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AMORE (Awareness & Migration: Organizations for bi-national family Rights Empowerment) aims to bring an action-research approach to the study of migration policies and administrative practices regulating access to citizenship and residence permits. This project will focus on bi-national married families formed by a third country national (TCN) and a European Union (EU) citizen. A TCN is a citizen of a non-EU country who resides in a EU Member State, and is thus affected by a specific administrative practices and regulations. In bi-national families, these practices unexpectedly affect the EU spouse too. By focusing on the unintended consequences of migration policies for EU citizens, the question that this project addresses is at what point these policies and practices threaten family life freedom, considered a universal human right. While their problem is still largely unknown, bi-national family members are actively participating in bottom-up Civil Society associations to defend bi-national families and migrants' rights.
Using the biographical policy evaluation method to achieve its goals, the project will compare different scenarios in three cities: Brussels, Strasbourg and Turin. In order to be effective and reduce variables, only one foreign nationality will be studied, namely migrants from Morocco (TCN) married to an Italian/Belgian/French citizen (UE citizen). The study of the impact of migrations policies on family members' experiences and strategies implies investigating also those public officers involved in the implementation of the administrative practices concerning these bi-national families and taking into account people from their social surroundings. After studying individual agency, the observation will be turned to associations that have competences to solve juridical cases and to carry out political lobbying involving directly those bi-national family members. This particular kind of association represents a form of active bottom-up citizenship.
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