Seminar: Mixed-Citizenship Couples and Immigration Control
Open Seminar on Friday, May 16th, 2025, 13.00-16.00 (EEST/UTC+3) at the Migration Institute of Finland (Turku) and Online (Zoom)
Mixed-Citizenship Couples and Immigration Control: Perspectives on Lived Experiences, the Law, and Its Implementation
A warm welcome to a seminar organized by the INDEFI-project (funded by the Research Council of Finland), where we will present the project’s final results! Deportability and migration regulations are shaping the lives of those with insecure immigration status, increasingly affecting citizens in mixed-citizenship relationships. We will explore how the intimate sphere and migration regulations intertwine, the migrantisation of citizens, and how being subject to immigration control affects belonging and can be seen as a politics of emotions.
The INDEFI-project has analyzed decisions based on family ties with Finnish citizens by the Finnish Immigration Service, interviewed mixed-citizenship couples seeking family reunification in Finland, and conducted interviews with practitioners and NGOs.
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Melanie Griffiths (University of Birmingham) will provide insights into mixed-citizenship families in the UK context. Additionally, we will hear commentaries from various practitioners.
Registration: Please register here on May 14 at the latest to participate either on-site at the Migration Institute of Finland, Turku, or online.
Organized by: The project "Intimate Geographies of Bordering: Deportability and Its Effects on Finnish Citizens with Foreign Spouses and Their Extended Families" (Migration Institute of Finland, Funded by the Research Council of Finland, 2021-2025)
13.00-13.45: Keynote by Melanie Griffiths: The Home Office in the Home: Deportability and Mixed-citizenship families in the UK (see abstract below)
13.45-14.30: INDEFI project’s central results
● Project PI, Saara Pellander: Introduction: Intimate geographies of bordering
● Eveliina Lyytinen: Feminist geolegality and experiential migrantisation
● Mimosa Suontama and Pihla Siim: Mixed-citizenship couples at the borders of belonging
● Jaana Palander: Tragic incommensurability and politics of emotions in determining real family life
14.30-14.45: Short coffee break/snack
14.45-15.30: Commentaries by lawyer Ville Punto, Representative from the Finnish Immigration service, Auralan Setlementti (NGO) Project Manager Outi Tikkanen
15.30-16.00: Discussion and questions
A participation link to the Zoom will be emailed to the registered participants before the webinar.
Any questions? Contact Saara Pellander: saara.pellander@migrationinstitute.fi
Keynote abstract: The Home Office in the Home: Deportability and Mixed-citizenship families in the UK (see abstract below)
This talk explores the ways immigration systems infiltrate the private realm to affect people beyond those directly subject to immigration rules. It draws from a qualitative study of mixed-citizenship couples and families in the UK consisting of foreign national men and their British partners and/or children. It combines interviews with couples and immigration practitioners with observation of deportation appeals to gain insight into assessments of the genuineness of family ties and the degree of harm considered legitimate in the process of enforcing immigration rules. The talk considers how the precarious or illegalised immigration status of one family member affects the whole family, including members whose British citizenship exempts them from the UK’s immigration system. Drawing on the notion of ‘migrantisation’, it examines the vicarious effects of a loved one’s legal insecurity, forced worklessness and risk of immigration detention or deportation, on their British partner/children’s health, financial security, identity and wellbeing. It teases apart the intersectional biases, questioning how the ethnicity, gender and socio-economic status of binational family members operate within this legal field, and what it tells us about contemporary discourses of belonging and value.