Paper short abstract:

The text explores the perspectives of German foreign missions on the control of marriage migration. The ethnography of the study reveals the multilayered space of border control and specifies strategies and practices of transformation of female migrants into securitized subjects.

Paper long abstract:

Marriage migration is interesting in two regards. Firstly, it has its own dimension of securitization of borders in a form of prevention of commercial marriage trafficking ("mail-order brides") and sex trafficking. Mainly female migrants, thus, become subjectivized into security threats. Secondly, in case of marriage migration, consulate personnel have to deal with intimate, yet culturally shaped notions of love and marriage. This presupposes the involvement of local staff with their social and cultural expertise into the decision-making process. They accept documents, do initial interviewing, make remarks on the cases. On the whole, they bring a new layer of discourses, processes of subjectivation and techniques of inspection into the topography of border control.

This paper takes a closer look at the strategies, practices, and notions of marriage migration management at external border control agencies of Germany. It incorporates (auto-)ethnography at embassies, consulates and cultural centers of Germany in Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Findings suggest that "doing policy" at these relocated borders with their cultural and social daily negotiations is an intertwined part of a transnational system of vigilance, preshaped by German politics and European right.

This project is a part of a bigger research project "Sonderforschungsbereich 1369" at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich dedicated to the Cultures of Vigilance (Transformation, Spaces, Techniques).