The Right to a Family Life and the Biometric 'Truth' of Family Reunification: Somali Refugees in Denmark.

FAMILY reunification; REFUGEES; FAMILIES; RIGHT to life (International law); BIOMETRY; NUCLEAR families

Biometric assessment of refugees' applications for family reunification has become standard practice in many countries when 'credible' legal documentation of kin relations is lacking. Studies have criticised biometrics for objectifying families as bio-genetic units as part of a 'new regime of truth' that regards bodies as sources of truth about individuals 'real' identity. This article argues that, while biometric verification poses severe limitations on the right to reunification, it does not undo refugees' agency. Ethnographic analysis of Somali refugees' family unification in Denmark since the 1990s demonstrates how they have actively negotiated shifting legislation, initially applying their own interpretation of the family and attempting to circumvent biometric control, eventually appropriating the biometrically defined nuclear family as a practical tool to rework family life under new social conditions. This points to the importance of recognising the agency of those exposed to the truth regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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