Friends and Social Networks

Abstract

This chapter addresses the impact of migration on the size and composition of migrants’ social networks. Social networks, including acquaintanceships and informal contacts, friends and kin based ties, are a source of extensive sociological research for their significance in social mobility and status maintenance (Coleman 1988; Lin 1999), as well as their role in social support (see e.g. Seeman and Berkman 1988) and wellbeing, broadly defined (see e.g. Christakis and Fowler 2013). As Bourdieu (1997) has famously argued, forms of capital, including social capital, are ‘fungible’; hence, social networks can both enhance and interact with economic resources and human capital (Boxman et al. 1991). These complementarities between social networks and other embodied or asset-based resources can potentially render social networks especially salient for migrants (Aguilera and Massey 2003). At the same time, migration is likely to disrupt and transform the scale, type and meaning of social contacts that can be accessed in the destination context. The extent of such disruption and transformation is the key question in the ensuing analysis.