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Personal Networks and Participation: Relational

Mechanisms for the Local and Transnational Civic
Involvement of Immigrants

Mireia Bolíbar

To cite this article: Mireia Bolíbar (2019) Personal Networks and Participation: Relational
Mechanisms for the Local and Transnational Civic Involvement of Immigrants, The Sociological
Quarterly, 60:4, 583-605, DOI: 10.1080/00380253.2019.1581036

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00380253.2019.1581036

Published online: 03 Apr 2019.

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THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
2019, VOL. 60, NO. 4, 583–605
https://doi.org/10.1080/00380253.2019.1581036

Personal Networks and Participation: Relational Mechanisms

for the Local and Transnational Civic Involvement of
Immigrants
Mireia Bolíbar
Health Inequalities Research Group – Employment Conditions Knowledge Network (GREDS-EMCONET), Public
Policy Center (UPF – JHU), Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona,
Spain

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The objective of this article is to study the role of configurations of Migrants’ participation;
immigrants’ personal network on their civic participation. It puts personal networks;
forward a theoretical framework to explain immigrants’ civic partici- identities; frames; civic
pation and traces empirically the mechanisms by which transnational involvement
and local networks demotivate or encourage different types of parti-
cipation. The analysis is based on a sequential mixed-methods
research design that combines a personal networks survey among
150 Ecuadorian and Moroccan immigrants living in Catalonia, Spain,
with 18 in-depth biographical interviews. The results suggest that
transnational participation is grounded in local ethnic networks in the
host country and that the definition of identity boundaries that takes
place in personal networks plays an important role in defining origin-
based and/or generic orientations of local participation.

Introduction
Why do people participate as they do? How is that affected by the type of network they are
embedded in? Research aiming to explain civic participation usually refers to the work of Verba
and colleagues (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). In their Civic Voluntarism Model, they
identify three broad explanatory factors for participation and non-participation: resources,
recruitment opportunities, and dispositions. Nevertheless, their well-established model only
considers networks as the mobilization inputs of organizations that aim to recruit participants.
The literature on social movements has explored the link between networks and participation in
greater depth, overcoming the Civic Voluntarism Model’s narrow focus on the role of networks.
In social movements research, the important role of social networks has been identified not only
for attracting individuals into participation in social movements or other types of voluntary
organizations (i.e., providing recruitment opportunities), but also as underlying mechanisms
explaining what makes individuals able to participate (i.e., providing resources) and what
makes them want to participate (i.e., shaping dispositions).
This article presents these contributions and makes them advance by applying it to the
study of immigrants’ civic participation. Exploring the link between immigrants’ networks

CONTACT Mireia Bolíbar mireia.bolibar@upf.edu Health Inequalities Research Group – Employment Conditions
Knowledge Network (GREDS-EMCONET), Public Policy Center (UPF – JHU), Department of Political and Social Sciences,
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Edifici Mercè Rodoreda 24, Carrer de Ramon Trias i Fargas 25–27, Barcelona 08005, Spain.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/utsq.
© 2019 Midwest Sociological Society
584 M. BOLÍBAR

and participation requires introducing into the perspective the contributions of studies on
transnationalism (Vertovec 2009). It provides a multilocal insight into migration to high-
light the complex linkages and relationships that migrants maintain in different territories
(Vertovec 2009: 24).
Adopting this perspective, the objective of this article is to study the impact of networks
on civic participation with the particular aim of explaining how and why the location and
ethnic composition of immigrants’ networks – in its complex relational embeddedness in
multiple territories and social groups – has an impact on the social and spatial orientations
of their participation in civil society.
The article proceeds to do this with a further distinctive feature: it analyses both the
structural and cultural effects of networks on participation, proposing a comprehensive
approach that delves into how immigrants understand and experience their participation.
This question addresses what Funes (2006) calls “the second dilemma of collective
action” – that is, not only what makes someone participate, but also what makes it
meaningful for them to participate. As the present article argues, introducing this sub-
jective dimension into the analysis is necessary in order to understand the link between
immigrants’ networks and their participatory practices. The article is therefore situated
within the “cultural turn” in social network analysis (Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994; White
1992; see Knox, Savege, and Harvey 2006), which emphasizes the meanings and cultural
embeddedness of social relationships.
In the next section, the article describes the particularities of immigrants’ networks and
civic participation. The subsequent section proposes a theoretical framework for explain-
ing immigrants’ local and transnational participation. It develops a model of relational
mechanisms by which social networks are expected to have an impact on immigrants’
participation. This is then applied to the study of immigrants’ local and transnational
participatory practices using personal networks questionnaires and biographical interviews
conducted among Moroccan and Ecuadorean immigrants in Catalonia, Spain. The results
section shows how such factors contribute to defining the repertoires of activity among
immigrant communities.

Immigrants’ Networks and Participation

Civic involvement is defined here as any activity aimed at giving voice to societal concerns
and organizing solidarity and self-help (Vogel and Triandafyllidou 2005). It includes a broad
repertoire of voluntary and non-professional activities developed in civil society – seen as
separate from both the state and the private/economic sector – that refer to public issues. It
takes place in more or less formalized settings, engagement in voluntary associations being
the most visible of them. It is used here as an encompassing concept that comprises both
social and political participation, and the large number of voluntary activities on the fuzzy
border between the two. The former includes activities whose target is neither the politics or
the government, nor the solution of problems of the community, and that are not politically
motivated either (e.g., whose aim is just the sociability and cultural expression itself, like
sports clubs or folkloric groups) (Van Deth 2014); and the latter includes activities ranging
from conventional to non-conventional repertoires of action intended to affect – or affecting
–, either directly or indirectly, govenment action (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995).
However, it is interesting to include both in one single research study, given that the
 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 585

