NEGOTIATING MARRIAGE: CULTURAL CITIZENSHIP AND THE REPRODUCTION OF AMERICAN EMPIRE IN OKINAWA

Abstract

For U.S. military personnel stationed overseas, military regulations concerning personal conduct, overseas marriage, and family constitute a much resented symbol of the institutional surveillance and control the U.S. military exercises over its own rank and file. This article examines the complex set of procedures known as the “Marriage Package,” proscribed by U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington as the only legitimate means for Marines and Navy corpsmen to legalize an international marriage in Japan. The Marriage Package is a means of governance with implications for how U.S. servicemen conceptualize citizenship, social identity, and self. This article focuses on how institutional representations of transnational marriage and family are received, resisted, and/or reformulated by service personnel and their spouses. The intrusive and time-consuming marriage requirements contribute to a range of functional and gendered notions of citizenship and empire, crucial for the projection of American military power abroad.