Paper short abstract:

This paper builds upon research into the relationship between legal statuses and transnational family practices. It does so by exploring how one particular legal status - the spousal visa - impacts upon the maintenance of transnational family ties for migrant women in Hong Kong and Melbourne.

Paper long abstract:

In his work on superdiversity, Vertovec (2007) observes the importance immigration channels and legal statuses play in the lives of migrants. Immigration processes and statuses set out the legal terms and conditions for the acceptance of migrants into host societies and for regulating their social and economic participation. Yet, importantly, these statuses also act more subtly, encouraging particular ''performances of deservingness'' from migrants. Within transnational family studies, legal statuses have been found to influence the way in which family practices are performed within host societies and across borders (Fresnoza-Flot, 2009; Leifsen & Tymczuk, 2012). However, this research is still in its infancy with less work directly linking transnational family practices with social expectations or frames of "legal deservingness" (Chauvin & Garces-Mascarenas, 2014).

This paper builds upon research into the relationship between legal statuses and transnational family practices. It does so by exploring how one particular legal status - the spousal visa - influences transnational family ties. It specifically considers how the nature of the spousal visa as relationship-dependent and a form of liminal legality (Menjivar, 2006) impacts the transnational kin work (Baldassar, 2008) of cross-border relationship maintenance. Stories of female spousal visa holders in Hong Kong and Melbourne reveal the spousal visa to be a powerful force, pressuring them into positions of dependency in order to demonstrate their ''deservingness'' of this legal status. The paper explores how this pressure and dependent positioning, along with the performances of deservingness it encourages, impacts upon the maintenance (or not) of transnational family ties.