borderline between political and non-political spheres has blurred and the notion of political
participation has expanded as a result of (1) the continuous expansion of the modes of
participation, including expressive modes of political participation; and (2) the revival of
Tocquevillian and communitarian approaches to the study of democracy and participation
that emphasize the social basis of political action (Van Deth 2014).
Civic participation is considered to be an expression of belonging to the sociopolitical
community (Bloemraad 2000, 2015). As such, immigrants’ participation may take different
forms, with particularly interesting variations in terms of its territory and subject of
reference. First, as pointed out by the transnational approach to the study of migration
(which understands migration processes in the frame of social fields crossing multiple
borders [Basch, Glick-Schiller, and Szanton Blanc 1994]), immigrant practices and norma-
tive frameworks are territorially oriented (Landolt 2008). Migrant transnationalism affects
“how people think about and position themselves in society in both here-and-there,” as well
as how collective action and political participation are organized within encompassing
contexts and scales (Vertovec 2009: 24). Along these lines, for instance, Østergaard-
Nielsen (2003) distinguishes between the homeland- and immigrant-oriented political
practices of migrants and refugees. In a similar manner, Landolt (2008) distinguishes the
transnational and multi-sited orientation from the assimilationist orientation.
Both Ostergaard-Nielsen’s notion of “immigrant politics” and Landolt’s idea of “assim-
ilationist orientation” refer to participation focused on one’s place of settlement, as
opposed to a more transnational orientation toward one’s homeland or place of origin.
However, comparing these two categories leads to a second distinction: in the place of
settlement, immigrants’ participation also differs in terms of the abstract subject at whom
the collective action is directed. More specifically, it can be directed toward the in-group –
an abstract idea of the “immigrant,” ethnic- or origin-based community – or to the out-
group, namely those from other ethnic groups or the society as a whole. These two
distinctive and partially overlapping orientations, based on territory (place of origin vs.
settlement) and subject (in-group vs. out-group), capture the diversity of the ways in
which immigrants exert citizenship in the local and transnational social fields.1
The research presented in this article delves into the mechanisms that make immi-
grants’ networks contribute to define how they participate along these axes. Introducing
networks into the equation sheds light on the contextual structural dynamics that affect
individuals’ participatory agency (Diani 2003). As Kitts (2000) points out, such thesis
develops a “microstructural foundation” of participation that takes into account the
stimuli and constraints involved in the relational context in which individuals make
decisions.
Moreover, if immigrants’ civic participation can be considered an expression of citizen-
ship and belonging to a sociopolitical community (Bloemraad 2000, 2015), so does the
configuration of their personal network. The spatial variation (local or transnational),
temporality (“new” and “old,” ties created before or after emigration), and ethnic homo-
phily/heterophily aspects of immigrants’ networks reveal the form and the extent of
immigrants’ many instances of belonging (Lubbers et al. 2010; Lubbers, Molina, and
McCarty 2007). As Molina, Petermann, and Herz (2014) point out, it is actually immi-
grants’ embeddedness in these dimensions that allows us to “assess variation in the
patterns of simultaneous incorporation to different countries” (Molina, Petermann, and
586 M. BOLÍBAR

Herz 2014: 224), and thus what forms the basis for their potential contribution to
explaining different types of local and transnational civic involvement among immigrants.
However, so far the few studies that have tackled the effect of networks on immigrants’
participation, such as those by Guarnizo, Portes, and Haller (2003) and Morales and Pilati
(2014), have not taken into account the multiple configurations of migrants’ networks at
the interface between different ethnic groups and different territories simultaneously. The
research presented in this article aims precisely to do so based on the model of relational
mechanisms put forward in the following section.

Drawing up a Model of Network Mechanisms to Explain Immigrant

Participation
Drawing mostly on contributions of social movement studies, the article identifies the
“relational side” of the three broad explanatory factors for civic participation identified by
Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995): resources, opportunities, and dispositions. These three
elements, which define respectively the capacities, contextual inputs, and motivations to
participate, have also been identified as relevant factors to explain what demotivates or
encourages immigrants’ different forms of social and political participation. In these regards,
the literature has so far proved the relevance of: (1) individual resources such as human
capital or age (Guarnizo, Portes, and Haller 2003); (2) political opportunity structures in
both the home (Gamlen 2006) and the host countries (Landolt 2008), at the level of policy
and discourse (Koopmans 2004), as well as at the national and local levels (Morales and
Pilati 2014); and (3) psychological and identity factors, mostly related to the migration
process and acculturation in the host society (Guarnizo, Portes, and Haller 2003).
In their article, Verba and colleagues’ frame of resources, opportunities, and disposi-
tions is used as a skeleton to structure the vast literature on networks and participation in
a way that allows delineation of a set of relevant network-based explanatory mechanisms
of immigrants’ participation. By so doing, those factors are revisited and emptied of the
authors’ original understanding in order to emphasize or add stances in which networks
facilitate participation.
Relational or transactional mechanisms are, according to Tilly (2015), explanatory
strategies that build plausible explanations of causation (i.e., make intelligible correlations
between salient features of episodes) on the basis of connections, interaction dynamics
and/or network configurations. In a way, they are detailed accounts of why networks
matter in structuring the action of individuals embedded therein. The following subsec-
tions review precisely how networks matter as providers of resources, opportunities, and
dispositions that configure immigrants’ civic involvement.

Resources
According to Resource Mobilization Theory, networks are “mobilization structures”
(McAdam 1999) that form the basis for the formal and informal organization that allows
participation to emerge within a pre-existing collective, that is, how its participatory dynamics
are internally transformed and how initiatives and ideas are turned into specific actions. In
these regards, networks constitute mobilization structures in the sense that they establish
a basis for the emergence of participation. They enable the creation and organization of the
 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 587

collective dimension of action: coordinated groups, with channels of communication and

a division of labor that do not appear spontaneously whenever they become necessary, but
require an organization that is more likely to emerge from the collective life of already
connected individuals (Crossley 2007: 230). Without networks, “the aggrieved population is
capable of little more than short-term, localized, ephemeral outbursts and movements of
protest such as riots” (Oberschall 1973: 119, quoted in McAdam 1988: 44).
Similarly, at the individual level, communication research particularly highlights the
positive impact of having heterogeneous networks for increasing political knowledge and
awareness and therefore promoting political participation (Scheufele et al. 2006).

Recruitment Opportunities
The ability of interpersonal networks to connect people and organizations by mediating
between potential participants and opportunities to participate has been widely discussed
(McAdam 1988; Diani 2003; Passy 2003). Through networks, individuals are recruited,
thus spreading participatory practices and disseminating collective action. The position of
actors in a network of relationships close to an organization or movement – i.e. its
“structural proximity” (Snow, Zurcher, and Ekland-Olson 1980) – makes actors more
susceptible to participating in it (ibid.; McAdam 1988; Passy 2003; Passy and Giugni
2001). Personal connections are crucial factors in recruitment, as they play a key role in
both introducing individuals to groups and converting mere interests into actual partici-
pation, especially if “significant others” do the same (Crossley 2007: 228). Recruitment
through networks occurs not only at the individual level, but also at the organizational
level when pre-existing networks are recruited or mobilized – a process referred to as
“block recruitment” (Crossley 2002; McAdam 1988).
Finally, the properties of networks as recruitment devices could also explain, on the one
hand, decisions to participate or not and their persistence over time (Diani 2011; Funes
2006), and on the other hand, the type of organization or movement in which to do so. As
Vogel and Triandafyllidou (2005) point out, if being informed or persuaded by a friend or
acquaintance is the catalyst that leads one into participation and civic involvement, then
the type of environment that surrounds one may shape the type of opportunities in which
one is being encouraged to participate. Thus, just as Gould (1995) pointed out that the
salience of neighborhood-based networks makes people participate in local communities,
Vogel and Triandafyllidou (2005) suggest that, if an immigrant’s relationships basically
consist of ties with co-ethnics, he or she will have a greater propensity to engage in ethnic-
based organizations.

