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Abstract
The discussion of marriage migration in Denmark primarily has focused on citizens of immigrant descent (‘New Danes’) who marry partners from their ancestral homeland (often Turkey or Pakistan). This type of marriage migration was the target of the strict Danish family reunification policy instituted in 2002. This article examines the genealogy of the morality underpinning the family reunification policies and asks whether the rules actually promote this moral agenda or have unintended consequences. Empirically, I shift the focus from immigrant Danes to native Danes who marry Cubans. Finally, while little attention is paid to the non-western country involved, transnational marriages always involve two nations. This article investigates how state policies on both ends of this migration trajectory shape moral-territorial borders that transnational couples navigate.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for comments on earlier versions of this article from Jennifer Cole, Karen Fog Olwig, Tina G. Jensen, Anika Liversage, Mikkel Rytter and two anonymous reviewers.
Notes
1. The reforms included the following requirements: (1) Both partners must be over 24 years old; (2) The partner in Denmark must have adequate housing of a reasonable size; (3) The partner in Denmark must be able to provide for spouse and must not have received public financial assistance in the previous year; (4) The partner in Denmark must post money (100,000 DKK in 2011) as collateral to cover any possible public assistance the municipality may have to pay after foreign spouse moved to Denmark; and (5) The total ‘national attachment’ of the married couple should be at least as great to Denmark as to any other country.
2. See Jørgensen (Citation2012) for excellent overview of the history leading up to this legislation and Rytter (2012) for how the legislation is surrounded in discourses of humanism, securitisation and nationalism. Jöhncke (Citation2011) insightfully examines the development of and identification with the Danish welfare state, which many see as threatened by the presence of non-Western immigrants (Jöhncke Citation2011, Jørgensen Citation2012).
3. Bledsoe and Sow (2011) use a similar tactic examining different African immigrant groups to highlight the contradictions that emerge in humanitarian approaches to family reunification in Spain and Germany.
4. Cubans marrying Danes in another European country would not show up in these numbers.
5. Mulatto is the common racial terminology used in Cuba for mixed-race individuals, and it is the term by which some of my informants self-identify.
6. This article focuses only on Danish women with Cuban men. I will examine the opposite couple configurations in other writings.
7. Wardlow and Hirsch (Citation2006) note the presence of ‘courtly love’ as early as the eleventh century, and Povinelli (Citation2002) also cites changes contributing to this shift as early as the fifteenth century. The dates cited here mark a period when many of these earlier trends converged to solidify and popularise the idea of love-based marriage in the West.
8. Recent research demonstrates that these ideals are prevalent now throughout the world (Cole Citation2009, Thomas Citation2009, Wardlow and Hirsch Citation2006).
9. Ethnic Danes can legally marry their cousins.
10. For the full list of criteria, see the Danish Immigration Service website http://www.nyidanmark.dk
11. The government under Raul Castro is only now easing some of these restrictions.
12. In Denmark, it is possible to seek family reunification as a domestic partner without being legally married, but Dayron and Pernilla did not meet the stringent 18 month cohabitation requirement. Furthermore, this would not have allowed Dayron to exit Cuba with the PRE. Though he could have applied for the PRE after leaving Cuba, but he would not take that risk. Many Cubans fear that their applications for the PRE are more likely to be rejected if they have already left the country.
13. The amount of collateral required has varied. In 2013, the required amount is 50,800 Danish kroner.
14. Eggebø (Citation2010) notes similar issues of spousal dependency occur under Norwegian family reunification laws.
15. Similar issues of economic dependency are also relevant for Danish men with foreign wives. The young Cuban women I interviewed tended to marry slightly older and more established Danish men. These men did not need to rely on their parents for financial help, but their Cuban wives certainly were dependent at least initially on their husbands financially and for their residency visas.
16. Given my theoretical framework, I argue that states see some cross-border marriages are more suspect if they fall into the model of a ‘genealogical society’ rather than the modern ‘autological subject’. The Thai–Danish marriages, for example, may combine love and interest, but these unions are not based on what the Enlightenment saw as unreason – genealogical inheritances. By comparison, the Turkish/Pakistani intra-ethnic marriages are seen to represent pre-Enlightenment patterns of the genealogical society. Thus, they are perceived as dangerous to the modern state.
17. See Charanga Habanera's song ‘El Temba’ and Alexander Abreu's group Havana d'Primera with the song ‘Carita de Pasaporte’.