Documenting Attachment: Affective border control in applications for family reunifi cation
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Documenting Attachment: Affective border control in applications for family reunifi cation. / Jeholm, Sofie; Bissenbakker, Mons.
In: Nordic Journal of Migration Research, Vol. 9, No. 4, 12.01.2020, p. 480-496.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Documenting Attachment:
T2 - Affective border control in applications for family reunifi cation
AU - Jeholm, Sofie
AU - Bissenbakker, Mons
PY - 2020/1/12
Y1 - 2020/1/12
N2 - From 2002 to 2018, Denmark was the only country in the world to enforce a migration law demanding that couples seeking family reunification in Denmark documented their combined “attachment” to the Danish nation. This article investigates the practice of documenting such national attachment through the socalled “application packets”. Investigating the attachment requirement as a migration political tool with affective investments and implications, we suggest that the documentation process can be understood as a performative process in which the application packets lay out a trajectory of “happy objects” (Ahmed2010): the application, family reunifi cation, a residence permit and ultimately the nation itself. Although the applicants are urged to orient themselves towards the Danish nation as a happy object with the promise of a possible future in Denmark, this promise may have cruel implications for the applicants. Suggesting that an interdisciplinary meeting point between the fields of migration studies and cultural/discursive studies may form as fruitful, this article invites readers to think about the biopolitics of border control inaffective terms
AB - From 2002 to 2018, Denmark was the only country in the world to enforce a migration law demanding that couples seeking family reunification in Denmark documented their combined “attachment” to the Danish nation. This article investigates the practice of documenting such national attachment through the socalled “application packets”. Investigating the attachment requirement as a migration political tool with affective investments and implications, we suggest that the documentation process can be understood as a performative process in which the application packets lay out a trajectory of “happy objects” (Ahmed2010): the application, family reunifi cation, a residence permit and ultimately the nation itself. Although the applicants are urged to orient themselves towards the Danish nation as a happy object with the promise of a possible future in Denmark, this promise may have cruel implications for the applicants. Suggesting that an interdisciplinary meeting point between the fields of migration studies and cultural/discursive studies may form as fruitful, this article invites readers to think about the biopolitics of border control inaffective terms
UR - http://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/documenting-attachment
U2 - 10.2478/njmr-2019-0039
DO - 10.2478/njmr-2019-0039
M3 - Journal article
VL - 9
SP - 480
EP - 496
JO - Nordic Journal of Migration Research
JF - Nordic Journal of Migration Research
SN - 1799-649X
IS - 4
ER -
ID: 235851840