Crossborder Marriages as a Path to “Upward” Social Mobility: The case of Kyrgyz Women in Türkiye

Abstract

This paper focuses on migrant women's strategic intimacies in cross-border marriages in light of Türkiye's new migration and citizenship regulations since the early 2000s. Based on in-depth interviews with 18 Kyrgyz women in 2021 and 2022, this paper offers different typologies of marriage related migration in order to gain a deeper understanding of marriage migration and migrant women's positions in these intimacies. It can be argued that cross-border marriages in Türkiye are shaped by different factors, including the state's restrictions to access permits, stigmatisation of migrant women and local men's desire for sexual relationships on the one hand, women's desire for an upward social mobility and for emotional connection as well as social protection on the other. It is argued that women strategically bargain through their cultural capital such as education, professional skills, age, experience and hardworking in order to realise an upward social mobility. Regardless of their marriage status, women use their cultural capital to bargain with patriarchy and to resist a set of concrete constrains in a “passive form” as they embrace traditional gender roles.