‘Somehow I’m an Expat and He’s a Migrant’: Intersectional Identities, Multiple Migrations and Family Decision-Making Amongst Middling Migrant Couples

Abstract

This chapter offers a critical reframing of how migration decision-making can shift between partners over time and space. Told through the lens of the female spouse within two heterosexual migrant couples, the chapter shows how experiences of mobility are not just shaped by individuals’ social positionality but also by the complex intersections between their classed, gendered, religious and racialised identities and that of their partners. The literature on middling migration has often been a story of male-led labour migration, with women occupying the status of the accompanying migrant. Less attention is paid to the experiences of migrant women, particularly those who first relocate on family or spousal visas but who seek to re-negotiate gender-differentiated career progression over time and through multiple relocations. Through a detailed biographical case study of two couples, this chapter seeks to capture the shifts in their trajectories, attachments and decision-making that occur spatially, temporally and relationally to show the diverse experiences and statuses that constitute the often-homogenised category of ‘the middle’.