Abstract
In this article, I am interested in the different types of boundaries emerging in a city characterized by a highly diverse population. The analysis of the personal social networks of 250 inhabitants of a small Swiss City—different types of migrants as well as non-migrants—supplemented by data from qualitative interviews brings to light the important categories for the creation of boundaries and the place of ethnicity among them. The inhabitant’s network structures display specific network boundaries that are translated into symbolic and also social boundaries: four different clusters emerge among the population, pointing to their stratified social positioning in this city. Hereby an interplay of nationality, education, local establishment, mobility type, “race,” and religion are the most important structuring factors. It becomes clear that the common ideas of assimilation cannot grasp the complexity of the “categorical game” at place in this city when it comes to migrant’s incorporation.
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Notes
In comparison with European or North American cities, the number of inhabitants is very small. However, the reader should keep in mind that Switzerland is a country of roughly 7.5 million inhabitants with only five cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants. The district of Neuchâtel has roughly 51,000 inhabitants.
It should be noted that Switzerland accords citizenship on a ius sanguinis basis, with the result that many of the people counted as foreign nationals were born in Switzerland, sometimes even of parents also born in Switzerland. However, these were excluded from the interviews in the beginning. Persons who had two nationalities (and were born abroad), Swiss and another one were classified in the Swiss category. Among the Swiss, ten people were born abroad: nevertheless, because of their long-term stay in Switzerland (in mean 22.5 years), they were included in the category of the Swiss.
The statistical analysis shows that the three variables measure indeed three different aspects of network composition, hereby confirming the theoretically motivated choice of the variables. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient makes evident that the correlation between the three variables is small or medium.
I did run crosstabs with all available items, and did choose those who showed a significant correction, those are shown in Table 2. I also ran some regression models to examine the factors that might explain network variety and volume. However, those results remained very unsatisfactory and I decided to use those complex samples procedures that are more meaningful.
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Acknowledgments
Funding for this research was provided by the Swiss National Science Foundation. I thank René Schaffert for statistical support and help with data analysis, Bülent Kaya and Clément de Senarclens for their research assistance. Ellen Hertz, Christin Achermann, Kerstin Dümmler, and Marylène Lieber offered precious advice and critiques on an earlier draft of this article. A first version of this paper was discussed at the CRONEM conference 2009, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK. I also thank Susanne Wessendorf who invited me to present my ideas at the IMISCOE/SUSDIV workshop, “Researching ‘Super-diversity’ in European cities” in 2009 in Stockholm, Sweden. I am also grateful for the comments by the reviewers of JIMI which have certainly allowed a sharpening of the argument. Any errors or inaccuracies are under my responsibility.
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Dahinden, J. Cities, Migrant Incorporation, and Ethnicity: A Network Perspective on Boundary Work. Int. Migration & Integration 14, 39–60 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-011-0224-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-011-0224-2