Transnational Social Networks Research Articles

Constructing migrant capital in Belgium: migrants’ views on the translation of capital types across fields and time

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the growing scholarship on ‘migrant capital’ by examining the social, cultural, and economic capital acquired and used by 29 migrants living in Belgium, building further on the ‘Multi-Level Spatio-Temporal Analytical Framework’ [Erel, U., and L. Ryan. 2019. “Migrant Capitals: Proposing a Multi-Level Spatio-Temporal Analytical Framework.” Sociology 53 (2): 246–263. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038518785298], to understand how these capital types are translated, using local and transnational social networks, into the new field and how these feeds into ‘migrant capital’. Findings show that migrant capital differs based on migration history, migration drivers and the existence and structures of migrant communities and having transnational networks. Migrant capital shapes acculturation processes after arrival in Belgium.

Le stress parental chez des familles migrantes : le rôle des réseaux transnationaux

Parenthood can be a source of stress, especially for parents with young children. For migrants, the task is made more complex by cultural differences and the child's integration into a psychic filiation. Traditionally, parents rely on a social group to help them cope with the demands of parenthood. However, this support may be lacking in migratory situations. The literature in psychology has little data available on the composition of social support networks, particularly for transnational networks. The aim of this study is therefore to explore both the local and transnational support networks for migrant parents with respect to a sense of stress for parents. The sample consisted of 62 migrant parents living in Switzerland, and a quantitative and qualitative methodology was used to analyze the data. The results revealed that migrant parents maintain both local and transnational social networks to cope with the challenges of parenting. First-time arrivals have a less well-developed local support network and a corresponding higher level of parental stress. The density of the local support network increases with the duration of residency in Switzerland.

International Student Mobility in the Context of Migration and Development

The impact of international student mobility on the development in countries of origin is an under-researched topic in migration studies. In a global knowledge economy, immigration countries in the Global North perceive international students almost exclusively as ideal immigrants who are (mostly) young, flexible, and highly skilled when they enter the labour market after graduation. However, international students can play an important role for their countries of origin. For instance, our own research on international students and alumni from selected countries in the Global South (Colombia, Georgia, Ghana, and Indonesia) studying in Germany and the United States shows that they transfer development-related knowhow back to their country of origin by doing diverse activities in leading positions. They do that through return migration as well as by remaining in the country of graduation (by creating transnational social networks from abroad) and through circular mobility. However, these processes need more institutional support. Therefore, international student mobility should be an integral part of global migration governance, where scholarships for students from poor countries are the key drivers for international mobility. These considerations can stimulate the broader discussion about international migration and development.

Transnational Quaker pacifism and the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. A qualitative case study of two network nodes connecting Finland to Scandinavia and the Anglo‐Saxon world 1919–1961

AbstractIn this article, I will ask, how the international networks of peace movements have influenced the development of Quaker pacifism in Fenno‐Scandinavia. The question is answered with qualitative social network analysis when analyzing the vocational development of two Quaker network nodes, Greta Langenskjöld (1889–1975) and Deryck Sivén (1913–2002). Based on the analysis, I argue that the International Fellowship of Reconciliation provided the most important transnational social network to introduce Quakerism to Fenno‐Scandinavia. Before this, Evangelicalism, Tolstoian Christian anarchism, and Theosophist socialism had molded the ground fitting for the Quaker‐Socialist networks of the IFOR.

Who is Sending Remittances? Understanding Global Networks of Support

Remittances are sent by migrants to their families and friends back home. That definition, over the past few decades, has been the accepted understanding of the concept in discussions related to personal international money transfers (PIMTs), and in-kind and person-to-person cash transfers. However, no mechanism exists at present that can pinpoint the identity of the sender beyond an acknowledgment of the location from where remittances are sent. This study shows that a significant percentage of PIMTs are sent by non-migrant actors. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data gathered in coastal Kenya, the discussion shows that transnational social networks that lead to the receiving of PIMTs include senders whose citizenship is different from that of the recipient. The data point to growing interconnectedness among social actors of the global community through tourism, business, missionary activity, and humanitarianism, and is relevant to understanding the function of remittances in the global economy.

