Suchergebnisse

This article explores the use of online social networks for seeking and sharing information about marriage migration. In Europe, since the 1990s, this migration has faced heightened scrutiny. Laws and administrative practices have added complexity to immigration procedures. Manifold screening methods gauge the authenticity of relationships aligning with the host nation's concept of a suitable family for integration. In this context, informal self-help groups emerged to offer support to those facing burdensome formalities and local administrative intricacies. Based on extensive qualitative fieldwork, this article examines the significance of these support groups, drawing on the concept of intimacy as a shared competency. Here, intimacy is conceived as an active relational skill that counterbalances the limitations of migration policies. The analysis transcends the division between online and offline modes of living, shedding new light on intimacy and extimité – the sharing of one's intimate self with others for validation – in doing family.

Abstract
In France, the COVID-19 pandemic was experienced as a cascading crisis, with its effects rippling out beyond its initial health domain. Due to the lockdown and ban on travel, the closure of borders, and the slowdown of administrative services, the pandemic had an unanticipated effect on transnational French/foreign couples lacking formal legal relationship status, causing separation and uncertainty. Overlapping health and migration concerns generated a new specific border regime, which reinforced the already existing 'deservingness' criteria for seeking to move to and integrate into the nation. The imposed geographical and administrative immobilisation led to some couples creating online self-help communities, which offered emotional support and shared coping strategies for couples caught in the deadlock. These communities have given the challenges faced by mixed-status couples fresh visibility. Drawing on an ethnography conducted in four online communities, in-depth interviews with transnational couples, and an analysis of politico-juridical materials and grey literature, this article focuses on marriage becoming the option for French/foreign couples seeking the right to reunite in France during an uncertain period. More precisely, by using crisis studies to frame the impact of the pandemic and articulating the scholarship on socio-legal and intimate citizenship, the experiences of such couples can be understood as specific processes in legal consciousness, producing acts of intimate citizenship. This perspective helps demonstrate how the pandemic emphasised the policing of migrant couples, and how institutional and legal opportunities narrowed the choices available to such couples, reducing the potential of change that is generally inherent in crises.

Cet article éclaire comment trois groupes professionnels impliqués dans le contentieux des étrangers (les avocat·e·s, les travailleur·se·s associatif·ve·s et les magistrat·e·s administratif·ve·s avec leurs assistant·e·s) signifient leur pratique en tant qu'intermédiaires du droit de la migration et de sa judiciarisation. L'analyse de leur éthos professionnel permet de dégager quatre types de significations qui définissent leurs aire et choix d'action. Par un jeu d'interactions et de positionnements en opposition et en dialogue, ce « travail de signification » met également en exergue des représentations réciproques et des clivages qui existent entre et au sein de ces trois groupes professionnels. Cette analyse compréhensive montre que leurs trajectoires biographiques et leurs visions du droit, et des droits, façonnent l'application de la loi.

International audience ; Drawing from ethnographic research conducted with binational heterosexual couples negotiating their legitimacy in the face of immigration bureaucracy in Belgium and Italy, I explore the interplay between marriage migration governmentality and personal subjectivities. In a context of increased political scrutiny, I illustrate how binational couples wield their intimacy to become and stay legal; and how their experiences of the bureaucratic encounters impact on both partners' agency, producing swinging emotions and improving their legal culture. In Belgium and Italy, marriage to a citizen remains a pathway towards securing residence for the migrant partner. Hence, in both countries these formalities, that I frame as a network of bordering practices, are increasingly-but differently-policed defining divergent marriage migration regimes but similar shared migratory careers for the couples. The potency of the legal-bureaucratic culture fashions the couples' journey through immigration law and its street-level implementation. Nevertheless, beyond the opportunity structures and nationally anchored constraints, the analysis demonstrates that the partners' agency similarly emerges from the migration management at large, their personal legal status and biographical resources, and interactions with intermediaries at the margin of immigration bureaucracy. Such agencytriggered by intimate intentions and expectations-is contingent and relational.

