A Real Marriage? Applying for Marriage Migration to Norway

Abstract

Marriages of convenience have become a central concern in political debates about immigration policy. According to Norwegian regulations, the right to marriage migration only applies to ‘real’ relationships. The notion of a real or genuine marriage, as opposed to a marriage of convenience, raises the question of what characterises a legitimate intimate relationship. Based on interviews with the parties involved, this article investigates how marriage migrants and their partners perceive the application process for marriage migration to Norway, and how they are affected by the idea of marriages of convenience. It argues that the scholarly literature on contemporary intimate relationships is relevant to studies of migration and provides important insights into the narratives of marriage migrants and their partners. On the one hand, ‘the pure relationship’ seems to be one standard against which cross-border marriages are sometimes judged. On the other hand, the ideal of the pure relationship is also used by marriage migrants and their partners to question immigration regulations. The pure relationship is one, but far from the only, normative ideal present in the narratives of my interviewees. Interviewees draw on several different, and sometimes contradictory, norms, ideals and narratives of intimacy when they talk about and justify their own relationships, after being confronted with the immigration regulation's requirement for a ‘real marriage’.

Keywords:

• Marriages of Convenience
• Marriage Migration
• Intimacy
• Pure Relationship
• Application Process

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Mette Andersson, Tone Hellesund and Martin Overå Johnsen for valuable comments. I also thank my research group at the Uni Rokkan Centre and colleagues at the Department of Sociology for comments on earlier drafts.

Notes

1. Terms such as ‘bogus’, ‘fake’, ‘sham’, ‘residence’ or ‘bad-faith’ marriages, and ‘marriage blanc’, are used to describe what is known in Norway as a ‘pro forma marriage’. For the sake of conceptual clarity, this article will use the term ‘marriage of convenience’.

2. In a recent study of marriages of convenience, sociologist Pål Vegard Hagesæther suggests that ‘the pure relationship’ functions as the ideal that cross-border marriages are judged against in the Norwegian context (Hagesæther 2008: 28). Pei-Chia Lan has studied female migration to Taiwan, and suggests that the practices of immigration control privilege ‘pure relationships’ and devalue traditional marriages (Lan 2008: 846).

3. The concept of ‘marriage migration’, or more specifically ‘cross-border marriage migration’, includes the migration of one spouse following the other (family reunion), as well as family formations—people who marry across borders (Williams 2010: 5). ‘Family migration’ includes both marriage migration and reunion with other family members (children, parents etc).

4. According to Norwegian policy-makers, efforts to prevent marriages of convenience should focus on family formation rather than on family reunion (AID 2007; NOU 2004); however, the rules and regulations are the same for both categories.

5. Data from fieldwork include interviews, observational data and case files where marriage of convenience had been suspected. Elsewhere, I have analysed policy documents (Eggebø 2010) and the accounts of employees at the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (Eggebø 2012). A comprehensive analysis of this material is outside the scope of this article.

6. I use the term ‘immigration administration’ to cover the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration, the Immigration Appeals Board, local police units and migration-related staff at Norwegian embassies. Applicants are usually interviewed by embassy personnel in their country of origin, and sponsors are interviewed by the local police in Norway (Econ Pöyry 2010: 33–43).

7. A family immigration permit is temporary and, if the spouses do not live together, separate or divorce, the residence permit is withdrawn. After three years of temporary permits, a migrant can apply for a permanent one. A permanent residence permit is not contingent on the marriage and grants the marriage migrant an independent residence status. For an overview of similar regulations in other European countries, see the EMN report (2008).