Class, mobility and inequality in the lives of same-sex couples with mixed legal statuses

Bibliographic Data

ID3609632
AuthorsChauvin (0000-0003-1203-2563, University of Lausanne, corresponding author), Sébastien Chauvin (0000-0001-5977-0593), Manuela Salcedo Robledo (Laboratoire d'études de genre et de sexualité), Timo Koren (0000-0002-6553-8798, University of Southampton), Joël Illidge (GGD Amsterdam)
Year2021
Volume47
Issue2
Pages430-446
Publication date2021-01-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Community (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-9586 • E-ISSN: 1469-9451
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369183x.2019.1625137
OpenAlexW2958644239
LanguageEN
Citations received27
References cited47

Seeking to overcome the heterosexual bias in marriage-migration scholarship and move beyond individualistic approaches to queer mobility, this article focuses on the lives of same-sex couples that hold unequal residence statuses. In a twofold context marked by the increasing legal recognition of same-sex families combined with heightened hurdles facing certain categories of immigrants, we examine what those simultaneous trends mean for these couples. Based on 42 interviews conducted in France, the Netherlands and the United States with people from a variety of class backgrounds, we show how higher resource levels moderate the impact of constraining legal frameworks without suppressing them. We distinguish between low-resource homogamous, heterogamous, and high-resource homogamous couples. The first configuration often results in forced immobility and separation. In heterogamous couples, conjugality becomes a major pathway to legal status for the migrant spouse – potentially feeding suspicions of instrumentality. In contrast, privileged migrants in a homogamous couple tend to relate to law in less of a binary way and experience regulations as more easily surmountable. Yet, for them, securing permanent residence represents but one objective among several (including their careers and studies), an investment often disconnected from their matrimonial relationship and at times in competition with it

Demographic economics · Economics · Geography · Immigration · Inequality · Political science · Residence · Scholarship · Sociology · Spouse · Demography · Gender Studies · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Identity, and Health · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology · Social Psychology

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