Subversive citizens: using EU free movement law to bypass the UK’s rules on marriage migration

Wray, Helena; Kofman, Eléonore; Simic, Agnes

doi:10.1080/1369183x.2019.1625140

Cited by 16 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…a decrease of 25 per cent. Apart from the drop in applications and increase in rejections, especially in the period immediately after the introduction of the minimum income rule, there is considerable evidence of the impact on the lives of specific families collected by parliamentary enquiries (APPG, 2013), background papers to legal challenges in the courts (Wray and Kofman, 2014), media reports, a survey by an association set up in 2012 to campaign against the rule (Britcits, 2013) and research commissioned by the Office of the Children's Commissioner on the impact on families with children (Middlesex University and JCWI, 2015). The survey by Britcits estimated about a quarter of affected families had children.…”

Section: The Ukmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family Migration as a Class Matter

Kofman

2018

International Migration

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Traditionally, family migration was conceptualized as a separate form of migration from labour migration. Increasingly socio‐economic criteria (labour market participation, language competence, financial resources, independence from welfare), have been applied to family migration policies in Europe, and are harder to fulfil by those with a weaker labour market position. Hence class now plays an increasingly significant role in stratifying the right to family migration. The article examines the imposition of minimum income requirements in three countries – the Netherlands, Norway and the UK – and the significance of class in its economic and cultural dimensions in meeting the requirement. For those without sufficient economic capital to meet the requirement, cultural capital may facilitate the development of coping strategies to overcome or reduce the duration of family separation. Class is not the only stratifying element: gender, age and ethnicity interact with and reinforce the effects of class.

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Section: The Ukmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family Migration as a Class Matter

Kofman

2018

International Migration

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“…Last but not least, after an eclipse spanning nearly a quarter century, social class has again become a salient theme of migration research (Van Hear 2004;Bonjour and Chauvin 2018; see also articles by Pellander [2019]; Wray, Kofman, and Simic [2019] and Charsley and Bolognani [2019] in this issue). While the 'global mobility divide' makes nationality a key determinant of people's ability to effectuate international moves (Mau et al 2015), economic, cultural and social capital defining individual and family class positions can significantly qualify this hierarchy (Carling 2002;Van Hear 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The multidimensionality of class (Bourdieu 1986) means cultural and social capital may compensate for low economic capital, as Wray, Kofman, and Simic (2019) show in the case of young, temporarily precarious, middle-class British citizens with a third-country spouse. Moving to another European country, for example as students, allows these couples to circumvent UK income requirements for marriage migration by making use of less stringent EU free-movement spousal residency regulations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Class, mobility and inequality in the lives of same-sex couples with mixed legal statuses

Chauvin

Robledo²,

Koren

et al. 2019

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

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Seeking to overcome the heterosexual bias in marriage-migration scholarship and move beyond individualistic approaches to queer mobility, this article focuses on the lives of same-sex couples that hold unequal residence statuses. In a twofold context marked by the increasing legal recognition of same-sex families combined with heightened hurdles facing certain categories of immigrants, we examine what those simultaneous trends mean for these couples. Based on 42 interviews conducted in France, the Netherlands and the United States with people from a variety of class backgrounds, we show how higher resource levels moderate the impact of constraining legal frameworks without suppressing them. We distinguish between low-resource homogamous, heterogamous, and high-resource homogamous couples. The first configuration often results in forced immobility and separation. In heterogamous couples, conjugality becomes a major pathway to legal status for the migrant spousepotentially feeding suspicions of instrumentality. In contrast, privileged migrants in a homogamous couple tend to relate to law in less of a binary way and experience regulations as more easily surmountable. Yet, for them, securing permanent residence represents but one objective among several (including their careers and studies), an investment often disconnected from their matrimonial relationship and at times in competition with it.

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“…Based on a study in France, the Netherlands and the United States, Chauvin et al (2019) show that higherincome same-sex couples have more chances to live together than poor couples, without necessarily having to use family-reunification channels. Wray, Kofman, and Simic (2019) show that British people with low incomes but high cultural capital are able to strategically play with legal categories and relocate to another EU country with their non-EU spouse, taking advantage of the more generous rights secured by the EU for its citizens. Finally, Pellander (2019) demonstrates how income requirements are entangled with emotional proof of 'genuine' relationships in Finish institutions regulating marriage migration.…”

Section: Beyond State Categories: Alternative Epistemologies Methodomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concretely, research designs can avoid focusing on ethnically or religiously delimitated groups, or include people generally not investigated under the light of marriage or migration. Wray, Kofman, and Simic (2019), for example, employ such a methodology in their study of highly educated British citizens. We further maintain that the study of cross-border marriages can benefit from research on policy-irrelevant topics (Bakewell 2008) that may not produce directly policy-relevant results.…”

Section: Beyond State Categories: Alternative Epistemologies Methodomentioning

confidence: 99%

Contesting categories: cross-border marriages from the perspectives of the state, spouses and researchers

Moret

Andrikopoulos

Dahinden

2019

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

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Marriages that involve the migration of at least one of the spouses challenge two intersecting facets of the politics of belonging: the making of the 'good and legitimate citizens' and the 'acceptable family'. In Europe, cross-border marriages have been the target of increasing state controls, an issue of public concern and the object of scholarly research. The study of cross-border marriages and the ways these marriages are framed is inevitably affected by states' concerns and priorities. There is a need for a reflexive assessment of how the categories employed by state institutions and agents have impacted the study of cross-border marriages. The introduction to this Special Issue analyses what is at stake in the regulation of cross-border marriages and how European states use particular categories (e.g. 'sham', 'forced' and 'mixed' marriages) to differentiate between acceptable and nonacceptable marriages. When researchers use these categories unreflexively, they risk reproducing nation-centred epistemologies and reinforcing state-informed hierarchies and forms of exclusion. We suggest ways to avoid these pitfalls: differentiating between categories of analysis and categories of practice, adopting methodologies that do not mirror nation-states' logic and engaging with general social theory outside migration studies. The empirical contributions of the Special Issue offer new insights into a timely topic.

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Subversive citizens: using EU free movement law to bypass the UK’s rules on marriage migration

Cited by 16 publications

References 28 publications

Family Migration as a Class Matter

Family Migration as a Class Matter

Class, mobility and inequality in the lives of same-sex couples with mixed legal statuses

Contesting categories: cross-border marriages from the perspectives of the state, spouses and researchers

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