Dispositions
The New Social Movements school (Melucci 1989), as well as the cultural approach to
networks rooted in relational sociology (Crossley 2011; Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994;
Fuhse 2009; among others), point out that the cultural, symbolic, or cognitive content of
relationships also needs to be taken into account in order to understand the impact of
networks on the actions of individuals. This literature indicates that the relevance of
networks in immigrants’ participation is not only due to the formal properties of network
structures, but also to their potential to support the creation, transmission, and
588 M. BOLÍBAR

consolidation of cognitive formations. More specifically, social networks reinforce the

dispositions of individuals to participate in three main cognitive dimensions related to
participation: symbolic incentives, identities, and frames.
First, social networks have the ability to establish or convey incentives of various kinds;
being able to shape motivations, interests, and expectations concerning the rewards of
participation – rewards that may be material, emotional, or symbolic. Coleman’s (1988)
conceptualization of social capital introduces the idea that a closed structure of social
relations between agents induces the formation of systems of generalized sanctions and
rewards. They minimize the free-riding, discouraging consequences of collective action,
thus institutionalizing a norm in favor of participation. Building on this idea, but pointing
beyond the structure of costs and benefits, the literature close to the New Social
Movements approach emphasizes the ethical and symbolic nature of the network-related
rewards of participation (Crossley and Ibrahim 2012). Crossley and Ibrahim, for instance,
in their work on student activism, noted that aspects such as solidarity, trust, social
support, and recognition in a group could incentivize participation, even when the
economic or material benefits of participation did not compensate for its efforts (ibid.: 5).
Secondly, networks form the basis of collective identity-building processes. Collective
identity is understood here as “an individual’s cognitive, moral, and emotional connection
with a broader community, category, practice, or institution. It is a perception of a shared
status or relation, which may be imagined rather than experienced directly” (Polletta and
Jasper 2001: 285). A shared identity symbolically unites a population, invoking a sense of
duty to participate and act as a collective (Crossley 2007: 33). Among immigrants, the
identity of belonging to an ethnic group is considered to be the basis for the construction
of an empowered “ethnicity-for-itself” that makes them better able to defend their inter-
ests in the host society collectively (Rex and Beatrice 1994: 5). However, the multilocal life-
world of transnational immigrants and its related transnational identities may also form
the basis for more complex forms of political affiliation and engagement (Vertovec 2001).
In this regard, Landolt (2008) also points out that the network arrangements of local
contexts of reception define immigrant narratives of group identity, which in turn shapes
the territorial orientation of their political practices.
Those communitarian and political identities are defined, negotiated, and sustained in
social interactions that grow out of the routine of social life (De Federico 2007; McAdam,
Tarrow, and Tilly 2001; Melucci 1989). According to De Federico (2002, 2007)), the direct
experience of fraternity, trust, and solidarity in personal communities of friendship and
kinship is transferred to the society as a whole, supporting the feelings of belonging to and
identification with abstract “imagined communities” (Anderson 1983 [2005]) that are
capable of including the members of these actual personal communities (De Federico
2002: 9). Lubbers, Molina, and McCarty (2007), for instance, observed in Spain that
ethnicity becomes less salient in self-identification with a strong relational embeddedness
in the country of reception, while ethnically exclusive identifications are more prevalent
among immigrants with a lower proportion of Spanish people in their networks. These
identities may form the basis for a certain communitarian and political affiliation.
According to Tilly (1978), the combined effects of “relational connectedness” and the
symbolic construction of boundaries around a social category (“categorical commonality”)
are two mutually reinforcing processes that enhance the ability of a group to act collec-
tively and mobilize around a shared mobilizing category, practice, or institution.
 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 589

Thirdly, interactive processes also convey processes of influence and of the collective
interpretation of reality, transferring structures of meaning and beliefs about the social,
cultural, political, and institutional realities that surround civic participation. In other
words, networks sustain interpretative frames. Frames are a constitutive aspect of sub-
jectivity – interpretative schemes that articulate the meanings of perceived social reality
(Hunt, Benford, and Snow 1994). Social networks play a role in the formation, transmis-
sion, and consolidation of frames because interpersonal interactions involve sharing and
giving meaning to a shared symbology of the environment (Crossley 2002; Passy 2003;
Passy and Giugni 2001). These structures of meaning, created and reproduced interac-
tively, contribute to defining an individual’s disposition to participating in a social move-
ment or organization by shaping in particular his or her perceptions of the effectiveness of
collective action, the inconvenience of participation, the legitimacy of “the authorities,”
and one’s own availability to participate – the first of these perceptions being the most
important trigger for participation (Passy and Giugni 2001).
In conclusion, we can expect personal networks to have an impact on immigrants’ civic
involvement through its factual structuring and connecting nature, as well as its function
as an interface in both defining and sustaining cognitive structures. In particular, as
illustrated in Figure 1, I hypothesize that immigrants’ relational patterns, in terms of
their embeddedness in different territories and ethnic groups, convey particular network-
based resources, opportunities, symbolic incentives, identities, and frames that shape the
orientations of their civic participation. Moreover, in what follows, I aim to describe
empirically how this occurs.

Figure 1. Conceptual model linking migrants’ networks and civic participation.