Bodies on the Move: Central Americans’ Strategies for Coping with the Marks of Irregularity

In the current migration system, mobility in an irregular context affects the migrant body physically and mentally. This article seeks to identify the ways irregular Central American migrants in transit through Mexico continue their journey northwards despite the physical demands of the route. Through the analysis of forty-two in-depth interviews with migrants, it shows how migrants respond to this experience through a repertoire of actions developed in a context of marginalization. Two practices illustrate the strategies and resources they use to resist. The first is the mobilization of a cultural capital of migration within both local and transnational social networks in their countries of origin, transit, and destination, through economic and technological resources. The second is physical and mental resistance based on optimism underpinned by values such as the family and faith.

Continuities and Discontinuities in a Transnational Social Field: The Case of the Margovany Roma

This article is based on long-term field research in an Eastern Slovak Romani settlement and an English town to which Roma migrated from the settlement. The paper attempts to disrupt the bipolar approach toward the migration of Roma to England and, at the same time, to point out the transnational interconnectedness of the Romani community and the replication of inter-group boundary patterns. This dynamic approach to migration allows the authors to also consider a different phenomenon, namely, the religious conversion of Roma to Pentecostal churches. This leads to an observation of parallels in the narratives of conversion and migration, which are both based on a dichotomy of “new” and “old”, and inclusion of the phenomenon of religious conversion in the analysis of migration alongside the highlighting of transnational social networks, the acquiring of secondary social bonds, and the strengthening of local inter-group boundaries.

Introduction

Abstract This special issue sheds light on transnational migrants’ engagement with informal urban economies worldwide. Building on anthropological literature on migration and economy, it proposes “transnational street business” as a new concept for grasping transnational dynamics in the informal urban economy. Through ethnographic case studies from different regions, the special issue illuminates how the concept of “transnational street business” serves to analytically capture the urban street's multitude of economically entangled and interdependent transnational social alliances, hierarchies, friendships, and networks. The concept encompasses the materiality of the street and the goods that are exchanged and transacted in trade relations. It also highlights the skills for competition that are needed for orientation in legal and political landscapes that cut across the formal and informal divides that migrants are faced with when setting out to create a livelihood abroad.

"Maybe it's an Indo thing": Transnational health experiences of Indonesian women living in Australia.

Migrant health-seeking behaviour is understood to be influenced by transnationalism. This paper explores how transnationalism influences health seeking behaviour among Indonesian women living in Perth, Western Australia. Using a participatory action research approach, we conducted five focus groups with 21 women from Indonesia living in Perth. Transnational practices were common amongst Indonesian women. Transnational health-seeking (seeking Indonesian resources in Australia); transnational social support (between countries); and transnational healthcare (return to Indonesia) were common practices amongst Indonesian women. Transnational social networks were a critical source of health information and support. Findings suggest public health interventions may be improved through utilization of transnational social networks.

Sending News Back Home: Misinformation Lost in Transnational Social Networks

Prior research into misinformation has overwhelmingly concentrated on English-speaking communities. As a result, misinformation has proliferated, almost unchecked, in non-English contexts resulting in a dearth of understanding the structures and impact of misinformation among marginalized and immigrant communities. Through qualitative coding of social media data and a thematic inductive analysis inspired approach, we investigate how misinformation has proliferated through social media sites, such as Facebook, and the types of informational content, and specific misinformation narratives, that spread across the Vietnamese diasporic community during the 2020 U.S. Informed by the work of organizations such as Viet Fact Check, The Interpreter, and other community-led initiatives working to provide fact-checking and online media analysis in Vietnamese and English, we present and discuss salient misinformation narratives that spread throughout Vietnamese diasporic Facebook posts, fact-checking and misleading information patterns, and inter-platform networking activities. This work contributes contextual knowledge to researchers seeking to understand how to represent and include immigrant diasporic communities and their sociocultural contexts, within research on transnational misinformation around sociotechnical systems.

