Femmes canadiennes et intimités transnationales : mobilités, ancrages et réunification conjugale

In a global context characterized as much by its flows of information, ideas, people and goods as by the increasing impermeability of national borders, what are the dynamics at play in the development of intimacies and conjugal projects between Canadian women and men from the Global South? This anthropological study explores the lived experience of the romantic encounter, the development of intimacy during periods of physical co-presence and periods of separateness, marriage and the Canadian spousal reunification process from the perspective of Canadian women involved in transnational relationships with men from the Global South. It draws on the women’s narratives of their conjugal and mobility trajectories, on eighteen months of participant observation in two online support group designed for women in binational relationships, as well as on interviews with other key actors.  First, this thesis examines the romantic encounter and at the development of intimacy. It appears that for the women, the dynamics of conjugality, mobility and dwelling are all interconnected. However, they differ depending on whether the women lived in the country of her partner or the relationship developed mainly at a distance, such as when the romantic encounter occurred on the Internet or during a vacation trip. In the first case, the choice of destination and the conjugal trajectory of the women are generally the continuation of a familiarization with alterity that started early in their lives. In the second case, the women’s transnational intimacy generates a form of romantic hyper-mobility fueled by the intensity and the frequency of the visits to their husband, and by an extensive use of communication technologies. However, in both cases, the man’s mobility constraints rapidly become a limitation to the development of the relationship.   Second, this thesis explores the lived experience of the Canadian spousal reunification process. This bureaucratic process represents such a great investment on the part of the women that it becomes emotionally loaded and acquires great symbolic value, which, in turn, contributes to the reification of the women’s conjugal project. However, the legitimacy of the relationship is constantly questioned throughout the process—in forms to fill out and in interviews with immigration agents. Hence, the difficulties encountered in the reunification procedures are experienced as a set of administrative trials imposed on their relationship. Because of their first hand experience of this “economy of suspicion”, the women sponsors develop increased reflexivity about their couple relationship and form support networks where information and experiences are shared and discussed and where they question, redefine and reproduce conjugal norms.   Finally, this study demonstrates how trajectories of mobility, dwelling and conjugality are intimately connected. Canadian women’s matrimonial projects with men from the Global South propel their geographical and virtual mobility and thus reinforce their transnational habitus. However, the spousal reunification process acts as a national and a moral border. It contributes to augment the vulnerability of the women, and questions their ability (and their right) to make a legitimate matrimonial choice.

Keyphrases: Mariage binational, Immigration, Spousal reunification, Binational marriage, Love, Mobility, Women, Encounter, Communication technologies, Anthropology