590 M. BOLÍBAR

Research Design and Methods

Spain’s immigrant population (i.e., registered residents born out of Spain) grew exponen-
tially in the 2000s, from 2.28 percent of the population in 2000 to 12.2 percent in 2010.2
This changed the landscape of the participatory field, although not proportionally: the data
for Catalonia show that only 25 percent of the immigrant population participate in
associations, more than 15 points below the average for the whole population.3 The
analysis in this article focuses on Ecuadorian and Moroccan immigrants in Catalonia,
Spain, two groups that well illustrate the nature of immigration to Spain. They are the two
largest immigrant groups in the country from outside the European Union; they have both
come to Spain for economic reasons, mostly in the 2000s (although a small community of
Moroccan immigrants arrived earlier); and they present a variety of linguistic, religious,
and geographical backgrounds.
The analysis is based on a mixed-methods research design (for a thorough review of the
use of mixed methods in social network analysis, see, among others, Bolíbar 2016;
Domínguez and Hollstein 2014; Edwards 2010). Quantitative and qualitative methods
were combined in a sequential explanatory design (Creswell 2009), the qualitative phase
being the most important in answering the research question. In general terms, in the
quantitative stage an empirical typology of immigrants’ embeddedness territorially and
ethnically was constructed, which also provided some minor information on how that
correlates with participation in associations. The following qualitative stage was devoted to
linking empirically those networks with the “network mechanisms” previously defined
theoretically and the categories of “orientation of participation.”
To be more specific, first, a survey of personal networks was administered to a sample
of Ecuadorian and Moroccan immigrants living in Catalonia, Spain (N = 154). It collected
ego-centered networks composed of 30 alters – that is, both strong and weak ties to
individuals with whom the interviewees had had contact in the last two years4 – as well as
data about participation in associations (the questionnaire is reproduced in the appendix).
The survey was conducted in 2009 and 2010.5 The sample was stratified in respect of the
basic structural characteristics of the Catalan population by city of residence (three cities
of different sizes representing the variations in urbanization in Catalonia), gender, and
origin (country of birth, namely Morocco or Ecuador).
Secondly, an analysis of the quantitative network data was performed, which aimed to
identify and characterize empirically, first of all, the diversity of configurations of personal
networks from a relational point of view. To this end, a hierarchical cluster analysis was
performed (using Ward’s method) to create a typology of network configurations, cluster-
ing the individuals in groups of immigrants with a similar network composition within the
group, but dissimilar from those of individuals in the other groups. The similarities and
dissimilarities were computed by taking into account the composition of personal net-
works in terms of country of origin and the locations where alters live and were met.
Following Lubbers et al. (2010), in establishing the composition of the network, the origins
and residences of the alters were taken into account, distinguishing between those who are
originally from and live in the respondents’ home country; those from the same country of
origin but living in Spain who were met before and after migration; those born and living
in Spain; and others – that is, those of other origins living in Spain, and those living in
countries other than the home and host countries.
 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 591

Thirdly, as previously planned, the results obtained were used as the criteria for the
selection of 18 cases that were analyzed qualitatively by means of semi-structured in-depth
biographical interviews. The cases were intentionally selected from among the participants
in the survey, following the criterion of the type of network (defined in an empirically
grounded manner with the cluster analysis performed using the quantitative data), as well
as searching for a balance in respect of country of origin (Moroccans and Ecuadorians),
city of residence, gender, and intensity of associative participation (migrants with a higher
level of participation were targeted). Table 1 describes both the quantitative and qualita-
tive samples in these terms.
The qualitative interviews, which were conducted in Spanish6 and had an average
duration of 86 minutes, linked the interviewee’s personal network (which had been
reconstructed in the previous quantitative phase and was visualized during the interview
using Egonet) with his or her participatory experience. They also explored the character-
istics of the respondent’s participatory practices along with their biographies and identi-
fied the meanings attributed to these experiences by stimulating a narrative about it.
The flexibility of the qualitative dimension of the research design enabled forms of local
and transnational civic involvement to be identified inductively. Going beyond associative
involvement – the only element to be captured with the quantitative data – the interviews
covered all social, cultural and political activities in the civil society, however formalized at
different levels, and “oriented toward the country of origin,” as well as any type of local
participation “oriented toward the host society.” At the same time they established
whether immigrants’ participatory activities were “oriented toward the intra-group” or
“oriented toward the out-group.”
The qualitative data were analyzed by means of hierarchical coding using Atlas.ti. The codes
were created inductively during the analysis, following some loose guidelines regarding the topics
to be explored. In this qualitative stage of the analysis, by adopting a comprehensive approach to
the actors’ narratives, the role of network-related resources, opportunities, and cognitive ele-
ments (symbolic incentives, identities, and frames) and the different types of participation they
gave rise to among immigrants with different types of networks were identified. In other words, it
allowed to answer how and why the different types of networks have a differential impact on the
civic engagement of immigrants.

Table 1. Characteristics of the individuals of the quantitative and qualitative sample, according to the
sampling criteria.
Personal Networks Survey Biographical interviews
n % n %
Ecuador 76 49.7 8 44.4
Morocco 77 50.3 10 55.6
Male 81 52.9 9 50.0
Female 72 47.1 9 50.0
Large capital city (Barcelona) 53 34.6 8 44.4
Medium-sized metropolitan town 50 32.7 5 27.8
Small capital of a rural county 50 32.7 5 27.8
Leader of an association 6 33.3
Active participation 6 33.3
Non-active participation 4 22.2
Does not participate 2 11.1
“Transnational” type of network (according to cluster analysis) 4 22.2
“Mixed” type of network (idem) 8 44.4
“Immigrant enclave” type of network (idem) 6 33.3
592 M. BOLÍBAR

Except for the brief results shown in Table 3, most of the claims the article makes about
participatory practices are based on this qualitative part of the study, which is particularly
well suited to the aim of shedding light on a field about which so little is known. The
qualitative data allowed rich descriptions of these repertoires of participation and the
meanings attached to it to be produced and the process by which networks had an impact
on them to be traced (in the sense of Bennett and Elman 2006).
Following the rationale of case-oriented research (Ragin 1999, 2010), our results are
based on the search for commonalities (common causal conditions linking immigrants’
networks to specific participatory outcomes) within the groups defined by the network
typology. These results are shared by presenting only the few illustrative examples that
better represent the most salient and differential features or commonalities of each group.
This strategy aims to maximize the quality and reliability of the results (Silverman 2005)
by sharing with the readers some of the empirical material that sustained the researcher’s
in-depth process of “making sense of cases” as holistic units with unique experiences
embedded in their particular contexts (Ragin 2010).

Results
The hierarchical cluster analysis created empirically a typology of personal networks with
an optimal solution based on three groups – optimal and parsimonious both in terms of
interpretive (i.e., clear identity) and technical-statistical criteria (i.e., clustering coefficients
reporting stable partitions). It reveals the distinctive features that configure diverse net-
work patterns among the population in our sample. As shown in Table 2, these patterns
are characterized by the extent to which ties with alters living in the country of origin are
maintained and by the direction in which new ties are formed in the post-migration stage,
that is, with either the immigrant community or the broader population. The typology of
personal networks therefore shows the coexistence, among the immigrants studied, of
different processes of assimilation, immigrant enclaves, and the maintenance of ties with
a transnational community.