The impact of social capital and social environmental factors on mental health and flourishing: the experiences of asylum-seekers in France

BackgroundThere is growing interest on how social capital and related social environmental factors impact overall population health and well-being. The nature of asylum-seekers’ social environment alters once they migrate to a new context and these changes influence their mental health and well-being. However, there is limited scholarship on how these social environmental factors impact the mental health, well-being, and capacity to flourish of asylum-seekers.MethodsThe aim of the study, therefore, was to examine how specific social environmental factors—social networks, social support, and social cohesion at various levels (micro, meso, and macro)—influence the mental health, well-being, and capacity to flourish of asylum-seekers in France. In collaboration with a community-based organization, we used a qualitative research design to conduct 120 semi-structured interviews with asylum-seekers in France.ResultsThe emerging salient themes depicted how the asylum-seekers’ usual informal social networks comprised of family and friends had been disrupted since they migrated to France, which impacted their mental health and well-being. Conversely, staying connected with their informal transnational social networks via social media and developing ties with new local informal and formal social networks allowed them to receive different forms of social support, and buffered some of the negative mental health consequences. However, the lack of social cohesion due to a lack of belonging, marginalization, and current harmful migration-related policies impeded asylum-seekers’ capacity to flourish.ConclusionWhile social support derived from social networks buffered some negative impacts on mental health and well-being, the overall lack of social cohesion ultimately impeded asylum-seekers’ capacity to flourish within their host communities, which was further exacerbated by harmful migration policies of exclusion within France. Introducing more inclusive policies related to the governance of migration and an intersectoral approach that views health in all policies is key to promoting social cohesion and flourishing among asylum-seekers in France.

Building, negotiating and sustaining transnational social networks: Narratives of international students’ migration decisions in Canada

AbstractInternational student migration (ISM) is one of the fastest growing categories of migrants in Canada. Drawing on the narratives of 30 international students at a Canadian university, this paper investigates international students’ decisions to study overseas and the roles of social networks in shaping mobility. We find that international students negotiate information while embedded in multiple social networks consisting of family, friends, ethnocultural and religious communities, and professional relations in origin and settlement countries. These social networks exceed typical knowledge and connection functions; they act as informal migration agents, providing transnational care and guidance, and ‘do’ family in ways that shape mobility decisions and settlement. The information provided through these networks, however, can be inaccurate or incomplete, requiring the strategic mobilization of new networks to support migration. We conclude that international student mobility relies on building transnational networks to support knowledge transfer, provide care and offer tangible supports. Furthermore, we argue that these fluctuating local and transnational social networks should be more fully recognized in the theorizing of ISM and in strategies implemented for supporting international students.

Poslije postkolonijalizma i feminizma - transindigeni projekat u poeziji Džoj Hardžo

Joy Harjo (1951) is an American writer of Creek origin, and an American Laureate (2019-2021), whose poetry is constructed as an elaborate healing ceremony addressed to the indigenous and non-native subjects. In Hardža's work, a strong pan-tribal sensibility can be observed, but also an interest in other marginalized communities that advocate self-determination, self-representation, historical continuity, and the preservation and promotion of specific cultures. Saying that the natives have always valued multiculturalism, Hardžo reminds that before colonization peoples cooperated and exchanged experiences and understands that globalization cannot build unity at the expense of killing different cultural voices in the interest of cultural totalitarianism. The unity of humanity will have to find a way among cultural diversity. While globalization requires universal values and global resources, creates new institutional links such as international organizations, integrated markets, transnational social networks, diversity does not impose a pattern, but requires respect and recognition of indigenous cultures, which makes it feel like a global citizen. For Hardžo, loving the country means decolonizing it so that the country is not only a place of oppression but also of opposition, so she considers the possibilities of connecting Third World poets, because if one form of oppression leads to another, to that extent one struggle is connected to another, despite different histories, locations and problems, so poets can create anti-hegemonic connections as oppositional forces within a unique transindigenous project.

