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Title
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Legal-discursive constructions of genuine cross-border love in Belgian marriage fraud investigations
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Author
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Abstract
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| In recent years, marriage migration as a form of family reunification has become a growing policy concern for migration governance in European member states and is seen as 'the last loophole' in EU migration policy in the face of a supposedly large and increasing number of sham marriages through which the non-European spouse is granted a residency permit. Several European nations have therefore legislated legal-administrative measures to battle marriages of convenience by investigating cross-border marriage applications prior to celebrating or recognising the marital union. In this article, I draw on a linguistic ethnographic empirical study of legal-administrative investigations conducted by Belgian municipal authorities to determine whether cross-border marriage applications to their civil registry office are 'genuine' or 'fake'. In particular, I examine how the legal framework and guidelines for investigation are bureaucratically implemented in practice in Belgian civil registry offices with a particular focus on the role of a discursively constructed notion of genuine cross-border love and a bureaucratically acceptable relationship in both policy documents and interviewing practice. |
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Language
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English
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Source (journal)
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Critical discourse studies. - London
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Publication
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London
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2020
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ISSN
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1740-5904
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DOI
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10.1080/17405904.2020.1715233
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Volume/pages
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17
:2
(2020)
, p. 175-192
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ISI
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000509028500001
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Full text (Publisher's DOI)
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Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
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