par Maskens, Maïté 
Référence Situated Mixedness: Understanding Migration-Related Intimate Diversity in Belgium, Taylor and Francis, page (71-89)
Publication Publié, 2024-01
Référence Situated Mixedness: Understanding Migration-Related Intimate Diversity in Belgium, Taylor and Francis, page (71-89)
Publication Publié, 2024-01
Partie d'ouvrage collectif
| Résumé : | During the last four decades, legal ways to migrate into so-called “fortress Europe” have narrowed. From the perspective of most European states, marriage is perceived as the “last loophole” remaining in policies designed to control migration; marriages of migration are one of the last routes into Europe that are accessible/affordable to all. They open the door for people who would otherwise not have been accepted (Wray, 2011) and potentially, to the acquisition of Belgian citizenship. My focus in this chapter is on Belgian migration policies, and in particular on how intimacy is being gradually captured by state vigilance through utopian-informed bureaucratic procedures. The cases I present below involve judgement on international marriages by local registrars who have to legally recognise these marriages as grounds for migrants’ legal residence in Belgium. In other EU countries such as Denmark similar phenomena have resulted in the transformation of the national territorial border into a moral boundary, which defines appropriate forms of intimate relationships and family life (Rytter, 2012; Fernandez, 2013). In my view, this happens in a context of a broader and intense moralisation of national borders over recent decades (Fassin, 2012), which is invested in a form of utopian thinking. I am interested in charting national border-making as a moral boundary-how it is effectively redrawn across the administrators’ desks and how migration policies are implemented in civil registry offices. |
