The Contested Meaning of Care in Migration Law.

Abstract: This article discusses the changing role that care work performed in private homes has played, and continues to play, in migration law in the Netherlands and at the EU level. It does this by reviewing case law of the European Court of Justice (CJEU) and of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against the background of the Dutch case. After discussing an essay by Wendy Brown on the role of the state in currently changing gender orders, the article ends by questioning to what degree the tensions, contradictions and confusion regarding the value and nature of care work performed in the home, manifest in migration law, might open space for a feminist response to increasing state control over women’s lives.

Keywords: family migration policy – European migration law – domestic work – ethics of care – biopolitics