Contesting Imaginations of Romantic Love: An Ethnographic Analysis from the European Border

Abstract

Imagination has become an important social practice throughout the world in times of globalization and deterritorialization, as argued by the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai. This development has an effect on the formation of romantic relationships: more and more couples meet across borders. Migration through marriage has become one of the most important legal channels to Europe. In this article, I argue that romantic love can be understood as imagination and, thereby, as a driving force for migration. At the same time, imaginations of romantic love are in the focus of migration control and, consequently, highly contested and shaped by different state actors while travelling across borders.

Keywords: romantic love, marriage, migration, border regime, imagination