Collectivity in waiting: transnational experiences in Swedish family reunification

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite notable bodies of literature on waiting in migration, on the importance of families in migrants’ decision-making and on transnational family life, the intersection of waiting as a collective experience remains largely unexplored. This study explores the added value of a collective lens on waiting through the case of family reunification in Sweden. With a qualitative method including semi-structured joint interviews, three couples’ reunification experiences depict waiting within student migration, refugee migration, for Swedish citizens and their respective partners. The interviews were chosen from a larger research material and analysed thematically with concepts from transnational family studies. Together, they show that collectivity may expand our understanding of waiting. As conditioned by Swedish welfare state, families’ caregiving practices were affected by prolonged waiting caused by parallel bureaucratic processes, while uncertain time frames and maintenance requirements undermined the couples’ own ability to plan, prompting both activity and passivity among those in waiting. As a lived experience, collectivity added mutual commitment, delegation of care, emotional support, and care practices as important roles in waiting.