Marriage in Migration: Transformation of Wedding Rituals under the Influence of Migration Experience

Abstract

The article examines the ways in which wedding rituals in the families of migrants from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan in Russia are transformed under the influence of migration experience. The theoretical and methodological framework is the concept of liminality of Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner. The research is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with migrants from Central Asia in the Moscow region. The choice of certain rituals shows the position of the individual and family in the transnational space linking the sending and hosting societies. The research has shown that the degree to which people are serious about the wedding ceremony and strive to properly observe it is coherent with the degree of inclusion in the sending or receiving society, which in turn is related to the specificities of migration experience. The impact of migration on wedding rituals cannot be regarded as unidirectional. Migration expands the variety of acceptable wedding rituals, including both those that are customary in the sending and receiving societies, and those that emerge as mixed hybrid variants simultaneously possessing the characteristics of the former and the latter.