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Sharing privilege? Intimate Reconfigurations of Race, Class, and Gender through transnational conjugality of European Women in Mauritania

par Sizaire, Laure
Référence IMISCOE Annual Conference “Decentering Migration Studies” (2-5 July: Paris-Aubervilliers)
Publication Non publié, 2025-07

Communication à un colloque

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Résumé :

Global Western migrations are often framed through concepts such as “lifestyle migrations,” “privileged mobility,” and “white migrations,” emphasising how privilege—typically associated with whiteness, middle-class status, and heterosexuality—plays a central role in these movements. Despite their multifaceted nature, these migrations are depicted as reproducing unequal power dynamics and creating social distances from the citizens of host countries. However, research on transnational families reveals that Westerners form conjugal relationships and families in these new settings. This presents a paradox: how can social distance and unequal power coexist within such relationships? Shaped by social, historical, political-economic, and gendered forces, these intimate mobilities are a compelling context to interrogate the notion of privilege through an intersectional and intimate perspective. To explore this paradox, I draw on my ongoing ethnographic research in Mauritania, where Western women choose to settle and establish relationships and families with Mauritanian men. I examine several critical aspects: how does transnational conjugality reinforce or transform privileged Western positions? What motivates these women to establish permanent homes and families in contexts where matrimonial and gender norms differ significantly from those in their countries of origin? Are global power relations overcome within these intimate partnerships, and how do couples manage divergent values, norms, and behaviours? By exploring how gendered and racialised mobilities are experienced on the ground, this paper aims to offer new insights into how transnational relationships renegotiate global power relations, adapt to diverse normative regimes, and ultimately challenge and reshape the notion of privilege.