Table 2. Typology of personal networks. Description of the clusters according to the mean of the
variables used for the classification of individuals into groups (percentage of the following types of
alters in the networks).
Type of network
Transnational Immigrant Mixed
(n = 55) enclave (n = 42) (n = 56) Total
Network
composition Autochthonous alters 6.55 13.91 37.08 19.74
Alters of the same origin living in Spain, met 10.30 22.43 17.50 16.27
in the home country
Alters of the same origin living in Spain, met 22.91 39.06 10.89 22.94
in the host country
Alters of other origins living in the host 3.76 12.62 7.14 7.43
country
Alters living in the home country 50.61 8.81 22.98 29.02
Alters in other countries 5.88 3.17 4.40 4.60
Total 100 100 100 100
 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 593

Table 3. Type of association in which migrants participate, according to their type of network. Multiple-
choice answers. The percentages reported refer to those within each network type who participate in
the categories provided in the files. Significant cells with adjusted residuals greater than ±1.96 in bold.
Type of network
Transnational Immigrant Mixed
network enclave network Total
Active participation in any type of association 16.4% 47.6% 37.5% 32.7%
Participation in political associations (political parties and organizations, 7.7% 8.1% 14.3% 10.1%
unions, professional organizations, NGOs)
Participation in communitarian associations (cultural, religious, leisure or 16.4% 37.5% 24.5% 25.0%
sports groups or organizations)
Participation in service-provider associations (social assistance, labor 23.6% 9.5% 8.9% 14.4%
insertion, adult schools)
Participation in migrants’ associations (defined as such by the 21.8% 24.4% 21.8% 22.5%
respondents)
Note. Binomial logistic regression analyses show that the same results remain significant (at p < .1) when controlling for:
sex, country of origin, age, years living in Spain, situation in the labor market (active vs. inactive) occupational status (low
vs. middle-high), place of residence (urban vs. rural), and educational level.

The first type of network to emerge from the cluster analysis is characterized by having
a large presence of transnational ties in the network: 50.6 percent of their alters live in the
home country. Despite the fact that they not only have transnational ties (43.52 percent of
their contacts live in the host country, suggesting a dual centrality of the home and host
countries in these personal networks), given that this is their most salient and distinctive
characteristic I have called them “transnational networks.” The second type of network
I call the “immigrant enclave” type. Migrants with this kind of network have a high
number of fellow co-ethnics (or compatriots) living in the host country (61.5 percent) and
a low proportion of autochthonous alters and alters living in the home country (13.91 per-
cent and 8.8 percent, respectively). This type of network is similar to the previous one in
the sense that most of their alters are from the same country of origin as Ego, but differs in
that most of them, even those met before migrating, are living in Spain and not in the
country of origin. Finally, the third type of network identified – called here the “mixed
network” – is located primarily in the host country, but has a more heterogeneous ethnic
composition, therefore having a considerable number of autochthonous alters (37.8 per-
cent), but also ethnic (28.4 percent) and transnational ties (23 percent) (see Bolíbar, Martí,
and Verd 2015 for a more detailed account of this typology and of the factors that lead
immigrants to develop one type of network or another).7 These groups also present some
differences regarding the years they have been living in Spain. The mean length of stay of
the individuals in the sample is 7.67 years. Immigrants with a transnational network
arrived later, with a mean length of stay of 6.05 years, while immigrants with an
immigrant enclave and a mixed network at the moment of the interview had been in
Spain already for 8.38 and 8.73 years respectively.
Regarding the link of those networks with participation, on the one hand, the
quantitative data (see Table 3) show different patterns of associative involvement.
With respect to general participation in associations, the results show that individuals
with immigrant enclave networks participate actively in associations to a greater extent,
while those with transnational networks tend to be less involved. In addition, a closer
look at the type of organization (see rows 2–5 of Table 3) shows that immigrants with
enclaved networks tend to participate more in communitarian organizations, where the
594 M. BOLÍBAR

aim of the engagement is the very participation and the sociability it entails. On the
contrary, immigrants with transnational networks tend to participate more in organiza-
tions aimed at providing services and social assistance, as these have a rather instru-
mental purpose. The data shows no significant differences regarding participation in
political associations (defined in a broad manner to include political parties and
organizations, unions, professional organizations and NGOs), although immigrants
with mixed networks seem to have a slightly higher presence in them. However, as
briefly mentioned in the methods section, the questionnaire used has important
limitations, since it does not provide insights regarding either the territorial orientation
of immigrants’ participation or the specific type of activity (and its orientation) that
takes place in “immigrant associations.” Moreover, other, less formalized types of
collective participation have received no attention. The qualitative data aims to fill
these gaps.
On the other hand, analysis of the qualitative data shows that the network constella-
tions identified tend to have a different impact on immigrants’ civic involvement:
transnational networks tend to demotivate participation, immigrant enclaved networks
to mobilize, in the direction of multilocal, origin-based participation, while mixed
networks tend to mobilize civic engagement beyond the ethnic or immigrant commu-
nity. In what follows, and using the guidelines of the theoretical model proposed, the
role of network mechanisms on immigrants’ local and transnational participation are
described separately for each case. The main results are summarized in Table 4.

Transnational Networks and Participation

Migrants with a transnational network profile tend to have few relational resources and
few opportunities for participation. Given the centrality in their networks of contacts
living in their country of origin, in Spain they have a weak relational environment that
carries certain isolation. A good example of that is the case of Felipe. He is a 39-year-old
Ecuadorean with a transnational network who has been in Spain for seven years. Most of
his contacts (77 percent) are in Ecuador, with whom, in spite of the distance, he keeps
regularly in touch and relies for support, while in Spain he has no “friends” with whom to
organize communitarian initiatives.
Felipe: Here, I almost don’t know my neighbors. In the block where I live there are
40 families, but I just know four or five of them. And I have been living
there for seven years! Not like there [Quito, Ecuador]. There we are all
friends, we all know and trust each other. But here I don’t know anyone.
Truly, here no one knows anyone. But if I am in Ecuador, I greet every-
body, eh? In every neighborhood. They all know me. I have many, many
friends. Therefore … it’s something different…
Interviewer: Do you miss that? Is it important to you?
Felipe: Of course, a lot. Here, one … leaves work and goes home.
Moreover, this type of network hinders the development of immigrants’ disposition to
participate. This factor is particularly important, as it hampers participation even when
opportunities to participate exist.
Table 4. Main effects of networks on migrant participation.
Networks factual structure Network-based cognitive formations
Resources Opportunities Incentives Identities Frames
Transnational: Certain isolation in Few opportunities, missed for Lack of symbolic incentives for Feeling of not belonging to Opposition between here and there;
Network host country lack of disposition to participation: ideal of return the host country participation makes sense in the
demobilizes participate communitarian dynamics of the
country of origin
Immigrant enclave: Network as Recruitment within the Aim to create fraternal spaces for Networks reinforce ethnic Associations as brokers in-/out-group,
Network fosters a resource, enables immigrant circuit sociability and communion identities (and origin-based made to bond, promote and defend
origin-based the emergence of “imagined community”) the group’s “interest” in a mosaic
participation new organizations society
Mixed: Network Recruitment from the Aim of getting to know new people. Networks reinforce multiple Naturalization of intercultural contact.
fosters non- autochthonous side of the Taking part with a group of people identity categories; feeling Associations as “mediators,” not
ethnic network provides opportunities in order to take part in the host of belonging to the host “representatives”
participation for participation society society
THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
595
596 M. BOLÍBAR

Felipe, for instance, has been in fact “invited to participate” several times – that is,
people he knows have tried to recruit him to participate in different sorts of initiatives and
organizations in Barcelona – but he has never taken the step of joining them:
Interviewer: Have you heard of associations around here?
Felipe: Yes, associations of all sorts, of Ecuadorians, of everything … but it hasn’t
interested me to get closer; I don’t know … I’ve always said I’m popping
into it, but time has passed like that, I’ve said “Right now, right now,” they
have invited me, some have said “Just come, you’ll get to know more
people,” and I’ve said I’m going; but it hasn’t happened. At some point
I might pass by and get in, but – no … no.

