Social networks have long been identified as crucial to migration flows and the economic behaviour of immigrants. Much of the literature on international migration and economic sociology specifically focuses on the role of interpersonal ties in influencing migration and economic action, such as finding employment. Using the case of Gujarati Indian migration to New York and London, the life histories of these immigrants illustrate that specific configurations of network ties result in different migration flows and occupational outcomes. These configurations include organizational, composite, and interpersonal ties that link local labour markets transnationally and channel immigrants to particular destinations and into particular occupations. The findings clarify the role and meaning of networks as they affect different types of migration and the occupational outcomes of migrants. The prominence of these network mechanisms also challenges the role of human capital in producing distinct outcomes for immigrants.

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Migration is challenging the meaning of residency and citizenship in Southern Europe today. Migrants are contesting the ethnic model of citizenship in Spain, Italy, and Greece by becoming increasingly engaged in social movements to make existence and program claims on the state for residency and citizenship rights. As such, migration processes interfere with the way that migrant social movements can be enacted and sustained and with the potential for successful claim making. The selectivity of migration flows, the migrant networks at origin and destination countries, and the patterns of flows between the home and host countries can affect the stability and continuity of sustained networks of actors involved in social movements and in claim making on the state. This article focuses on the theoretical issues involved in migration flows, network change, and state responses to claim making to explore the potential for sustained changes in the meaning of citizenship in southern Europe.

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