In July 2012 the
Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition government introduced a new set of
family migration rules. These rules set a sharp increase in the minimum income
threshold for people sponsoring partners and children to join them in the UK.
Consequently, there has been a significant reduction in the number of visas
granted through the family migration route.
The journal Critical Social Policy has just published an
article I have written which examines these new rules. The article is called ‘‘All
need is love and £18,600’: class and the new UK family migration rules’ and
started life as a
post
last year on this blog. This
article explores the themes of class in connection to transnational
relationships and citizenship in the formulation of the new family migration
rules, in the justifications that have been made for the rules and in the
impact of the rules on applicants. It is argued that in the context of
international migration and transnational relationships, class-based moralism
and regulation has been entwined with exclusionary discourses on ethnicity,
national belonging and citizenship and has been extended beyond the
nation-state border towards the governing of particular kinds of international family.
NB/ The
quote in the title of the article is a slogan that has been used by campaigners
protesting against the impact of the new rules on families living apart.
No comments:
Post a Comment