New book: Revisiting migrant networks. Migrants and their descendants in labour markets

02 May 2022

This open access book (edited by Elif Keskiner, Michael Eve and Louise Ryan) provides new conceptualisations on the networks of migrants and their descendants in accessing the labour market. Although references to social networks are common in discussions of migration, simplified ideas of co-ethnic networks often obscure the reality, for example confounding ties with co-ethnics and ‘strong ties’. This open access book addresses key questions about the role of networks in migration contexts, particularly in relation to how migrants and their descendants, access the labour market and develop their employment trajectories over time. Rather than adopting a narrow essentializing ethnic lens, the research presented in this book explores intersectional identities of class, generation and gender. By focusing on the kinds of capital circulating between ties, including the dark side of social capital, the book offers insights into power dynamics and the potentially exclusionary dimension of networks. Taking a long term view, across generations, the research in this book shows how migrants and their descendants mobilize resources to tackle discrimination and enhance their position within particular labour markets. Drawing on robust quantitative and rich qualitative data, this book provides a primary source to students, scholars and policy-makers focusing on issues of migration, social networks, social mobility as well as labour market inequalities. 

Open access: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-94972-3#toc

Table of contents

1 Introduction: Revisiting Networks: Setting the Conceptual and Methodological Scene
Louise Ryan, Michael Eve, and Elif Keskiner
2 The Direct and Indirect Role of Migrants’ Networks in Accessing Diverse Labour Market Sectors: An Analysis of the Weak/Strong Ties Continuum
Louise Ryan
3 Are “Weak Ties” Really Weak? Social Capital Reliance Among Second Generation Turkish Lawyers in Paris
Elif Keskiner and Ismintha Waldring
4 Context Matters: The Varying Roles of Social Ties for Professional Careers of Immigrants’ Descendants
Christine Lang, Andreas Pott, and Jens Schneider
5 Access to Employment of the Second Generations in France: Unequal Role of Family and Personal Networks by Origins and Gender
Yaël Brinbaum
6 Social Capital, Immigrants and Their Descendants – The Case of Sweden
Alireza Behtoui
7 Activating Social Capital: Steep Mobility of Descendants of Turkish Immigrants at the Top of the Corporate Business Sector
Sara Rezai and Elif Keskiner
8 Reciprocity Within Migrant Networks: The Role of Social Support for Employment
Başak Bilecen
9 Networks in Migration Processes
Michael Eve
10 Early-Career Academics’ Transnational Moves: The Gendered Role of Vertical Social Ties in Obtaining Academic Positions Abroad
Martine Schaer
11 Epilogue: Where Did Weak and Strong Ties Go Wrong?
Maurice Crul

 
 
 

Latest News

IMISCOE Network Office

Call for Papers for the Panel “Encounters, transitions, and struggles in refugees’ rights, policies, and studies: A call for a relational praxis in the field”

10 October 2023
Panel submission to the 21st IMISCOE Annual Conference, Lisbon (and online), 02-05 July 2024 Panel Abstract “Encounters, transitions, and struggles in refugees’ rights, policies, and studies: A call for a relational praxis in the field” This panel calls...
IMISCOE Network Office

8th conference on migration research in Austria on Global Inequalities, (Im)Mobilities and Migration Societies: Post-Migrant Perspectives

28 September 2023
The 8th conference on migration research in Austria is aimed at researchers from all disciplines and fields of study who are working on migration and integration. The topic of the 8 th conference is Global Inequalities, (Im)Mobilities and Migration...
patrick simon

Call for papers and panels at Lisbon 2024

24 September 2023
Call for panels and papers by SC RACED During the annual IMISCOE conference in Lisbon (2024) the newly formed Standing Committee Race, Racism and Discrimination (RACED) wants to support research presentations and panel sessions that are relevant for its...
IMISCOE Network Office

Call for Papers for panel “Intermigrant dynamics: Practices of racism and solidarity”

21 September 2023
Panel Submission to the 21st IMISCOE annual conference on Migration as a Social Construction: A Reflexive Turn, Lisbon (and online), 02-05 July 202 Panel Abstract “Intermigrant” dynamics: Practices of racism and solidarity This panel seeks to explore...
IMISCOE Network Office

UCLan-MIDEX Seminar: 'Entangled Exploitations of Nature and Labor in Caribbean Slave Narratives', by Dr Astrid Haas (University of Bergen)

Wednesday 20 September 12-13.00 (BST)
The talk studies the entangled exploitation of human labor and natural resources in the early 19th-century Caribbean through the lens of selected slave narratives from the region. The exploitation of enslaved Africans as a cheap human labor force in the...