Migrations for love : diversity and complexity in women’s migrations

This paper focuses on a specific kind of migration we call migration for love, which arose in the 1990s as a result of the emergence of the new world order characterized by the increasing role of ICTs. Exploring the migration projects of women who have migrated out of love reveals the complexity and diversity of migratory situations given that it uncovers the existence of motivations for migration that go beyond the model of economic causality attributed to migration. Love, the desire to raise a family on arrival, and emancipation are among the reasons given by women when explaining their decision to migrate. The field work, which mainly comprised more than 70 interviews of couples in a mixed marriage of Spanish men to Slavic or Latin American women has shown that the migration projects of women who migrate for love exhibit particular features which are explored in the article. The individualized nature of migration, the low intensity of transnational relations maintained by the migrant women, the absence of a project to return, and the process of integration of these women into the host society, in spite of being more convenient, lead them to eventually consolidate a situation of dependency on their partners.