Premi a l'excel·lència investigadora. 2010This paper discusses and illustrates various approaches for the longitudinal analysis of personal networks (multilevel analysis, regression analysis, and SIENA). We combined the different types of analyses in a study of the changing personal networks of immigrants. Data were obtained from 25 Argentineans in Spain, who were interviewed twice in a two-year interval. Qualitative interviews were used to estimate the amount of measurement error and to isolate important predictors. Quantitative analyses showed that the persistence of ties was explained by tie strength, network density, and alters’ country of origin and residence. Furthermore, transitivity appeared to be an important tendency, both for acquiring new contacts and for the relationships among alters. At the network level, immigrants’ networks were remarkably stable in composition and structure despite the high turnover. Clustered graphs have been used to illustrate the results. The results are discussed in light of adaptation to the host society

This article investigates whether personal networks influenced ethnic self-identifications of migrants in Spain. During the years 2004—6, data were collected about personal networks of migrants in Spain (N = 294) through a questionnaire and a structured interview. The networks were classified into five network profiles on the basis of both variables about structure (e.g. density, betweenness and number of cohesive subgroups) and composition (e.g. country of origin and percentage of family members). Profiles were related to the different ways in which migrants identified themselves. Personal networks in which network members, mostly family and people from the country of origin, formed one dense cluster were associated with ethnic exclusive self-identifications, whereas more heterogeneous personal networks tended to exhibit more plural definitions of belonging. The results show that both individual and network characteristics contribute to an understanding of ethnic self-identification.

In addition to all the usual ethical problems that can arise with any kind of inquiry, network analyses, by their very nature, introduce special ethical problems that should be recognized. This paper delineates some of these problems, distinguishing between problems that arise in purely academic studies and those that arise in managerial practice settings. In addition, the paper raises the long-term question of whether the use of network analysis for making managerial decisions will make collecting valid network data impossible in the future, seriously harming the academic field of social network research. The paper concludes with a short set of principles intended to form the basis for a set of guidelines designed to safeguard participants in social network studies and protect the long term viability of the network research enterprise.

Scholars of transnationalism have argued that migrants create transnational social fields or spaces that connect their place of origin to destination areas. Despite the centrality that social networks have in the definition of these concepts, quantitative and mixed-methods social network research is rare in research on transnationalism. This situation, however, has changed over the last decade, and the transnational social networks of migrants have been studied with multiple methodologies. So far, this literature has not been systematically evaluated. With the aim of taking stock of this research, we classify the literature into four types of approaches (individual, household, dyad/small set, and community) and review their distinct contributions regarding the functioning of immigrants’ transnational networks, as well as the relative strengths and limitations of each approach. On the basis of our analysis, we discuss pathways for future investigation.