Marriage Migration in Singapore and South Korea Reflections on Field Research

Abstract

There are various motivations that compel individuals to move from one place to another. Within the last few decades, there has been a surge of women primarily from Southeast Asia migrating to marry men in other economically prosperous Asian contexts. Given this growing trend, my research focuses on marriage migration in Singapore and South Korea, two popular destinations for this type of migration. Informed by feminist methodologies, my 16 weeks of fieldwork sought to collect narratives about the oral histories from women who are the pioneers in this multi-national, multi-cultural discourse of family making in Asia. This presentation reflects on the various processes of qualitative research and offers insight into the challenges and joys of fieldwork.