Appraising Religious Intimacy in Transnational Marriages: the Role of Religion in Japanese-Filipino Marriages

Lecture by Mario Ivan Lopez, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Japan.

Research on transnational and international marriage has often reflected concerns that focused on how gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity are constructed through the migration process. Yet, the influence of religion as one articulator in migrant’s lives and its influence on the family has tended to sit on the fringes of such research.

Through ethnographic examples, this presentation traces the religious intimacy that develops within the lives of Japanese-Filipino couples and argues that the actors’ faith must be an integral part of research agendas. Through fieldwork conducted with married couples in Central and Northern Kyushu, this presentation highlights not just the transnational mobility of migrants. It also emphasizes the need to consider the movement of their faith and the post-migration impact it can have in re-organizing intimate relations within migrant homes and communities.

Mario Lopez is assistant professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, 46 Shimoadachi-cho Yoshida, Sakyoku, Kyoto 606–8501, Japan. An anthropologist (PhD Kyushu University) who has resided in Japan for over twelve years, his main research interest is on the migration of foreign people to Japan. He has conducted long-term fieldwork on migrants settled in Japan from Latin America (particularly Peru) and the Philippines. For the past eight years he has been working on the impact of Filipino transnational marriage migrants in Japanese society and how they negotiate everyday life. His other research interests include the role of religion as a supportive framework for overseas migrants and the transnationalization of care.