Transnational labour contractor regime in the China–Myanmar borderland: Mitigating hyper-precarity in the sugar cane cutting industry

We investigate the labour regime of an agricultural sector in the China–Myanmar borderland. The extant literature on labour generally stresses the hyper-precarity of workers, especially migrant workers. Our case study of the sugar cane cutting industry in Dragon Village, Yunnan Province, suggests that contractors who hire workers from Myanmar are also in a state of hyper-precarity which is shaped by multiple layers of socio-economic and politico-institutional circumstances. We develop an analytic framework for investigating transnational labour contractor regimes, which highlights the strategies jointly adopted by contractors and workers to mitigate the hyper-precarity within which both parties are embedded. We find that contractors are in a hyper-precarious position due to limited micro-level transnational social networks to meet outpaced labour demand, unfavourable meso-level market conditions, and macro-level politico-institutional factors such as the added responsibilities of immigration management, a fast-evolving legal system, and military coups. We also find that contractors adopt strategies to control both workers’ labour process and everyday life, while workers use some counterstrategies to regain agency. Together, they stabilize the labour force for this industry despite their shared hyper-precarity.

Infant Feeding Practices and Social Support Networks Among Immigrant Chinese American Mothers With Economic Disadvantage in New York City.

Maternal social support promotes healthy infant feeding practices, which influence healthy growth and development. Less is known about how the interplay of social support networks and multicultural health beliefs may influence infant feeding practices, particularly among immigrant Chinese American mothers with economic disadvantage and low breastfeeding rates. To explore the role of social support networks in the development of infant feeding practices in immigrant Chinese American mothers with infants. This was a prospective, cross-sectional qualitative study where we conducted semi-structured interviews in Mandarin, Cantonese, or English with Chinese American mothers of infants (N = 25) at a federally qualified health center in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Data were analyzed by a multicultural, multidisciplinary team using qualitative thematic analysis and the constant comparative method to identify and iteratively refine emerging codes. Three themes emerged describing how broad transnational communities and close family and friends influence maternal-infant feeding practices: (1) Gathering and processing infant feeding information from broad transnational resources (i.e., from both the mother's country of residence and the mother's country of origin); (2) aligning maternal feeding attitudes with cultural health beliefs of local social networks; and (3) gaining confidence with transactional maternal-infant feeding interactions. Strategies to promote healthy infant feeding should consider how family supports and culturally-relevant coaching can help align multilevel transnational social networks with healthy infant feeding practices.

Famine, remittances, and global justice

Famine is not on the global justice theory agenda. Two plausible reasons explain why. First, that global justice theory has moved toward a concern with international justice and reforming existing international organizations and away from what was considered to be a question of global ethics. And second, that famine was influentially identified by Amartya Sen as question of the domestic political economy and thus indeed a domestic justice concern. However, the political economy of famine has changed: it has transnationalised. I argue that famine should be on the global justice theory agenda, but that to do so requires that global justice theory reform itself first. The argument unfolds in three steps. Initially, I diagnose the benefits and constraints of methodological nationalism in famine studies and global justice theorization. I then set out an exploratory case study of the transnationalisation of famine, focusing on Somalia and taking note of the role of remittances, transnational social and economic networks, the consequences of de-risking, and the emergence of cash-transfers programs. Finally, I consider in more normative depth the transnational entitlement map of famine including: (i) transnational remittance networks (not national safety nets); (ii) global financial regulation (beyond international law); and (iii) diaspora politics (not democracy), where the parenthetic juxtapositions signal dissimilarities with current thinking about famine and global justice.

