Marriage and Social Boundaries among British Pakistanis

Document Type

Article

Department

Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, London

Abstract

A cosmopolitan environment offers challenges for cultural groups that seek to reproduce themselves in the next generation. British Pakistanis have not seen the kind of breakdown in marriage boundaries that characterizes other post-war migrants to Britain. The article examines how this pattern is linked to commitments to transnational marriage, which promise a source of future remittances to Pakistan. However, the need to maintain these links has exaggerated the importance of religious and moral display for British Pakistanis, and these have wider effects in the policing of social contact with outsiders and the negative portrayal of the sexual morality of non-Pakistanis.

Publication (Name of Journal)

Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies

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