Embedding the Stranger: Ethnic Categories and Cultural Differences in Social Networks

Abstract

Ethnic categories and cultural differences are rooted in the structure of social networks. The segregation of migrant groups in networks of personal relationships determines the extent to which cultural differences can be bridged and the salience of ethnic categories in multicultural societies. Drawing on diverse theoretical strands from symbolic interactionism, social anthropology and Norbert Elias's figurational sociology to the relational sociology of Harrison White, Charles Tilly and others, the article aims at a network theoretical account of inter-ethnic relations, resonating with empirical research on personal networks of migrants. Alfred Schütz's Stranger, Robert Park's Marginal Man and Norbert Elias and John Scotson's Established and Outsiders as the emblematic figures of the sociology of migration are reconstructed in this framework as a common theoretical ground.