“It’s so cold and impossible to make friends” Challenges of multicultural relationships in Finland
Keywords:
immigrant spouse, long-lasting marriage, multicultural marriage, narrative researchAbstract
This study focused on long-lasting multicultural relationships from Finnish spouses’ perspectives. What are those special features that challenges multicultural relationships in Finland? The narrative method was used as the methodological approach. The research data were obtained through the use of narrative interviews with 11 Finnish people (8 women, 3 men). Every participant had been married to a foreign spouse for over 7 years (15 years on average). The results found describe everyday challenges as expressed by the Finnish spouses. Life in Finland, married to an immigrant, brought special challenges to the relationship, such as lack of knowledge of the Finnish language, religion, cultural traditions and roles, employment difficulties, and economic worries. Various life situations and threats from the environment were, however, handled so that the relationships lasted. In conclusion, models for the survival of multicultural marriages were introduced in this research. These include the stable relationship model, empowering relationship model, and relationship tinged with insecurity model.Downloads
Metrics
References
Bal, M. (1999). Narratology: Introduction to the theory of narrative. (2nd ed.) Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Beck-Gernsheim, E., & Beck, U. (1995). The normal chaos of love. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bisin, A., & Verdier, T. (2000). Beyond the melting pot: Cultural transmission, marriage, and the evolution of ethnic and religious traits. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115, 955-988.
Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Bras, H., & Kok, J. (2005). “They live in indifference together”: Marriage mobility in Zeeland, The Netherlands, 1796-1922. International Review of Social History, 50(13), 247-274.
Breger, R., & Hill, R. (1998). Cross-cultural marriage. Identity and choice. New York, NY: Berg.
Bruner, J. S. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press.
Celikaksoy, A., Nielsen, S., & Verner, M. (2006). Marriage migration: Just another case of positive assortative matching? Review of Economics of the Household, 4(3), 253-275.
Cools, C. (2011). Relational dialects in intercultural couples’ relationships. (Jyväskylä studies in humanities, 171). Jyväskylä: Jyväskylä University Press.
Davidson, J. R. (1992). Theories about black-white interracial marriage: A clinical perspective. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 20(4), 150–157. doi: 10.1002/j.2161-1912.1992.tb00573.x
Donovan, S. (2004). Stress and coping techniques in successful intercultural marriages. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Falls Church, VA.)
Figley, C. R., & McCubbin, H. I. (1983). Stress and the family. Vol. II: Coping with the catastrophe. New York, NY: Brunner.
Fingerroos, O., & Haanpää, R. (2011). Strangers from the East-Narratives of Karelian exiles and re-immigrants from Russia Regarding their integration in Finland. In. I. G.
Rozenberga & M. Zirnite (Eds.), Oral history: Migration and local identities (pp. 193-211). Latvia: University of Latvia.
Gaines, S. T., & Brennan, K. A. (2001). Establishing and maintaining satisfaction in multicultural relationships. In J. Harvey & A. Wenzel (Eds.), Romantic relationships. Maintenance and enhancement (pp. 237-254). Mahwah, NJ: Taylor & Francis.
Gottman, J. M. (1993). A theory of marital dissolution and stability. Journal of Family Psychology, 7(1), 57–75.
Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce? The relationships between marital process and marital outcomes. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gottman, J. M., & Notarius, C. I. (2002). Marital research in the 20th century and research agenda for the 21st century. Family Process, 41(2), 159–197. doi: 10.1111/j.1545-5300.2002.41203.x
Gudmundsdottir, S. (1996). The teller, the tale, and the one being told: The narrative nature of the research interview. Curriculum Inquiry, 26(3), 293-306.
Heikkinen, H. L. T. (2002). Telling stories in teacher education. A Narrative-biographical view of Portfolio Work. In R. Huttunen, H. L. T. Heikkinen, & L. Syrjälä (Eds.), Narrative research. Voices of teachers and philosophers (pp. 123-132). Jyväskylä: Sophi.
Hill, R. (1949). Families under stress. Adjustment to the Crises of war separation and reunion. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers.
Hill, R. (1958). Generic features of families under stress. Social Casework, 49, 139-150.
Holter, Ö. G. (2000). Masculinities in context: on peace issues and patriarchal orders. In I. Breines, R. Connell, & I. Eide (Eds.), Male roles, masculinities and violence. A culture of peace perspectives (pp. 61-83). Vendöme: Unesco Publishing.
Heikkilä, E. (2011). Multicultural marriages and their dynamics in Finland. In E. Heikkilä & B. S. A. Yeoh (Eds.), International marriages in the time of globalization (pp. 89-102). New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers.
Jensen, L. A. (2003). Coming of age in a multicultural world: Globalization and adolescent cultural identity formation. Applied Developmental Science, 7(3), 189-196.
Kalmijn, M. (2007). Explaining cross-national differences in marriage, cohabitation, and divorce in Europe, 1990-2000. Population Studies, 61(63), 243-263.
Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (1995). The longitudinal course of marital quality and stability: A review of theory, method and research. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 3-34.
