Welcome to the Family? Gendered Belonging and Uneven Integration in Polish–Greek Intermarriages on the Ionian Islands

This ethnographic study examines how intermarriage shapes the integration of Polish women partnered with Greek men on the Ionian Islands. Drawing on nearly a year of fieldwork and a wider corpus of one hundred nineteen in-depth interviews, it argues that intermarriage is an ambivalent pathway to integration. It can incorporate women deeply into their partners’ households and kinship networks while leaving access to work, independent relationships, mobility, housing security and family decision-making uneven. Names, language, religion, domestic service and family property reveal a further asymmetry – Greek continuity can operate as the unmarked household norm while maintaining Polish attachments requires negotiation and falls disproportionately to mothers. Experiences nevertheless vary from support and mutual accommodation to conditional acceptance, dependency and, in some households, symbolic violence. By linking intimate practices to wider social and material resources, the article shows why incorporation into a partner’s family cannot be equated with equal integration.