The factors that prevent Felipe and the other immigrants with transnational networks who
were interviewed from taking advantage of opportunities to participate are twofold, both
having to do with the cognitive elements sustained in networks. In the first place, their
feelings of not belonging to the host society that stem from their weak relational bond
with it. The immigrants in the sample have less motivation to participate when they have
a plan to return to their home country or migrate to a third country – a rather common
project among immigrants of this group, who have put down fewer roots, sometimes
feeling and acting more like highly mobile “migrants” than like settled “immigrants.”
Felipe, for instance, does not have incentives to participate, in the sense that he does not
fully aim to develop a new relational environment in Spain, as he explicitly mentions that
his eventual goal is to return to Ecuador. In the second place, framing participation as
something that only makes sense within the dynamics of neighborliness and social support
that these immigrants attribute to their origins. Migrants with transnational networks tend
to associate their country of origin with dynamism, sharing, organizing leisure activities
for the community, and exchanging social support. Conversely, they associate the host
country with the opposite: anonymity, sacrifice, and work – and in some cases, at the level
of participation, with bureaucracy, coldness, and formal organization. In this context, they
frame participation as an expression of sense of community and in-group sociability,
which, according to them, makes sense only there:
Interviewer: Are you in any kind of group?
Felipe: No, here nothing. Nothing at all. In Ecuador, yes; in Ecuador, I participated
in everything.
Interviewer: Where were you participating?
Felipe: In music, we made a football club, volleyball, for the festivities, … we were
the ones organizing it. We hired a DJ or something for the corner … for all
the neighborhood to dance … And we were all meeting there … It’s very
beautiful.

Immigrant Enclave Networks and Participation

Those cases with the type of immigrant enclave network that participate actively in the
civic domain are those who have made the greatest use of social networks as a resource for
creating new forms of participation. The interviews show that ethnic- or origin-based
organizations in Catalonia have emerged once a critical mass (see Crossley and Ibrahim
 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 597

2012) of immigrants connected cohesively in the host country has been reached, thus
allowing the coordination and creation of new empowering community initiatives.
This is the case, for instance, of Abdellah, a 44-year-old Moroccan – a pioneer who
arrived in Spain 18 years before the interview, and who started a new Islamic center in
Spain, an association aimed at organizing religious and cultural activities and bonding the
Moroccan immigrant community together, as well as campaigning politically on the
educational system and other issues. This initiative stemmed from the increasing presence
of immigrants in his town, together with the fact that they were well connected through
collective and cohesive “proto-associative” practices such as congregating to pray:
Interviewer: Explain me how the association was born, what was the idea, how…?
Abdellah: Yes, the association … What happened is that people [from Morocco]
started to arrive [in the town]. We realized that every day people are
coming, people coming, and then the association was made. When there
were around 60 people we started, mostly to pray, we prayed in my
house. … We had been almost two years praying in my house. … So
then we … as we saw it rising, one day we were talking, huh, we had coffee
with six or seven people, and I said: “Why don’t we arrange a meeting and
think what we’ll do, see if…? … Now we are here, more people and
probably more people are coming; we should rent a place and do …
what do you think about this idea [creating a formal Islamic center]?” –
and everything sounded really good to them.

Participation oriented toward the in-group in the host society is also based on particular symbolic
cognitive formations. First, the prospect of building further ties and cultivating sociability,
companionship, and communion with the peer group constitutes in itself an incentive for
participation. Carlos, a 39-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant who leads an Ecuadorian association
in Barcelona, talked about immigrants’ associations in Spain in this sense:
Interviewer: What would you say that … what’s the contribution of associations? Why
are they useful?
Carlos: I think it’s the warmth of their own nation, isn’t it? To meet [in Spain] with
their own traditions, with those habits, to remember things; I think they are
looking for a little piece of their country [of origin], that’s what I think is
sought, feeling welcomed, knowing that here there is security.

Secondly, immigrant enclave networks foster identification with the identifying category
on which their networks are based, thus making their origin a distinctive trait of their
“imagined community” (Anderson 1983 [2005]; De Federico 2007). Therefore, such net-
works attribute meanings to a form of participation that consolidates and promotes these
identities, participation that gives a priority to the group’s “interests,” understood and
defined through its ethnic boundaries – boundaries that networks define and reproduce. It
aims to represent the immigrant in-group before the out-group (the host society) and to
protect and promote its practices and its share of power in a society that is framed as
a mosaic made up of the sum of different groups. According to this view, these groups can
dialogue between themselves, but always from the perspective of their ethnic, religious,
cultural, or origin-based positions of belonging.
598 M. BOLÍBAR

This resembles the situation that Rex and Beatrice (1994) describe for ethnic minorities
in the United Kingdom. Maintaining an ethnic identity is what allows ethnic organizations
to define themselves as “representatives” of the ethnic group or community and to
negotiate the policies that affect them (particularly in cultural and religious terms).
Nevertheless, this negotiation is not only produced between the in-group and the out-
group: the origin-based definition of belonging also enhances transnational participation
oriented toward the country of origin.
The transnational participation identified in the interviews with Ecuadorian and
Moroccan immigrants was closely linked to their particular backgrounds and contexts
of origin: delving into religious issues and minorities’ cultural rights among Moroccan
immigrants, and more strongly related to the election of parliamentary representatives for
emigrants among Ecuadorians. In both cases, the repertoire of transnational participatory
forms that was revealed is sustained in the strong local organization that characterizes the
environment of those with the immigrant enclave type of network. As Østergaard-Nielsen
(2003) points out in discussing Turks and Kurds in Germany, “immigrant” and “home-
land” politics are constantly intertwined.
In this regard, the case of Carlos is very illustrative. His involvement in an Ecuadorian
association led him to join a platform of Ecuadorian organizations aimed at establishing
a political movement of Ecuadorians in Spain. As a member of this platform, he estab-
lished contact with (1) many other Ecuadorians’ organizations in Spain, (2) cultural and
social organizations in Ecuador, and (3) Spanish institutions and local parties to whom he
aims to “represent” the Ecuadorian immigrant community. Collaboration with those in
the third of these categories is used to obtain recognition and status in Ecuadorian-related
politics in the country of origin:
Carlos: That’s the goal I pursue [in the platform]: That the Ecuadorian government
says, “The Ecuadorians have settled well, in a country that is not ours, and
therefore it can also affect us.” … That … that the government of the
moment in our country, they say: “This group of Ecuadorians has created
a movement there [Spain], and is working with the party in the govern-
ment there, and has achieved something there.”
Interviewer: Aha.
Carlos: So, when we make the decision to take this movement and settle it in
Ecuador, it carries significant weight.
Interviewer: Of course.
Carlos: Weight and respect.

