TY - JOUR

T1 - New friends in new places

T2 - Network formation during the migration process among Poles in the UK

AU - Gill, Nick

AU - Bialski, Paula

PY - 2011/3

Y1 - 2011/3

N2 - This paper contributes to on-going work that seeks to understand the dynamic nature of immigrant social network formation. We explore three propositions, derived from the literature, that might be expected to characterise the ways in which migrant associational ties evolve during and immediately after arrival in their destination country. Evidence is drawn from 42 interviews conducted between January and December 2008 with predominantly Polish migrants to the UK (28) as well as domestic service providers (14). In agreement with the existing literature on immigrant social network formation we find that weak associational ties between migrants are locally dense and rapidly formed. More surprisingly, we also find that the Poles in our sample from lower socio-economic groups tended to rely heavily upon weak associational ties while higher socio-economic group Poles tended to rely on associations made through their employing institutions. This illustrates the importance of socio-economic status in framing co-ethnic migrant network formation. This is significant because we also find that weak associational ties are not unambiguously beneficial to lower socio-economic group migrants who tend to (have to be) more compromising about, and therefore more compromised by, the social ‘friendships’ that result.

AB - This paper contributes to on-going work that seeks to understand the dynamic nature of immigrant social network formation. We explore three propositions, derived from the literature, that might be expected to characterise the ways in which migrant associational ties evolve during and immediately after arrival in their destination country. Evidence is drawn from 42 interviews conducted between January and December 2008 with predominantly Polish migrants to the UK (28) as well as domestic service providers (14). In agreement with the existing literature on immigrant social network formation we find that weak associational ties between migrants are locally dense and rapidly formed. More surprisingly, we also find that the Poles in our sample from lower socio-economic groups tended to rely heavily upon weak associational ties while higher socio-economic group Poles tended to rely on associations made through their employing institutions. This illustrates the importance of socio-economic status in framing co-ethnic migrant network formation. This is significant because we also find that weak associational ties are not unambiguously beneficial to lower socio-economic group migrants who tend to (have to be) more compromising about, and therefore more compromised by, the social ‘friendships’ that result.

KW - Digital media

KW - Migration

KW - Networks

KW - Social networks

KW - Friendship

KW - Polish

KW - Diaspora

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79952484325&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.01.001

DO - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.01.001

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 42

SP - 241

EP - 249

JO - Geoforum

JF - Geoforum

SN - 0016-7185

IS - 2

ER -