TY - JOUR

T1 - Appropriating mobility and bordering Europe through romantic love

T2 - Unearthing the intricate intertwinement of border regimes and migratory practices

AU - Scheel, Stephan

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. This work was supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. 615588. Principal Investigator, Evelyn Ruppert, Goldsmiths, University of London.

PY - 2017/11/1

Y1 - 2017/11/1

N2 - This article introduces the notion of appropriation in debates on how to account for migrants' capacity to defy restrictive border controls and migration policies. What the notion of appropriation better captures than concepts like agency or resistance is the multi-faceted and intricate intertwinement of border regimes and migratory practices. The article illustrates this advantage through an analysis of the phenomenon of bezness. The term refers to a migration strategy of aspiring migrants who seduce and subsequently marry European tourists as a way to gain entry to and residency in Europe. This article develops a reading of bezness as a mode of appropriation of mobility which is intertwined with the border regime in at least four ways: First, bezness is provoked by restrictive visa policies that create a highly unequal access to mobility and life opportunities. The case of bezness illustrates, second, that migrants try to recode the methods, logics and effects of mobility control into means of appropriation. Migrants' practices of appropriation involve, third, the clandestine transgression of the norms, rules and regulations that define particular border regimes. Finally, the notion of appropriation permits to recognize that the European border regime operates as an apparatus of capture that tries to recuperate migrants' practices in order to turn them into a driving force for its own development. The example of bezness demonstrates, moreover, that these processes of recuperation also feature the mobilization of emotions-in this case of romantic love-as technologies of government.

AB - This article introduces the notion of appropriation in debates on how to account for migrants' capacity to defy restrictive border controls and migration policies. What the notion of appropriation better captures than concepts like agency or resistance is the multi-faceted and intricate intertwinement of border regimes and migratory practices. The article illustrates this advantage through an analysis of the phenomenon of bezness. The term refers to a migration strategy of aspiring migrants who seduce and subsequently marry European tourists as a way to gain entry to and residency in Europe. This article develops a reading of bezness as a mode of appropriation of mobility which is intertwined with the border regime in at least four ways: First, bezness is provoked by restrictive visa policies that create a highly unequal access to mobility and life opportunities. The case of bezness illustrates, second, that migrants try to recode the methods, logics and effects of mobility control into means of appropriation. Migrants' practices of appropriation involve, third, the clandestine transgression of the norms, rules and regulations that define particular border regimes. Finally, the notion of appropriation permits to recognize that the European border regime operates as an apparatus of capture that tries to recuperate migrants' practices in order to turn them into a driving force for its own development. The example of bezness demonstrates, moreover, that these processes of recuperation also feature the mobilization of emotions-in this case of romantic love-as technologies of government.

KW - Autonomy of migration

KW - Border regime

KW - Marriage migration

KW - Migrant agency

KW - Sex tourism

KW - Visa policy

KW - Sociology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85043602736&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1093/migration/mnx047

DO - 10.1093/migration/mnx047

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85043602736

VL - 5

SP - 389

EP - 408

JO - Migration Studies

JF - Migration Studies

SN - 2049-5838

IS - 3

ER -