International audience ; Drawing from ethnographic research conducted with binational heterosexual couples negotiating their legitimacy in the face of immigration bureaucracy in Belgium and Italy, I explore the interplay between marriage migration governmentality and personal subjectivities. In a context of increased political scrutiny, I illustrate how binational couples wield their intimacy to become and stay legal; and how their experiences of the bureaucratic encounters impact on both partners' agency, producing swinging emotions and improving their legal culture. In Belgium and Italy, marriage to a citizen remains a pathway towards securing residence for the migrant partner. Hence, in both countries these formalities, that I frame as a network of bordering practices, are increasingly-but differently-policed defining divergent marriage migration regimes but similar shared migratory careers for the couples. The potency of the legal-bureaucratic culture fashions the couples' journey through immigration law and its street-level implementation. Nevertheless, beyond the opportunity structures and nationally anchored constraints, the analysis demonstrates that the partners' agency similarly emerges from the migration management at large, their personal legal status and biographical resources, and interactions with intermediaries at the margin of immigration bureaucracy. Such agencytriggered by intimate intentions and expectations-is contingent and relational.

International audience ; Drawing from ethnographic research conducted with binational heterosexual couples negotiating their legitimacy in the face of immigration bureaucracy in Belgium and Italy, I explore the interplay between marriage migration governmentality and personal subjectivities. In a context of increased political scrutiny, I illustrate how binational couples wield their intimacy to become and stay legal; and how their experiences of the bureaucratic encounters impact on both partners' agency, producing swinging emotions and improving their legal culture. In Belgium and Italy, marriage to a citizen remains a pathway towards securing residence for the migrant partner. Hence, in both countries these formalities, that I frame as a network of bordering practices, are increasingly-but differently-policed defining divergent marriage migration regimes but similar shared migratory careers for the couples. The potency of the legal-bureaucratic culture fashions the couples' journey through immigration law and its street-level implementation. Nevertheless, beyond the opportunity structures and nationally anchored constraints, the analysis demonstrates that the partners' agency similarly emerges from the migration management at large, their personal legal status and biographical resources, and interactions with intermediaries at the margin of immigration bureaucracy. Such agencytriggered by intimate intentions and expectations-is contingent and relational.

Cadre de la recherche : En France et en
Belgique, depuis 2000, des dispositions législatives ont renforcé les conditions
pour conclure les unions entre un national et un ressortissant non européen et
pour permettre à ce dernier d'accéder au séjour. Le dispositif d'immigration —
délimitant un accès sélectif à la nation par la construction des formes
acceptables de « faire famille » — travaille les intimités des couples.
Objectif : Cet article interroge les
changements de l'intimité des couples binationaux à l'aune des rencontres avec
le dispositif d'immigration.
Méthodologie : Le matériau empirique est
issu d'une enquête multisituée conduite par collecte des récits de vie des
conjoints d'une centaine des couples, analysés avec la « méthode d'évaluation
biographique des politiques », et par observations participantes au sein des
structures associatives dans des villes françaises et belges.
Résultats : Au fil des formalités
administratives, l'intimité se fait publique pour ces partenaires obligés à
performer les « amoureux » comme le dispositif d'immigration le souhaite. Cela
implique un travail sur les frontières de leur intimité conjugale qui varie
selon la perméabilité des individus à l'ingérence étatique. Diverses modalités
de transformation de l'intimé, en adhésion ou en contraste avec la logique
étatique, se profilent : « à deux vitesses », « résilientes », « en échange » et
« en éclats ».
Conclusion : Ces intimités identifiées
résultent des « pactes » à la source de l'union et du travail que les
partenaires ont pu effectuer aux frontières des rencontres avec l'État. Dans une
optique de « citoyenneté intime », ce travail articule des décisions privées et
des pratiques publiques, ainsi que des dilemmes moraux.
Contribution : L'article interroge
l'imbrication des frontières institutionnelles, travaillées par les politiques
publiques, et conjugales, travaillées par les émotions, les attentes et les
échanges, par une sociologie des pratiques performatives et intimes.

