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Policing the Intimate Borders of the Nation: A Review of Recent Trends in Family-Related Forms of Immigration Control

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Gendering Nationalism

Abstract

The chapter critically reviews some themes arising from different streams of literature having tackled, in recent years, states’ efforts to reproduce their national identities regulating the cross-border intimate lives of their aspiring citizens and residents. Family migration management reflects the tensions brought by the dangers of culturally problematized immigrant social reproduction: excessive fertilities, backward marriages and gender relationships, low-quality human capital and welfare dependency. The chapter explores how different aspects of social reproduction—love and marriage; parenthood, fertility and childbearing; care and dependency among adult relatives—are implicated in issues of migration control, showing how matters of legitimacy and veracity have triggered an emerging set of controls centred on the intimate and bodily life of citizens. As the intimate delineates a porous zone between insiders and outsiders, defining the family proves critical for understanding what immigration means for the nation, calling for a deeper exploration of the nexus between the governance of national reproduction, citizenship and mobility.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For the USA, see Enchautegui and Menjívar (2015); for Canada, Bragg and Wong (2015); for Asia , Constable (2013), Friedman (2010), Lan (2008) and So (2003).

  2. 2.

    Evidence from Norway and the UK shows that women’s unfavourable position in the labour market can lead to (female) citizen’s de facto discrimination, compared to (male) foreign skilled workers’ more favourable condition.

  3. 3.

    Also, for instance, changes to derive citizenship from naturalizing parents, or permanent residency.

  4. 4.

    These restrictions include the affidavit system in the USA (Enchautegui and Menjívar 2015) , those attached to the Canadian Parent and Grandparent Super Visa (Bragg and Wong 2015) and the multi-layered policies experimented in Europe (based on—often combined—age-related requirements, exclusive dependency and/or health-related proofs, private medical insurance request, etc.).

  5. 5.

    “Woman sent back to Singapore despite 27-year marriage” on www.bbc.com.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e Politiche, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Paola Bonizzoni

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  1. Paola Bonizzoni
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Health and Social Sciences, University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom

    Jon Mulholland

  2. School of Law, Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom

    Nicola Montagna

  3. School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Kent, United Kingdom

    Erin Sanders-McDonagh

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Bonizzoni, P. (2018). Policing the Intimate Borders of the Nation: A Review of Recent Trends in Family-Related Forms of Immigration Control. In: Mulholland, J., Montagna, N., Sanders-McDonagh, E. (eds) Gendering Nationalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76699-7_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76699-7_12

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