When Do Social Networks Fail to Explain Migration? Accounting for the Movement of Algerian Asylum-Seekers to the UK

Collyer, Michael

doi:10.1080/13691830500109852

Cited by 140 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…As student nurses, all the women in my study lived in nurses' homes. Thus, post-arrival, these Irish nurses were not dependent upon their networks for practical support and hence avoided many of the problems that ongoing reliance on family networks can cause (Collyer 2005). This may reflect their status as skilled professionals, and echoes the findings of Jordan and Düvell (2003) and Raghuram (2004) that skilled migrants are less dependent on kinship networks post-migration.…”

Section: Family Networksupporting

confidence: 63%

‘I Had a Sister in England’: Family-Led Migration, Social Networks and Irish Nurses

Ryan¹

2008

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

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Despite the apparent gender-neutrality of many migration theories, there has been a tendency to configure economic migrants as male, especially within a European context. This has been exacerbated by an historical amnesia about women's patterns of migration. Until recently migrant women have been either ignored or subsumed into accounts of household migration or family reunification. Thus, men have been constructed as active, economic migrants, while women have been contained within domestic and familial roles. This paper seeks to complicate such a dichotomous construction by drawing upon the narratives of 26 Irish nurses who migrated to Britain in the postwar period. The women in this study present themselves as economic actors who made the pragmatic decision to migrate to Britain. Nonetheless, it is clear that they also were implicated in complex webs of family migration and kinship. However, far from the stereotypical image of household or nuclear family migration, these women's narratives reveal the range and diversity of transnational kinship ties. Most of the women were encouraged to migrate by female relatives, especially sisters, aunts and cousins. The paper concludes by considering the implications for an understanding of family-led migration.

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Section: Family Networksupporting

confidence: 63%

‘I Had a Sister in England’: Family-Led Migration, Social Networks and Irish Nurses

Ryan¹

2008

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

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“…The role of friendship networks should not be ignored. There has been some concern that networks theories have paid insufficient attention to the role of friendship ties (Collyer, 2005). In their research, Conradson and Latham (2005) noted the remarkable centrality of friendship networks within the migration stories of young New Zealanders in London.…”

Section: Family As Magnetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How women use family networks to facilitate migration: A comparative study of Irish and Polish women in Britain

Ryan

2009

The History of the Family

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Within migration studies there has been a tendency to focus on a single case study of a particular national group. Adopting a comparative approach may raise new and interesting questions or challenge conventional thinking on migration. While on the surface, at least, Irish and Polish migrants would appear to have many commonalities, there has been surprisingly little comparative analysis of these two groups. Drawing on my own research on these migrants in the British context, I focus on women as a large but under-researched aspect of both groups. This paper suggests ways in which such a comparison could be undertaken by using social networks as a useful comparative tool. A social networks perspective not only allows a probing analysis of migration strategies, but also provides a framework within which to compare across different migrant groups, such as for example, examining the role of family networks (here and there) in migration processes. In addition, this approach enables an examination of dynamism over time and how migrants develop relationships within spatially dispersed as well as locally embedded ties.

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“…Böcker and Havinga (1998: 263) seem to suggest that spatial dependence affects only geographically contiguous destination countries: "[...] the introduction of measures to reduce the influx in one country may produce rising numbers in neighbouring countries". There is some anecdotal evidence for this (Brochmann 1995;Böcker and Havinga 1998;Rotte et al 1997;Holzer et al 2000;Collyer 2005). Yet, it seems too restrictive to assume that asylum policies of other destination countries only matter if the two countries are directly geographically contiguous.…”

Section: Spatial Dependence Among Destination Countriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Dependence in Asylum Migration

Barthel

Neumayer

2012

SSRN Journal

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Existing refugees in a destination country from the same source country reduce the uncertainty faced by subsequent asylum migrants since existing refugees can provide information and assistance. We argue that such network effects extend beyond the borders of specific source countries. Potential asylum migrants might also be able to draw on networks from geographically proximate as well as linguistically similar countries and from countries having previously been colonized by the same destination country, thus creating spatial dependence in asylum migration among source countries. Many destination countries meanwhile aspire to reduce the inflow of migrants by tightening their asylum policies. Target countries which restrict their policies relatively more than other destinations deflect some asylum migrants to geographically proximate destination countries, thus creating spatial dependence among target countries. We find evidence for both types of spatial dependence in our global analysis of asylum migration.However, while statistically significant, the degree of spatial dependence among target countries is modest. On the source side, there is evidence for modest spatial dependence among linguistically similar countries and no evidence for spatial dependence among countries which were previously colonized by the same destination country. By contrast, we find substantial spatial dependence among geographically proximate source countries.2

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When Do Social Networks Fail to Explain Migration? Accounting for the Movement of Algerian Asylum-Seekers to the UK

Cited by 140 publications

References 22 publications

‘I Had a Sister in England’: Family-Led Migration, Social Networks and Irish Nurses

‘I Had a Sister in England’: Family-Led Migration, Social Networks and Irish Nurses

How women use family networks to facilitate migration: A comparative study of Irish and Polish women in Britain

Spatial Dependence in Asylum Migration

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