Since 2002, family reunification to Denmark has involved an assessment of the family combined attachment to the Danish nation. Thus, spouses seeking family reunification must prove their “combined attachment Denmark” to be “greater than to any other country” (The Alien Act §9, 2002). Suggesting the “attachment requirement” as a new form of affective border control, this article investigates what affective relationship between the nation and the family the concept of “national attachment” entails. It does so by investigating the definitions and conceptualization of family, nation and attachment as they are reflected in the official application forms for migrants and Danish nationals applying for family reunification. The empirical material consist of the application packets and forms to be filled by the applicant applying for family reunification with the spouse residing in Denmark, as well as the spouse/cohabiting partner residing in Denmark. Investigating the documentation required for proving national attachment, the article asks: What can these forms tell us about attachment as a new way of instrumentalising the biopolitical potential of affect? How are affective investments (in a spouse, in the nation-state, in the notional community) thought to be documented in the forms, and thus evaluated by officials? And what kinds of affective relationships and families become in/-recognizable in the eyes of the Danish Immigration System based on such evaluations?

Sofie Jeholm has an MA in Danish Studies and Gender Studies from the University of Copenhagen. She is currently a PhD student at PhD student at the Centre for Gender Studies, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen. Her PhD project The Function of Attachment in Cases of Family Reunification is a part of the collective research project Loving Attachment: Regulating Danish Love Migration (LOVA). Her project takes it point of departure in family reunification cases and investigates how the applicants’ attachment has been evaluated by the Danish immigration system from 2000 to 2015.

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