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Telling network stories: researching migrants' changing social relations in places over time
Author(s) -
Ryan Louise
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
global networks
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.685
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1471-0374
pISSN - 1470-2266
DOI - 10.1111/glob.12295
Subject(s) - nexus (standard) , social network analysis , situated , interpersonal ties , sociology , qualitative research , key (lock) , social network (sociolinguistics) , ethnic group , data science , computer science , social capital , social science , social media , world wide web , anthropology , computer security , artificial intelligence , embedded system
This article is situated at the nexus of migration research and qualitative social network analysis (SNA). While migration scholars often engage with networks simply as metaphors, I go further by examining how a thorough engagement with qualitative SNA can contribute to migration research in at least three key ways. First, exploring changing relational ties over time and across different places, including transnationally, I demonstrate that qualitative SNA offers new insights into how migrants make sense of these dynamic relationships. Second, following Dahinden (2016), I examine how using networks as a data collection method can help to unsettle the a priori ethnic lens in researching migration. Moreover, building on the pioneering work of network scholars such as Mische and White, I aim to make a methodological contribution by analysing how social networks are co‐constructed as stories and pictures in research encounters.