Creating Intercultural Families

Increased global movement. of labour and capital in the last quarter of the twentieth century are associated with many kinds of migration flows, including a trend to cosmopolitan choices of spouses, whether through face-to face meetings and courtship associated with tourism and sojourning for example, or through the ever-increasing web-based communication technologies (ICTs) in that period. This chapter explores married couples’ experiences of contracting cross-border, intercultural marriages and creating companionate marriages and family life in Australia. It reports on ethnographic research with Filipino-Australian marriages, and a small sample of Indonesian-Australian families. The increased immigration from Asia to Australia in this historical period was accompanied by often negative public debates, and the circulation of stereotypes that are demeaning and dishonest. The chapter explores the personal lives and social experience of these intercultural couples and their children, and their engagement with multicultural Australia—a story very different from the prevailing stereotypes.