Events
Post-Soviet Brides in the China Dream: Marriage, Migration, and Geopolitics across Borders | Elena Barabantseva
| Date | : | 10 Nov 2025 |
| Time | : | 16:00 – 17:30 (SGT) |
| Venue | : | Hybrid (Online via Zoom & AS8 04-04) |
| Contact Person | : | LIM, Zi Qi |
CHAIRPERSON
Prof Elaine Ho, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
ABSTRACT
This is the first interdisciplinary work on marriage migration from the former Soviet Union to Reform-era China, almost invariably involving a Slavic bride and a Chinese husband. To understand China better as a destination for marriage migration, the book delves into the politics and lived experiences of desire, marriage, and race, all within China’s pursuit of national rejuvenation. It brings together diverse sources, including immigration policies, migration patterns, TV portrayals, life stories, and digital ethnography, to present an embodied analysis of intimate geopolitics. It argues that this particularly gendered and racialised model of international marriage is revealing of China’s relations within the global world order, in which white femininity embodies the perceived success of Chinese masculinity and nationhood.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Elena Barabantseva is Professor of Chinese and International Politics at the University of Manchester. Her research interests lie at the intersection of borders, identity, migration, intimacy, and citizenship in the context of globalising China. She experiments with post-positivist forms of inquiry, drawing in particular on archival, genealogical, ethnographic, and audio-visual methods. She is the author of Overseas Chinese, Ethnic Minorities and Nationalism: De-Centering China (Routledge, 2010) and Post-Soviet Brides in the China Dream (Cambridge, 2025). She co-produced and co-directed British Born Chinese (2014) and A Letter to Chinatown (2025). Her research has been published in journals including Modern China, Journal of Contemporary China, The Journal of Asian Studies, International Political Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
REGISTRATION
Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this hybrid talk has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to ziqi@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the event.