RT Article
T1 Analysing the Role of Social Visits on Migrants’ Social Capital: A Personal Network Approach
JF Social Inclusion
VO 5
IS 4
SP 209
OP 225
A1 Viry, Gil
A1 Ganjour, Olga
A1 Gauthier, Jacques-Antoine
A1 Ravalet, Emmanuel 1980-
A1 Widmer, Eric 1966-
A2 Ganjour, Olga
A2 Gauthier, Jacques-Antoine
A2 Ravalet, Emmanuel 1980-
A2 Widmer, Eric 1966-
LA English
YR 2017
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1787934799
AB There are concerns that migrants may be embedded in far-flung networks with support being less collective. The spatial dispersion of their relatives and friends would result in fragmented networks with lower solidarity and lower mutual trust than densely connected networks based on geographical proximity. This may be particularly true for migrants who rarely meet their relatives and friends face-to-face. Yet, it is unclear what role, if any, distant visits play in migrants’ social capital. This article examines these issues using representative data from Switzerland and a combination of network and sequence analysis. Results show that migrants have more spatially dispersed networks, which, in turn, are associated with higher number of emotional support ties compared to respondents with spatially close networks, yet they are characterised by low cohesion and low trust. Distant visits only partly moderate the influence of spatial dispersion on social capital. People who frequently visit or host their far-flung relatives and friends have more transitive networks and fewer supportive ties than those who see them less often, but they do not have higher trust in them. Overall, distant visits have relatively little impact on social capital, suggesting a network effect that goes beyond dyadic relationships.
K1 Distance
K1 Migration
K1 network geography
K1 Personal networks
K1 sequence analysis
K1 Social Capital
K1 Social Network Analysis
K1 Social Support
K1 social visits
K1 Travel
DO 10.17645/si.v5i4.1164