Anne Balke Staver and Helga Eggebø recently published a new article in the journal Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society as part of the REMIMO project, entitled Everything but the Marriage Certificate: Unmarried Partners in Norwegian Immigration Regulation.
As summarized in the abstract:
Pandemic border closures separated previously transnational couples, including unmarried partners, revealing under-researched forms of transnational family life. From this point of departure, we reexamine Norwegian family immigration regulation for unmarried partners from the 1980s onwards. Societal norms around coupledom have shifted toward Giddens’s “pure relationship.” Yet, immigration regulations have focused on “problematic marriages,” such as forced marriages or marriages of convenience. While unmarried partners have a right to family reunification after two years’ cohabitation, this requires prior permission to live in the same country. We investigate three sites of contestation where appeals are made to intimacy norms: The Liberal party’s “love visa” proposal, sponsors’ statements in case files, and protests from same-sex couples. Even in “cohabitation land,” these appeals ultimately come up against immigration control. This investigation contributes to the literatures on the transformation of intimacy and family migration; in particular, immigration regulation for unmarried same- and opposite-sex partners.»
Link to article in open access, where the abstract is taken from.
While it is not entirely obvious from the abstract what the link to money in migration is, the income requirement is a central part of Norwegian family immigration regulation. Another central feature of the Norwegian family immigration rules is the important distinction between family reunification and formation, meaning relationships that pre-date or post-date migration. These categories interact with the income rules in particular ways for unmarried partners, and most especially for refugees. Refugees are exempted from the income requirement if they seek to reunite with existing partners, but must meet it in cases of family formation. We address in the article how queer refugees struggle to have their partnerships that predate flight recognized in Norway, due to the ways unmarried partners are defined for family reunification purposes. The consequence of the failure of recognition is that they must meet steep income rules, or remain separated if they do not.