Mobile lives, immutable facts: family reunification of children in Finland

Abstract

The right to family has been confirmed by myriad human rights covenants and it forms an acknowledged part of migration policies. Yet family reunification has become an increasingly contested issue, something reflected in a recent restrictive turn in migration policies throughout Europe. Policy reforms speak of a growing polarity between, on the one hand, adherence to the 'best interest of the child' and family life, and on the other, suspicion of fraud. This article examines these tensions via exploration of family reunification procedures in Finland, particularly applications sponsored by minors, thereby drawing attention to the notion of 'the anchor child'. Drawing on decisions by the Administrative Court of Helsinki as well as interviews with experts and the people concerned, the writers discuss how these polarities are managed in practice, centring their analysis on a quest for truth that deploys various methods, particularly DNA analysis and oral hearings. Ultimately the article highlights an intrinsic paradox in family reunification policies that incorporates the aspiration to produce facts amounting to 'immutable mobiles' (Latour, Bruno. 1986. 'Visualization and cognition: Thinking with the eyes and hands.' Knowledge and Society 6 (6): 1-40.) and the evident weight of contingent temporalities.

Care as mundane politics: contested familial refugee lives in Finland

“…In agreement with many scholars we find that they fail to follow the basic line set by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (1990, article 23), where the right to found a family means the possibility to procreate and live together with significant family members, with the support of appropriate measures by states (e.g. Honkasalo et al 2017;Tapaninen et al 2017;Virtanen 2017;Saarikkomäki et al 2018).…”

“…Ahmed-Ghosh 2003;Robinson 2011;Raghuram 2016;Baines 2015). In refugee situations, significant conditioning forces include cultural traditions and norms that pertain to family life, and the states' migration regimes that regulate issues such as family reunification (Al-Sharmani 2010; Lippert and Pyykkönen 2012;Tapaninen et al 2017).…”

Children Crossing Borders: Latin American Migrant Childhoods

“…Although the Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends that family should be defined in a broad way "provided these [definitions] are consistent with children's rights and best interests" (UNCRC 2006), many countries employ narrow definitions of family to limit to children the right to family reunification. Tapaninen, Halme-Tuomisaari, and Kankaanpää (2019) argue that Finland has enacted a strict family reunification policy to deter families from sending children alone as a migration strategy to obtain regularization for the rest of the family. This policy was implemented under the guise of protecting children, but it is instead meant to preclude future family CHAPTER 7…”

Biometrics in the World of Electronic Borders

“…Such confidential information in the context of border crossing enforcement could be utilised to discriminat e between individuals [8], [6]. Basically there has been no ethnographic fieldwork situations in relation to ethical issues with significant exceptions to the studies by Rao and Nair of India's national biometric identification programme [9], [10], [11]and the DNA testing research by Finnish researchers [12]. Other challenges will be identified in detail.…”