Abstract
AbstractThis article is situated at the nexus of migration research and qualitative social network analysis (SNA). While migration scholars often engage with networks simply as metaphors, I go further by examining how a thorough engagement with qualitative SNA can contribute to migration research in at least three key ways. First, exploring changing relational ties over time and across different places, including transnationally, I demonstrate that qualitative SNA offers new insights into how migrants make sense of these dynamic relationships. Second, following Dahinden (2016), I examine how using networks as a data collection method can help to unsettle the a priori ethnic lens in researching migration. Moreover, building on the pioneering work of network scholars such as Mische and White, I aim to make a methodological contribution by analysing how social networks are co‐constructed as stories and pictures in research encounters.
Highlights
Migration researchers have long been interested in the role of social networks in the trajectories and experiences of migrants (Boyd 1989)
I have sought to contribute at the nexus of migration and social network research by considering how migration research can benefit from the tools and vocabulary of qualitative social networks analysis (SNA) (Bilecen et al 2018)
Instead of treating networks as fixed entities to be captured, measured and analysed through the research process, I have drawn on classic network theory (Mische and White 1998), to understand networks as ‘discursive devices’ that are located within particular socio-structural contexts
Summary
Migration researchers have long been interested in the role of social networks in the trajectories and experiences of migrants (Boyd 1989). As observed by early network scholars such as Burt (1982) and Krackhardt (1987), the network data collected by researchers are not so much an accurate reflection. I consider how I engage with participants in processes of co-constructing networks to make complex, diverse and dynamic relationships visible in particular ways – through words and pictures. I consider the extent to which ‘network stories’ can provide important insights into the ethnic composition of social ties and following Dahinden (2016), go beyond the a priori approach to ethnicity that has so dominated migration research (Glick Schiller et al 2006)
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