Mixed-citizenship couples’ emotional geographies of ‘doing family’

Abstract While studies on mixed-citizenship couples predominantly focus on challenges and problems the families face because of immigration control, the emotional strategies of couples resisting exclusion remain untheorised. To address this gap, we propose an analytical approach that combines the frameworks of ‘doing family’ and ‘emotional geographies’ through the notion of ‘scale’. Our empirical data from Finland focuses on two types of couple and their networks: those in which a foreign partner originating from outside Europe has sought asylum, and those who in the majority have migrated for study or family reasons. Our analysis shows how these mixed-citizen couples have developed various coping strategies and forms of resistance focused on three intertwined and mutually reinforcing geographical scales: (trans)national, local, and intimate. Our findings show how integrating doing family and emotional geographies reveals the ways in which state power operates across scales to racialise belonging. By applying various emotionally, spatially and temporally informed strategies in restrictive contexts defined by immigration control, couples are ‘doing’ their families through narratives, silencing and various everyday practices.