural settings.