A Library of One's Own

A Library of One's Own

Transnational Network and Information Flow in African Refugees and Undocumented Migrants’ International Migration Process

This paper analyses the role of information flow under transnational (social) networks to understand African refugees and undocumented migrants’ migration to Austria. Existing research pointed to the international refugee crisis with industrialised countries targeted border governance that has prompted the emergence of the transnational (social) network, which builds (kinship-based) connectivity and interchangeable acquaintances between migrants in host and country of origin to influence and facilitate migrants’ pre and post mobility process. However, the network often faces weak ties with exploitation and subjugation to human trafficking. Based on twenty qualitative problem-centred face-face interviews, data are collected and analysed with content analysis technique to fill in the gap. The findings indicate that pre-mobility guidance, directive, and legislative decoder regulatory tools influence transnational networks with a lack of well-managed network that may impair pre and post-mobility processes to shape African refugees and undocumented migrant international migratory pathways in an information flow setting. This study demonstrated actor-based network-driven advocacy governance. The outcome points to the strategic mobilization of collective information to resource vulnerable people and refugees or undocumented migrants to meet their needs. This is relevant to collective action in contemporary neoliberal society targeting freedom and movements that may not only constrain ethnic minority group mobility, but the universal human rights principles, public policy learning process, informal institution collaborative actions, and democratic values in times of crisis-related super-diversity societies.

Network leadership for transformative capacity development: roles, practices and challenges

Non-technical summary A wide variety of social innovations exist today that offer urgently needed pathways for transforming societal systems into more just, sustainable and regenerative ways of organising human existence on this planet. However, a more systematic and practically useful understanding is needed of how individuals and organisations can strengthen the transformative capacity of people working on connecting, spreading, maturing and structurally embedding these innovations. This study presents an updated conceptual framework of network leadership roles and practices, and describes how these can contribute to more widespread, systemic and lasting impact of social innovations. Technical summary This study tests and refines a conceptual framework, describing the roles and practices of network leadership that can support the development of transformative capacities, in the context of social innovation networks. Such capacities include spreading social innovations in wider society, embedding them in policy and public discourse, and generating continuity and further development of social innovation activities. We studied five cases of transnational social innovation networks involving community-led and student-led sustainability initiatives. Practitioners in these networks were asked to rate and comment on the perceived recognisability and importance of network leadership roles and practices, as well as challenges, which we articulated in a previous study and further developed in the current study through participant observation and document analyses. This resulted in a revision of the roles and practices, the identification of relations between roles and a better understanding of how they can contribute to transformative capacity development. The interviews also helped to clarify the practical usefulness of the framework, suggesting possible applications for evaluating, prioritising and aligning roles performed by various individuals and organisations. The findings are relevant for better understanding and guiding distributed agency in transformative social innovation networks. Social media summary Roles and practices for network leadership to enable more widespread, systemic and lasting impact of social innovation.

Differentiated Embedding and Social Relationships Among Russian Migrant Physicians in Finland: A Narrative Socio‐Analysis

Migrants’ processes of (dis)embedding in local and transnational social networks have received growing attention in recent years, but most research focuses on low‐skilled migration. This study explores the affordances and challenges that Russian physicians, as a high‐skilled migrant group in Finland, experience in these processes in work and non‐work domains. Based on semi‐structured biographical interviews with 26 Russian physicians, the study employs Bourdieu’s socio‐analysis to analyze their narratives. The results reveal that Russian migrant physicians negotiate and experience differentiated embedding across work–life domains in local and transnational contexts. They mostly develop collegial relationships with Finnish colleagues and benefit from fulfilling professional relationships in the work domain. However, alongside time and efforts needed for building social ties, various factors often impede friendship making and socialization with locals beyond the work domain. These physicians cope with individual life circumstances through their enduring and supportive relationships with their Russian relatives and colleagues–friends. These results indicate that high‐skilled migrants have a greater opportunity to connect professionally with locals than low‐skilled migrants, but experience similar challenges to the latter in building close personal relationships.