International audience ; Research Framework: In France and Belgium, since mid-1990, legislative provisions have tightened the conditions for concluding unions between a citizen and a non-European national and permitting the latter of stay. The suspicion of the immigration system, delineating a selective access to the nation by the construction of eminently normative forms of "making family", impact couples' intimacy.Objectives: This article examines the changes in binational couples' intimacy in the light of their encounters with the immigration system.Methodology: The empirical material comes from a multi-site ethnography conducted by collecting the life histories of the partners (foreign and national) of about one hundred couples—analyzed with the method of "biographical policies' evaluation"—and by participant observations within associative structures in French and Belgian cities.Results: Over the course of administrative formalities, the couples' privacy becomes "public" as they are invited to perform the "lovers" as the immigration system wishes. The resulting effect on the boundaries of their intimacy differs according to the permeability of the relationship to state interference. Different types of intimacy in adherence or in contrast with the state logic stands out, they are defined as "two-speed", "resilient", "in exchange" and "in splinters".Conclusions: The intimacies identified are the results of a "pact" between partners and the work that they have performed at the borders of the state encounters. In the wake of "intimate citizenship", such work articulates private decisions and public practices, and moral dilemma relating to "family life".Contributions: The article shows the interweaving of institutional boundaries, worked by public policies, and conjugal, worked by emotions, expectations and exchanges, thanks to the sociology of preformative and intimate practices. ; Cadre de la recherche : En France et en Belgique, depuis 2000, des dispositions législatives ont renforcé les conditions pour ...

International audience ; Research Framework: In France and Belgium, since mid-1990, legislative provisions have tightened the conditions for concluding unions between a citizen and a non-European national and permitting the latter of stay. The suspicion of the immigration system, delineating a selective access to the nation by the construction of eminently normative forms of "making family", impact couples' intimacy.Objectives: This article examines the changes in binational couples' intimacy in the light of their encounters with the immigration system.Methodology: The empirical material comes from a multi-site ethnography conducted by collecting the life histories of the partners (foreign and national) of about one hundred couples—analyzed with the method of "biographical policies' evaluation"—and by participant observations within associative structures in French and Belgian cities.Results: Over the course of administrative formalities, the couples' privacy becomes "public" as they are invited to perform the "lovers" as the immigration system wishes. The resulting effect on the boundaries of their intimacy differs according to the permeability of the relationship to state interference. Different types of intimacy in adherence or in contrast with the state logic stands out, they are defined as "two-speed", "resilient", "in exchange" and "in splinters".Conclusions: The intimacies identified are the results of a "pact" between partners and the work that they have performed at the borders of the state encounters. In the wake of "intimate citizenship", such work articulates private decisions and public practices, and moral dilemma relating to "family life".Contributions: The article shows the interweaving of institutional boundaries, worked by public policies, and conjugal, worked by emotions, expectations and exchanges, thanks to the sociology of preformative and intimate practices. ; Cadre de la recherche : En France et en Belgique, depuis 2000, des dispositions législatives ont renforcé les conditions pour ...

