Same-sex marriage and migration

Politics of belonging, state regulations, and new ways of doing family across borders

Bibliographic Data

ID24226190
AuthorsSaskia Bonjour (University of Amsterdam), Apostolos Andrikopoulos (0000-0002-4672-777X, University College London)
Year2026
Pages1-22
Publication date2026-08-31
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Community (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-9586 • E-ISSN: 1469-9451
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369183x.2026.2708437
OpenAlexW7204850118
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited69

The expansion of marriage rights for same-sex couples has coincided in many countries with increasingly restrictive marriage migration policies. These differentiated approaches to marriage – relatively inclusive towards LGBTQI + people and their families, yet increasingly exclusionary towards migrants and their families – intersect when same-sex couples seek to migrate through family migration routes. Exploring the relationship between same-sex marriage and migration, this introduction examines the tensions that arise at this intersection and how LGBTQI + people and their families navigate the resulting constraints and opportunities for family migration. Bringing family migration research and queer migration studies into dialogue, it examines the limitations of both fields, which have largely developed in isolation from one another, and argues that the study of same-sex marriage migration offers new analytical perspectives on the relationships between marriage, migration, and sexuality. In doing so, it expands the conceptual and empirical horizons of both fields, prompting family migration scholarship to address its heteronormative biases and queer migration studies to better account for family dynamics and relationality. The introduction concludes with an overview of the contributions to this Special Issue.

family dynamics · family migration · Heteronormativity · marriage migration · same-sex marriage · sense of belonging · sexuality and migration · state regulation of marriage · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender and Feminist Studies · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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