Social network development experiences of immigrants from Turkey to Canada

ABSTRACT

The concept of social capital has gained popularity in the field of migration studies in recent decades, yet we still know relatively little about how immigrants develop social networks in their host countries – despite the fact that networks constitute the core of social capital. This paper applies a Bourdieuian approach to migration research while examining the network development processes of immigrants from Turkey to Canada, all within the framework of social inequality based upon occupation and class. My findings demonstrate that network development with co-nationals, members of other immigrant groups, and native-born Canadians is a complex process in which such various factors as social class, ethnicity, habitus, and different forms of capital jointly shape the opportunities to access social networks, as well as the nature of such networks.

KEYWORDS:

• Social networks
• social capital
• Bourdieu
• Turkish immigrants
• Canada

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the helpful feedback of Wolfgang Lehmann, Belinda Dodson, and three anonymous reviewers in writing this paper. I also would like to thank immigrants from Turkey who participated in this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Turkish refers to all population groups in Turkey: Turks, Kurds, and others. When I use the adjective Turkish, it means immigrants from Turkey and rather than someone of Turkish ethnicity.

2. More than half of participants with non-professional jobs came to Canada as asylum seekers and made refugee claims in Canada.

3. The Republic Ball is an event organized every year on 29 October, in Turkey and abroad, to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. The Republic Ball in Toronto is organised by a number of Turkish associations.

4. Alevis are adherents of a specific Shi’a strand of Islam. It is practised mainly in Turkey.

5. Some participants had experience of living abroad prior to migrating to Canada.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at the University of Western Ontario and the Migration Research Program at Koc University (MiReKoc), Istanbul.