Marital Breakdown among British Asians

Kaveri Qureshi is Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, UK. Her research interests include migration, gender, family life, and how people deal with transitions.

“Qureshi … offer[s] an authoritative account of marital breakdown and divorce among British Pakistanis that attends to gender dynamics within marriages, families, and communities as they intersect with dynamics of class, race, and immigration. … Marital breakdown among British Asians stands as an important contribution which will be of interest to researchers, professionals, and activists working on the politics of immigration, family life, and gender in the United Kingdom and beyond.” (Wiebe Ruijtenberg, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 26 (3), 2020)“Contribut[es] to sociological perspectives concerning the diversity of family and intimate relationships, the book is widely relevant for practitioners.” (Parveen Ali, Sociological Research Online, Vol. 25 (3), 2020)“I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and … . the book provides a rich and timely insight into the turmoil of immigrant families breaking up.” (Anika Liversage, Nordic Journal of Migration Research NJMR, May 28, 2020)“Qureshi’s book makes a rich contribution to broader scholarship on South Asian families, marital breakdown, legal pluralism, new kinship formations and single parenthood in the British South Asian context. It would most likely benefit anthropologists, sociologists, community leaders and students interested in family, marriage, family law, new kinship formations generally, and in the UK South Asian context in particular.” (Naseem Jivraj, Association for Feminist Anthropology, October 10, 2019)“The objective of Marital Breakdown among British Asians is to fill the gap in research investigating marital breakdown in South Asian communities … . The book is well-written and canvasses concepts and approaches from legal anthropology in an accessible way. It will be of interest to scholars of minority families in the West … .” (Muhammad Zubair Abbasi, PoLAR Political and Legal Anthropology Review, August 22, 2019)

• Introduction.- Part I: Grounds for conflict.- 1. Storying marital conflict.- 2. Explanations for divorce.- Part II: Staying together.- 3. Family mediation4 Estrangements, separations and yoyo marriages.- Part III: Splitting up.- 5. Sharia.- 6.-  English law.- Part IV: Rebuilding families.- 7.-  Staying single.- 8.-  Remarriage.- 9. Children and stepfamilies.- Conclusion