«Eg trudde jo at livet mitt skulle vere ein romantisk komedie, men det er det jo ikkje» : Korleis konstruerer kambodsjansk og norsk ungdom romantisk kjærleik? Ein komparativ studie av korleis kambodsjansk ungdom og norsk ungdom opplever romantisk kjærleik.

Abstract

How do youth in Cambodia and Norway perceive romantic love? This master thesis compares how youth in Cambodia and Norway perceive romantic love, and how the romantic love affects other parts of everyday life. Love is an individual feeling, but is it different across culture and gender? And how much are the youth affected by social media, music, and movies in the way they see romantic love? Is “happily ever after” possible? This thesis is based on romantic love as a social construct. This thesis is based on three months of field work in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I used nine interviews, four girls, four boys and one professor from my collected field data. In Norway I had six interviews, three of each gender. The thesis concludes that the individual feeling of love might be the same, but how the youth are affected by romantic love, is different. For Cambodian youth, career and self-development are more important than romantic love while they are still students. It is not many years since Cambodian youth got more independence, and now they have the opportunity to follow their dreams and goals. For Norwegian youth, who are born in a more developed country, this self-development and career building is not a new phenomenon for most. Norwegian youth are more often searching for the “perfect life” and happiness. While Cambodian youth are enjoying a life with a lot of choices and opportunities, it can seem like Norwegian youth are over this phase and are rather looking for stabile and good relations.