Mixed Networks and Participation

The findings show that, for immigrants in mixed networks, their connections are particularly
relevant in terms of generating opportunities for participation. Being recruited is vital if immigrants
are to engage in forms of participation oriented toward the host society in respect of both the
territory and the subject toward which it is directed. Actually, since the profile of immigrants with
mixed networks is characterized by their having a diverse composition, the qualitative data
pointed toward two different situations or subtypes of network effects. In some cases, when the
ethnic side of the mixed network has greater relevance and immigrants are recruited from it,
 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 599

participation, and the cognitive structures sustaining it, tend to resemble the participation of the
immigrant enclaved described earlier. However, among the others it is evident that, when the
autochthonous side of the network is symbolically strong enough to increase the possibility of
being recruited to participate in non-immigrant organizations, participation is clearly oriented
toward the host country, its ethnic component not necessarily being its defining trait. Given the
interest of this singular subgroup, the rest of the section describes the role of networks in their
participation.
Among this category of immigrants, participation also entails social incentives. As in the case of
the immigrant enclave, associations are also often seen as a space in which to meet new people in
the receiving country and to obtain emotional support to compensate for the losses produced by
emigration:
Alejandra: My brother [a former emigrant] told me, “Look, [when you go to Spain]
you’ll feel alone, so take refuge in the association; they are going to give you
comfort, they are going to listen to you, because you are going to suffer, so it
will be your refuge.” And so I did.

Nevertheless, among immigrants with mixed networks, this sociability does not aim to reproduce
the ethnic, immigrant, or origin-based community in the host country. Mixed networks facilitate
their identification with multiple identifying categories – not just one referring to their immigrant
origin – while also reinforcing identification with the territory (the town or the neighborhood) in
the host country, in which the immigrant component has less centrality. Moreover, these
immigrants transfer their experiences to the whole of society, perceiving the autochthonous society
as a relatively open setting where diversity is natural and ethnic groups are framed as diverse and
permeable entities.
These considerations lead immigrants to disagree with the view of associations as
“representatives” of the immigrant population and their interests, as well as to reject the
way some organizations within civil society project and assert in the host country an
ethnic identity they consider too essentialist and picturesque. Alejandra, a 42-year-old
Ecuadorian woman who had been in Spain for nine years, expressed it in this way:
Alejandra: The “homeland day” that [anonymized organization] organizes does not appeal to
me. … What is being promoted is folklore and commercial festivities such as
Mother’s Day, the Homeland Day, the I-Don’t-Know-What Day… things that
I just do not conceive as being Ecuadorian; for me, flying the flag is not being
Ecuadorian, for instance, … I don’t defend the flag, or an anthem or much folklore.
There are some people who couldn’t stand the indigenous [in Ecuador] but then
later on here [in Spain] when they dance they get dressed as indigenous and then
sell this kind of Ecuadorianism.

Conversely, immigrants with mixed networks consider participation to be a space for

exchange, intercultural dialogue, and a mutual approach to daily coexistence, as well as
a mechanism for bringing the immigrant population closer to the out-group (or to
redefine a notion of an in-group not based on ethnic boundaries). From this point of
view, immigrants’ participation aims to build a new plural and diverse society, collectively,
of which immigrants are also a part. As Alexandra puts it, they raise awareness about the
prejudices that keep the autochthonous and immigrant as separate communities:
600 M. BOLÍBAR

Alejandra: There are generalizations, stereotypes, prejudices and labels, and then the
associations and organizations sensitize a lot, sensitize and bring closer. In
spite of everything, in spite of all the differences, in spite of all the issues that
may arise in daily life, I think that’s what is done, isn’t it? Some in a very
paternalistic way, others in some other way; but they raise awareness, raise
awareness and bring people [from different backgrounds] closer.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that, with respect to the territorial axis of the orientation of
participation, the participation of immigrants with a mixed network tends to focus more on the
host society. Given the link they make between participating in and belonging to the host country,
transnational participation is of minor relevance, making their transnational participation less
central than among immigrants with the immigrant enclave type of network. The exceptions
encountered in the interviews depict immigrants with mixed networks as developing transnational
activities with the support of local NGOs or other autochthonous organizations that are closely
involved in international cooperation. These results show that the development of transnational
participatory practices benefits from the support of local networks in the host country, local
structures being what enable or facilitate the maintenance and organization of this type of activity.

Conclusions
The present article has provided a theoretical frame and presented an empirical project that brings
together two streams of research: work on networks, migration, and transnationalism, and work
on networks and collective action. By so doing, it has contributed to advancing our understanding
of the link between networks and civic involvement, while introducing a novel transnational
dimension into the analysis of the effects of immigrants’ networks on participation. Moreover, it
has demonstrated the applicability of studies of social networks and social movements to broader
forms of participation.
The article has also mapped the types of connection of Ecuadorian and Moroccan immigrants
in Catalonia in both their home countries and their country of residence, as well as both within
and outside their respective ethnic groups. Subsequently, it traced the mechanisms by which the
different network constellations that immigrants have developed along these cleavages contribute
to defining different forms of participation, differentiated by group and territorial orientation.
The findings of the analysis validate the explanatory power of the theoretical model by
showing how the different types (transnational, mixed, and immigrant enclave) and
consequently the different roles of social networks as a resource, opportunity, and
cognitive support for participation foster different forms of participation. Therefore, the
configurations of immigrant networks put them in particular positions in the local and
transnational fields that convey different ways of practicing citizenship in civil society.
The results also demonstrate the relevance of the structural or formal elements of
networks – that is, their capacity to provide opportunities for participation and their value
as a resource that makes this possible. However, they also stress that the relational
environment, beyond being a structure for the flow of information, is a space in which
the cognitive structures that attribute subjective meanings to participation are created and
sustained, thus making immigrants with different types of networks contemplate partici-
pation in different ways. In the case of the empirical research described in this article, for
instance, the ways in which immigrants with transnational networks participate is actually
 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 601