International audience ; Research Framework: In France and Belgium, since mid-1990, legislative provisions have tightened the conditions for concluding unions between a citizen and a non-European national and permitting the latter of stay. The suspicion of the immigration system, delineating a selective access to the nation by the construction of eminently normative forms of "making family", impact couples' intimacy.Objectives: This article examines the changes in binational couples' intimacy in the light of their encounters with the immigration system.Methodology: The empirical material comes from a multi-site ethnography conducted by collecting the life histories of the partners (foreign and national) of about one hundred couples—analyzed with the method of "biographical policies' evaluation"—and by participant observations within associative structures in French and Belgian cities.Results: Over the course of administrative formalities, the couples' privacy becomes "public" as they are invited to perform the "lovers" as the immigration system wishes. The resulting effect on the boundaries of their intimacy differs according to the permeability of the relationship to state interference. Different types of intimacy in adherence or in contrast with the state logic stands out, they are defined as "two-speed", "resilient", "in exchange" and "in splinters".Conclusions: The intimacies identified are the results of a "pact" between partners and the work that they have performed at the borders of the state encounters. In the wake of "intimate citizenship", such work articulates private decisions and public practices, and moral dilemma relating to "family life".Contributions: The article shows the interweaving of institutional boundaries, worked by public policies, and conjugal, worked by emotions, expectations and exchanges, thanks to the sociology of preformative and intimate practices. ; Cadre de la recherche : En France et en Belgique, depuis 2000, des dispositions législatives ont renforcé les conditions pour conclure les unions entre un national et un ressortissant non européen et pour permettre à ce dernier d'accéder au séjour. Le dispositif d'immigration — délimitant un accès sélectif à la nation par la construction des formes acceptables de « faire famille » — travaille les intimités des couples.Objectif : Cet article interroge les changements de l'intimité des couples binationaux à l'aune des rencontres avec le dispositif d'immigration.Méthodologie : Le matériau empirique est issu d'une enquête multisituée conduite par collecte des récits de vie des conjoints d'une centaine des couples, analysés avec la « méthode d'évaluation biographique des politiques », et par observations participantes au sein des structures associatives dans des villes françaises et belges.Résultats : Au fil des formalités administratives, l'intimité se fait publique pour ces partenaires obligés à performer les « amoureux » comme le dispositif d'immigration le souhaite. Cela implique un travail sur les frontières de leur intimité conjugale qui varie selon la perméabilité des individus à l'ingérence étatique. Diverses modalités de transformation de l'intimé, en adhésion ou en contraste avec la logique étatique, se profilent : « à deux vitesses », « résilientes », « en échange » et « en éclats ».Conclusion : Ces intimités identifiées résultent des « pactes » à la source de l'union et du travail que les partenaires ont pu effectuer aux frontières des rencontres avec l'État. Dans une optique de « citoyenneté intime », ce travail articule des décisions privées et des pratiques publiques, ainsi que des dilemmes moraux.Contribution : L'article interroge l'imbrication des frontières institutionnelles, travaillées par les politiques publiques, et conjugales, travaillées par les émotions, les attentes et les échanges, par une sociologie des pratiques performatives et intimes.

International audience Research Framework: In France and Belgium, since mid-1990, legislative provisions have tightened the conditions for concluding unions between a citizen and a non-European national and permitting the latter of stay. The suspicion of the immigration system, delineating a selective access to the nation by the construction of eminently normative forms of "making family", impact couples' intimacy.Objectives: This article examines the changes in binational couples' intimacy in the light of their encounters with the immigration system.Methodology: The empirical material comes from a multi-site ethnography conducted by collecting the life histories of the partners (foreign and national) of about one hundred couples—analyzed with the method of "biographical policies' evaluation"—and by participant observations within associative structures in French and Belgian cities.Results: Over the course of administrative formalities, the couples' privacy becomes "public" as they are invited to perform the "lovers" as the immigration system wishes. The resulting effect on the boundaries of their intimacy differs according to the permeability of the relationship to state interference. Different types of intimacy in adherence or in contrast with the state logic stands out, they are defined as "two-speed", "resilient", "in exchange" and "in splinters".Conclusions: The intimacies identified are the results of a "pact" between partners and the work that they have performed at the borders of the state encounters. In the wake of "intimate citizenship", such work articulates private decisions and public practices, and moral dilemma relating to "family life".Contributions: The article shows the interweaving of institutional boundaries, worked by public policies, and conjugal, worked by emotions, expectations and exchanges, thanks to the sociology of preformative and intimate practices. ; Cadre de la recherche : En France et en Belgique, depuis 2000, des dispositions législatives ont renforcé les conditions pour ...

