Transnational marriages: National policies, generational transmissions, and gender dynamics – a biographical policy evaluation perspective

ABSTRACT

A significant challenge to the understanding of generational transmissions and decisions in migrant families is the unexpectedly emerging orientation of well-educated and socially integrated young German women of Turkish or Moroccan descent towards transnational marriages with husbands from the country of origin of their parents or grandparents. Marriage migrations from Turkey and Morocco may involve trans-border migrations between an EU and a non-EU country with one non-citizen spouse; alternatively, they may take place as family reunification within transnational communities. Our article, by using the method of biographical hermeneutic interpretations of narrations of migrant couples, tries to avoid ‘the state’s lens’ on marriage migration by reconstructing ‘biographical policy evaluation’ by the subjects involved. In conclusion, we will present our reflections regarding the analysis of our empirical case studies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 By ‘victimisation’ of women we basically refer to the processes in which migrant women, especially Muslim women, are depicted as prisoners and passive objects of their culture and their ethnic community, victims of the patriarchal relations prevalent within their family and ethnic communities, portrayed as deprived of any capacity to act as agents on behalf of themselves in public discussions (cf. Al-Rebholz, 2015). In case of transnational marriages some other dimensions add up to these images dominant in public and policy discourses: spousal migration of especially Muslim women is mostly associated with forced marriages, with domestic violence and failed integration. Laura Block emphasizes, in this sense, particularly the ethicized and gendered nature of these discourses employed by policy makers and public discussions (Block, 2021, p. 382ff).

2 Though the focus of the research is on migrating men through spousal migration, thanks to the interview constellations in which both husband and wife were present in most of the cases, we were also able to capture both the perspectives of the women as well as the interactive processes between the couples during the interviews.

3 The quantitative study BAMF (2014) has been conducted by Anja Stichs, Christian Babka von Gostomski and Tobias Büttner.

4 We base our analyses in this article on the interviews realized within the research project ‘Reversal of the Gender Order? Male Marriage Migration to Germany by Turkish and Moroccan Men’ conducted by Ursula Apitzsch and Anıl Al-Rebholz. The interviews quoted in this article was conducted by Anıl Al-Rebholz. The study was financed by the Ministry of Science and Arts of the State of Hessen. The research on this issue is being continued by Nergis Demirtaş and Ariane Schleicher in the framework of their ongoing PhD studies at Goethe University of Frankfurt.

5 Other studies also show how important is it for the migrant men keeping up with their self-expectations related to the breadwinner position (Aybek et al., 2015, p. 33).

6 This marriage come to existence due to a rather new phenomenon: namely, the transnationalization of social work and transnational NGO work. Gaby Strasburger talks also about emergence of such a new type of transnational ties, calling them as post-migratory (Strassburger, 2004, p. 213)

7 Behavioral confirmation is defined as ‘the feeling of doing or having done the right thing in the eyes of a relevant other (including yourself)’ (Lindenberg, 2001, p. 648).

Additional information

Funding

This work benefited from the financial support of the “Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst (HMWK)”, the University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS), and the Franco-German University, Saarbrücken, Germany (DFH-UFA).