Kiiski, J., Määttä, K., & Uusiautti, S. (2013). “For better and for worse, or until…”: On divorce and guilt. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 54(7), 519-536. doi: 10.1080/10502556.2013.828980
Kisselev, P., Brown, M. A., & Brown, J. D. (2010). Gender differences in language acculturation predict marital satisfaction: A dyadic analysis of Russian-speaking immigrant couple in the United States. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 41, 767-782.
Koski, K. (2007). Katsaus: Mikä kertomus on? Tieteidenvälisyyden haasteita “kertomusten” tarkastelussa [Review: What is a narrative? The challenges of interdisciplinarity in analysis of ”narratives”]. Elore, 14(1), 1-11.
Lee, M., & Piper, N. (2003). Reflections on transnational life-course and migratory patterns of middle-class women. Preliminary observations from Malaysia. In N. Piper & M. Roces (Eds.), Wife or worker? Asian women and migration (pp. 121-136). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Ligglefield.
Leinonen, J. (2003). Avioelämää Amerikan mantereella. Pohjois-Amerikassa avioituneiden suomalaisnaisten sopeutumisesta [Marriage life in the American continent. On adjustment in Finnish women becoming married in North America]. Siirtolaisuus – Migration, 30(1), 3-13.
Leinonen, J. (2011). Elite migration, transnational families, and the nation state: International marriages between Finns and Americans across the Atlantic in the twentieth century. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.
Lieblich, A., Tuval-Mashiach, R., & Zilber, T. (1998). Narrative research. Reading, analysis, and interpretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
McRae, K. D. (1997). Conflict and compromise in multilingual societies: Finland. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Meyer, R. A., Williams, R. C., Haley, M., Brownfield, J. N., McNicols, K. B., & Pribozie, N. (2014). Crisis intervention with families. Assessing changes in family characteristics. The Family Journal, 22(2), 179-185. doi: 10.1177/1066480713513551.
Määttä, K., & Uusiautti, S. (2012). Seven rules on having a happy marriage along with work. The Family Journal, 20(3), 267-273. doi: 10.1177/1066480712448997
Määttä, K., & Uusiautti, S. (2013a). Many faces of love. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Määttä, K., & Uusiautti, S. (2013b). Silence is not golden: review of studies of couple interaction. Communication Studies, 64(1), 33-48. doi: 10.1080/10510974.2012.731467
Määttä, K., & Uusiautti, S. (2013c). Who is the one? The Difficulty in selecting the Partner. In: Kaarina Määttä & Satu Uusiautti (Eds.), Many faces of love (pp. 19-39). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Norton, B. (1997). Language, identity, and the ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 31(3), 10-30.
Padilla, A. M., & Perez, W. (2003). Acculturation, social identity, and social cognition: A new perspective. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 25(1), 35-55. doi: 10.1177/0739986303251694
Perrone, K. M., Wright, S. L., & Jackson, Z. V. (2009). Traditional and nontraditional gender roles and work-family interface for men and women. Journal of Career Development, 36(1), 8-24.
Polkinghorne, D. E. (1995). Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. In J. A. Hatch & R. Wisniewski (Eds.), Life history and narrative (pp. 5–23). London: Routledge.
Riehl-Emde, A., Thomas, V., & Willi, J. (2003). Love: An important dimension in marital research and therapy. Family Process, 42(2), 253-267.
Rosenthal, S., & Eckstein, D. (2013). Two couples’ problems-solving activities. The 1-hour conference and a six-step dialectical method. The Family Journal, 21(3), 342-346. doi: 10.1177/1066480713479303
Schumann, J. H. (1986). Research on the acculturation model for second language acquisition. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 7(5), 379-392. doi: 10.1080/01434632.1986.9994254
Scott, J. (2001). Power. Cambridge: Polity.
Seol, D.-H. (2009). Child raising and education of marriage-based immigrants in Korea: On the focus of infants. Korean Journal of Pediatric, 52(4), 403-409. doi: 10.3345/kjp.2009.52.4.403
Statistics Finland. (2013). Ulkomaalaiset ja siirtolaisuus [Foreigners and immigration]. Helsinki: Statistics Finland.
Tucker, M. B., & Crouter, A. C. (2008). Enduring couples in varying sociocultural contexts. Family Relations, 57(2), 113–116. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2008.00487.x
Tuomi-Nikula, O. (2007). Kaksikulttuurinen perhe eurooppalaisen etnologian tutkimuskohteena [Bicultural family as the research target of European ethnology]. In T. Korhonen & P. Leimu (Eds.), Näkökulmia kulttuurin tutkimukseen [Viewpoints to cultural research] (pp. 269-298). Turku: Painosalama.
Uusiautti, S., & Määttä, K. (2011). The ability to love – A virtue-based approach. British Journal of Educational Research, 2(1), 1-19.
Uusiautti, S., & Määttä, K. (2012). The successful combination of work and family in Finland: The ability to compromise as the key factor. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 43(2), 151-163.
Williams, L. (2010). Global marriage. Cross-border marriage migration in global context. England: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wong, L. (2003). Why do only 5.5% of black men marry white women? International Economic Review, 44, 803-806.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors can retain copyright, while granting the journal right of first publication. Alternatively, authors can transfer copyright to the journal, which then permits authors non-commercial use of the work, including the right to place it in an open access archive. In addition, Creative Commons can be consulted for flexible copyright licenses.
©1999 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
