Abstract
The article explores how different factors shape migrants’ transnational social fields and support networks through a comparative study of two different groups of migrants—asylum seekers and expatriates—in Budapest, Hungary. To do so, the study employs a parallel mixed‐methods social network design by combining personal network data with qualitative data based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with thirty‐three migrants in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis. The article presents three key findings: First, it finds that asylum seekers’ and expatriates’ networks differ on several key characteristics, as asylum seekers’ close personal networks are less efficient, smaller in size, and show a remarkable lack of friendship and transnational support ties. Second, it also finds that asylum seekers have limited access to social support and, especially so, to financial and emotional support. Lastly, using multi‐level models, the article also demonstrates how migrants’ legal status and the transnationality of their support ties affect their access to financial support, as well as how their gender and legal status shape their access to emotional support. These findings illustrate how migrants’ individual opportunity structures affect their transnational practices alongside their access to social support, while also highlighting the importance of several individual and contextual factors which contribute to the diverse integration processes of migrants.
Highlights
While the free movement of people has long been a key value of the EU, leading to 11.3 million European citizens living in another EU member state, the unprecedented influx of approximately 1.3 million asylum seekers in 2015 has squarely put the issue of migrant integration in the European spotlight (European Commission, 2017; Pew Research Centre, 2016)
A large difference can be observed between the portion of ties that the respondents con‐ sider as either “friend” or as “other.” While 60.0% of expatriates’ ties in the full networks are categorised as a friend, it is only 22.2% for asylum seekers
The results have shown that migrants form a heteroge‐ nous group, where their transnational practices and social support networks are actively shaped by several factors, such as their legal status, gender, language skills, employment opportunities and sending country condi‐ tions
Summary
While the free movement of people has long been a key value of the EU, leading to 11.3 million European citizens living in another EU member state, the unprecedented influx of approximately 1.3 million asylum seekers in 2015 has squarely put the issue of migrant integration in the European spotlight (European Commission, 2017; Pew Research Centre, 2016). Transnationalism refers to migrants’ social fields that link together their country of origin and their country of Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 4, Pages 254–265 settlement, through developing different familial, eco‐ nomic, social, political, organizational, and religious rela‐ tions that span borders (Portes et al, 1999; Schiller et al, 1992). Migrants are considered to be embedded in multi‐layered and multi‐sited transnational social fields encompassing various forms of transnational activities (Levitt & Schiller, 2004). This process challenges some of the fundamental aspects of assimilation and contact theory (Allport, 1979; Park et al, 1921), which posits that migrants over time will decrease their ties to their country of origin and will gradually replace them with ties to the host society (Verdery et al, 2018).
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