Introduction: ‘A First Generation in Every Generation’? Spousal Immigration and Integration

Anxiety over the power of family ties to perpetuate immigration flows is a prominent feature of contemporary British and wider European migration discourse. Since the last decade of the twentieth century, the political spotlight has focused on particular forms of spousal immigration and increasingly shines through a lens of problematic integration. In this introductory chapter, we explore dominant discourses representing ethnic minority transnational marriages as a challenge to integration, before introducing the mixed-methods research project from which data for this book is drawn.