Local Lives in a Transnational Context

Abstract

This chapter deals with the broader social context that mixed couples live within, both in the country of residence and in the diaspora spouse’s country of origin. Along with a focus on everyday practices and activities within the marriage, participants express their attitudes towards broader social questions and conditions that lie outside their intimate relationship, including those concerning religion and politics. The treatment the mixed couples — especially the diasporic spouses — meet in broader society reveals the extent to which their humanity is recognised and how human the receiving society is, as expressed by Tutu in 2014: ‘When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognising the humanity in others.’ These aspects of their narratives reflect wider social attitudes — in other words the ‘outside’ rather than ‘inside’ as delineated by Cabarello, Edwards & Puthussery (2008). While ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ have been analytically separated here, it is acknowledged that in real life they are closely intertwined.