Fondé on an ethnographic survey conducted in the Brussels-Capital Region between 2014 and 2016, the article focuses on domestic and intra-family violence suffered by non-European women married to a Belgian. He asked about the relationship between legal provisions and institutional practices relating to the protection offered to them and immigration law. Their right of residence depends on their right of residence. Although, during the period of 'administrative dependence' between spouses, when the breakdown of marital life is caused by proven violence, the law provides for the retention of the residence permit, but it does not protect all women and imposes conditions which are difficult to satisfy. The procedures and their delays, the lack of coordination between state actors and the difference in credibility between the victim and the perpetrator of violence add to the discriminatory legal clauses and affect these women in distress twice. ; International audience ; Fondé on an ethnographic survey conducted in the Brussels-Capital Region between 2014 and 2016, the article focuses on domestic and intra-family violence suffered by non-European women married to a Belgian. He asked about the relationship between legal provisions and institutional practices relating to the protection offered to them and immigration law. Their right of residence depends on their right of residence. Although, during the period of 'administrative dependence' between spouses, when the breakdown of marital life is caused by proven violence, the law provides for the retention of the residence permit, but it does not protect all women and imposes conditions which are difficult to satisfy. The procedures and their delays, the lack of coordination between state actors and the difference in credibility between the victim and the perpetrator of violence add to the discriminatory legal clauses and affect these women in distress twice. ; Fondé sur une enquête ethnographique conduite dans la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale entre 2014 et 2016, ...

International audience ; This article focuses on the notion of absence in the migratory trajectory of females of Mediterranean – Arab origin (Morocco and Lebanon) living in mixed couples in France. It shows how these women's agency and a certain "gender doxa", promoted by these women's countries of origin, contribute to define the dialectic between presence and absence for both their migration and homemaking projects. The relation with the country of origin is expressed in the personal, family and cultural work that such women accomplish and produces specific absences. Two forms of absence have been identified: the first, an existential absence is caused by these women's desire for emancipation and their effort to "do like everybody else" in the country of residence. The second absence is an institutional absence that arises from the policies of their countries of origin in matters of family and nationality rights. Existential absence is often temporary, while institutional absence varies according to each State and perpetrates gendered absences that are passed on to successive generations. ; L'article explore la notion d'absence dans les trajectoires des femmes ressortissantes d'un pays arabe méditerranéen (Maroc et Liban) vivant dans des configurations conjugales mixtes en France et montre en quoi l'agir de ces femmes et la « doxa de sexe » alimentée par leurs pays d'origine participent à définir la dialectique entre présence et absence dans leur projet migratoire et dans leur « faire famille ». La relation à l'État d'origine s'insère dans le travail personnel, familial et culturel que ces femmes accomplissent et produit des absences spécifiques. Deux types d'absence ont été identifiés : l'un, existentiel, causé par la quête d'émancipation et l'effort de « faire comme tout le monde » dans le pays de résidence et l'autre, institutionnel, causé par les politiques des États d'origine en matière de famille et de nationalité. L'absence existentielle est souvent temporaire, alors que l'institutionnelle maintient, selon l'État, des absences genrées transmissibles au fil des générations.

International audience ; Employing a sociological actor-centred approach, this article explores the interrelations between individual and organisational dynamics by investigating how national civil society organisations' (CSOs) leaders, board and rank-and-file members' views of Europe(s) contribute to the CSOs' process of reaching consensus about going European. Bottom-up Europeanization and social movement studies are employed to analyse the case of a French CSO joining a European network of national CSOs in order to defend the rights of binational couples. These couples, composed of a European and an extra-European citizen, have been particularly affected since mid-1990 by restrictive policies that the EU has attempted to harmonise, but that remain nationally rooted. Thanks to an in-depth ethnography and drawing on the 'usages of Europe' and the 'Europeanness' literature, three views of Europe, arguments to use or not to use Europe in CSOs, have been identified. These views, defined as instrumental, pro-European and Euro-sceptical, depend on individuals' generation and education, as well as on their motives for engagement and their roles in the CSO. The national CSO leadership and board have to negotiate with this plurality of views before defining activities. In so doing, they have to consider economic and human resource shortages. Thus, beyond divergent positions towards Europe, consensus is reached on the possibility of using Europe as an instrument for national policy changes and CSO visibility. Such dynamics, employed to harmonise disparate views of Europe, are reproduced once national CSOs are acting in the European network and tend to create a weak experience of Europeanization, mainly based on the transnationalisation of the CSO's activities.