CESNOVA

The Romanian migration has been constantly increasing since the fall of communism. The existing literature on this topic (Şerban and Grigoraş 2000, Sandu et al. 2005, Elrick and Ciobanu 2009) underlines the important role played by migration networks both for the emergence and perpetuation of migration. Besides stating its significance and describing different types of migration networks, very little attention has been given to:

a)    the dynamic character of social networks and the changes that migration networks, in particular, go through and

b)    the differences between migration networks such as ethnic networks, religious networks, community networks and so on.

Therefore, I would firstly like to challenge the existing literature which considers that social networks only grow as a consequence of intensified relations (Hirschman in Putnam 2001) and I aim to look at the actual developement and dynamics of migration networks. Thus, I enquire whether social networks go through stages of intensification of the relations or of decrease in interaction. I focus the study of social networks to the particular case of migration networks. The hypothesis is that due to the instensification of the relations and to the fact that migration networks emerge in one environment and in certain conditions which are afterwards changed by the very nature of migration; migration network can not only develop or intensify, but can also decrease.

Secondly, I ask whether networks such as ethnic, religious or community ones play different roles for migrants; in other words, whether some networks play a more important role for integration, others mainly facilitate the migration act and so on. In this case the working hypothesis is that by the nature of the migrant networks, they are more or less likely to include or not persons from the destination or of other nationalities. For example, religious neo-protestant networks are more likely to include citizens from the host country and therefore facilitate integration. Other networks, such as community or family based ones include rather people from the origin community and therefore are more likely to involve only these people and be less open to others. Thus, I would like to underpin the differentiated role of migration networks depending on the factor of cohesion for the network, factor that I will later refer to as stabilizing factor (Bommes 2006a, 2006b).

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT-MCTES)/ Compromisso com a Ciência