Alena ZELENSKAIA, Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich/Special Research Center "Cultures of Vigilance", Germany
Although the Zolberg’s “remote control” interpretative framework remains influential, scholars have moved beyond its “destination-state-centric” perspective. Border externalization is regarded as a “battlefield in which different actors are positioning themselves” and which produces different effects. Highly selective visa policies bring changes to such social institutions as family as well and affect intimate mobilities. Based on autoethnography and ethnographic interviews with partners from several post-Soviet states married to German nationals, this article illuminates how tightening border work policies and vigilant practices at German consulates, directed at marriage migrants from Third countries, influence households and couples’ life trajectories. The reverberations encompass the marriage conditions, family planning, maintenance of two households, (re)negotiation of gender roles, i.e. “housewifisation” of women, as well as empowerment of migrants through the social movements/social media. This presentation argues that migrant experiences and externalization processes are mutually constitutive and enforce each other.
The 2020 pandemic brought its adjustments into the family migration policies of Germany and social media played an important role in it. The "Love is not tourism" movement, which started as an online campaign on Twitter, pushed its agenda further, raising the questions about the necessity to defuse and dismantle the concept of a family as a nuclear unit. The new reform proposals of the Coalition government of Germany in 2021 supports the development of the new family policies. The "Love is not tourism" also coordinates communication of migrants in Europe and outside it and helps them to constitute themselves as a collective actor.
Mots clés : Family migration|LoveIsNotTourism|Externalisation|Border|Germany
A104124AZ