Personal Networks and Participation: Relational Mechanisms for the Local and Transnational Civic Involvement of Immigrants

ABSTRACT

The objective of this article is to study the role of configurations of immigrants’ personal network on their civic participation. It puts forward a theoretical framework to explain immigrants’ civic participation and traces empirically the mechanisms by which transnational and local networks demotivate or encourage different types of participation. The analysis is based on a sequential mixed-methods research design that combines a personal networks survey among 150 Ecuadorian and Moroccan immigrants living in Catalonia, Spain, with 18 in-depth biographical interviews. The results suggest that transnational participation is grounded in local ethnic networks in the host country and that the definition of identity boundaries that takes place in personal networks plays an important role in defining origin-based and/or generic orientations of local participation.

KEYWORDS:

• Migrants’ participation
• personal networks
• identities
• frames
• civic involvement

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Joel Martí and Carlos Lozares for their general guidance; Nick Crossley and Mario Diani for their suggestions in the literature review; and Andreas Herz, the other members of the RNNR, and the journal reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

The author declares no conflict of interests.

Notes

1. There is a “partial overlap” between the dimensions of the territory and the social group: in-group-oriented activities might apply both to immigrants living in the host country and to non-migrants living in the country of origin. Similarly, participation oriented to the host country might have an immigrant in-group focus or be directed toward the out-group (the whole society).

2. Source: Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE).

3. Source: Idescat and IERMB: Enquesta de Condicions de Vida i Hàbits de la Població.

4. Asking for a fixed number of alters aimed to reduce problems of fatigue or desirability. Moreover, interviewees were encouraged to use nicknames or abbreviations to refer to their contacts, to avoid privacy concerns.

5. A broad range of strategies were pursued to recruit research participants in different milieus. Respondents were located with the aid of diverse institutions and organizations, as well as with posters on the streets, “call shops” and cyber-cafés, markets, schools, public equipment, and online sites. Participants signed an informed consent with an agreement of anonymity and confidentiality. A small economic compensation was offered. Snowballing sampling techniques were kept to the minimum, so that interviews were not held with people who were “close” to the nominees.

6. Unfortunately, this limited the recruitment possibilities and the depth of some interviews with Moroccan individuals who had limited Spanish language skills.

7. Note that the names of the network types have been modified following the reviewers’ suggestions. In previous papers, the “transnational networks” type was called “dual networks” and the “immigrant enclave” type was called “ethnic enclave.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the research grant “Estudio comparado de casos sobre la influencia mutua entre el capital e integración sociales” (CSO2008-01470).

Notes on contributors

Mireia Bolíbar

Mireia Bolíbar is a postdoctoral researcher at the Health Inequalities Research Group - Employment Conditions Network of the Pompeu Fabra University. She holds a Juan de la Cierva Fellowship. Her research interests center on mixed methods, social networks, migrants' participation, precarious employment and labour market trajectories.