Vietnamese women in romantic transnational relationships: narratives of Vietnamese identity and transnationality

Abstract

This study examines how Vietnamese women in transnational romantic relationships negotiate their cultural identity. It explores how intimacy across cultural boundaries becomes a site where Vietnamese identity is affirmed and reworked. By focusing on women's self-narratives, the study aims to illuminate how identity is maintained and adapted in the context of globalization, mobility and transnational couplehood. The study adopts a qualitative case study design based on narrative interviews with three Vietnamese women involved in romantic relationships with foreign partners. Participants vary in age, residence, partner nationality and relationship stage. Identity narratives were analyzed thematically to trace how cultural identity is articulated through lived experiences, relational interactions and reflexive meaning-making within transnational intimate contexts. The analysis identifies three interrelated processes of identity negotiation: affirmation, acculturation and re-articulation. Participants affirmed their Vietnamese identity through emotional attachment and cultural comparison, adopted selected practices from their partners' cultures and re-articulated long-held beliefs – particularly regarding gender roles and communication. These processes reveal the coexistence of “traditional” and “modernizing” elements of Vietnamese womanhood, demonstrating identity continuity alongside meaningful change. This study contributes to research on transnational intimacy and cultural identity by foregrounding Vietnamese women's agentive identity work within romantic relationships. Rather than framing identity change as assimilation or loss, it conceptualizes identity negotiation as a resilient and reflexive process.