only really explained when one probes the symbolic and cognitive formations that stem
from their relational positions in their home and host countries.
However, even though these different elements have been exposed separately, the
meanings carried by the relationships and the way ties are structured (and thus the type
of resources and opportunities they entail) are intertwined. It is actually their combination
that explains the different ways in which immigrants participate. For instance, the
different ways of framing and understanding one’s “own group” that stem from “mixed”
and “enclaved” relational structures (reinforcing ethnic or origin-based boundaries and
rooted in multiple identifying categories, respectively) attributes different roles to civil-
society organizations. Among the enclaved immigrants, it plays a mediating role based on
the “representation” – that is, promotion and defense – of the group defined through its
ethnic or origin-based boundaries in relation to the host society. On the other hand, the
mixed group aims to boost closeness between the immigrant and the autochthonous based
on “mediation” between the in-group and the out-group – that is, promoting mutual
exchanges and cross-milieu forms of positioning in a society. The actual practices that
arise from these attitudes reinforce and spread the corresponding relational structures at
the societal level, in one case strengthening and in the other case blurring the salience of
ethnic boundaries.
Regarding territorial boundaries, the article points out that transnational participatory
practices are sustained in strong local networks located in the host country. It is not those
with more transnational networks who develop participatory practices aimed at having an
impact or producing an outcome affecting the country of origin, but those with ethnic and
local networks (existing among immigrants that we have described as being “enclaved” or, to
a lesser extent, “mixed networks”). This contrasts with the situation of immigrants with
networks of the transnational type, those with most of their ties in their home country, who
experience a certain degree of isolation in the host country that tends to hinder their local
and transnational participation. It supports Dahinden’s results showing that, depending on
the context, network transnationalism can reflect marginalization or even social exclusion
and a lack of integration (Dahinden 2009). Considering that civic participation in itself might
enhance local personal networks and civic skills relevant for (further) political participation
(Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995), migrants with such a type of network might find
themselves trapped in a vicious spiral of social and political exclusion.
Moreover, the fact that transnational participation is based on immigrants’ multilocal
intermediation between organizations and institutions in both home and host countries –
in other words, that it is nourished by ethnic or origin-based organizations and institutions in
the host country – indicates that a “multicultural” societal organization within a strong local
civil society fosters immigrant transnationalism. The results also suggest that bonding in the
receiving country is necessary to enhancing the mobilization of immigrant communities in
both participation oriented toward the immigrant community and the country of origin, while
the promotion of interpersonal links between the immigrant and autochthonous populations
could be used as a strategy by policymakers, organizations, and movements alike to foster
immigrants’ sense of belonging to the Catalan and Spanish sociopolitical communities.
To conclude, the results of the article ultimately confirm the importance of the
relational context in defining the position of individual immigrants in both local and
transnational fields of participation. In particular, they emphasize the relevance of the
“structural position” (using McAdam’s terms [1988]) of immigrants within participation
602 M. BOLÍBAR

orientation. In these regards, the article has only taken into account immigrants’ network
composition to capture their embeddedness in local and transnational communities.
Future research could further inquire into the impact of structural properties of networks
(i.e., patterns of connectivity among network nodes), which has given fruitful results in
recent migration research (see Vacca et al. 2018). It would also be interesting to expand
the research presented in this article by studying other transnational actors, such as
refugees, highly qualified migrants, or second-generation immigrants.

Notes
1. There is a “partial overlap” between the dimensions of the territory and the social group: in-group-
oriented activities might apply both to immigrants living in the host country and to non-migrants
living in the country of origin. Similarly, participation oriented to the host country might have an
immigrant in-group focus or be directed toward the out-group (the whole society).
2. Source: Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE).
3. Source: Idescat and IERMB: Enquesta de Condicions de Vida i Hàbits de la Població.
4. Asking for a fixed number of alters aimed to reduce problems of fatigue or desirability.
Moreover, interviewees were encouraged to use nicknames or abbreviations to refer to their
contacts, to avoid privacy concerns.
5. A broad range of strategies were pursued to recruit research participants in different milieus.
Respondents were located with the aid of diverse institutions and organizations, as well as with
posters on the streets, “call shops” and cyber-cafés, markets, schools, public equipment, and online
sites. Participants signed an informed consent with an agreement of anonymity and confidentiality.
A small economic compensation was offered. Snowballing sampling techniques were kept to the
minimum, so that interviews were not held with people who were “close” to the nominees.
6. Unfortunately, this limited the recruitment possibilities and the depth of some interviews
with Moroccan individuals who had limited Spanish language skills.
7. Note that the names of the network types have been modified following the reviewers’
suggestions. In previous papers, the “transnational networks” type was called “dual networks”
and the “immigrant enclave” type was called “ethnic enclave.”

Acknowledgments
The author thanks Joel Martí and Carlos Lozares for their general guidance; Nick Crossley and
Mario Diani for their suggestions in the literature review; and Andreas Herz, the other members of
the RNNR, and the journal reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement
The author declares no conflict of interests.

Funding
This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the research
grant “Estudio comparado de casos sobre la influencia mutua entre el capital e integración sociales”
(CSO2008-01470).
 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY 603

Notes on contributor
Mireia Bolíbar is a postdoctoral researcher at the Health Inequalities Research Group -
Employment Conditions Network of the Pompeu Fabra University. She holds a Juan de la Cierva
Fellowship. Her research interests center on mixed methods, social networks, migrants' participa-
tion, precarious employment and labour market trajectories.

ORCID
Mireia Bolíbar http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9525-0907

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Appendix
The questionnaire used the following free-list name generator (McCarty 2002; Lubbers et al. 2010):
Please name a list of 30 people whom you know by name (and who know you by name) whom
you have had contact with at least once in the last two years by any means of communication, and
whom you could contact again if necessary. Do not include individuals under 18 years old, but any
other person can be included. Try to include people who are close and important to you. Then you
can include people who are not close but whom you see often. You can extend your memory to
other people. It may help you to think about different groups of people in different places, e.g.
family, friends, workmates, neighbors, etc. Tell the name and surname in an abbreviated form so
that only you can recognize the person.
The wording for the voluntary association membership generator was: “Do you belong to an
association or organization related to… (Yes/No)?” It was repeated nine times, ending with the
following categories: Religion, Leisure and sports, Culture, Politics, Social issues, Professional,
Educational, Related to immigration, and “Others.” If the interviewee answered “yes,” he or she
was asked “Are you a leader/an active member or a non-active member of it?”
This questionnaire design unfortunately does not specify the type of “immigrant associations”
the interviewees participate in, nor does it provide any information about the composition (immi-
grant/non-immigrant) of the other organizations mentioned.