Social Capital and Context: Investigating Congolese, Ghanaian and Senegalese Migration to Europe, 1971-2008

• In Event: 242 - Section on International Migration Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Migrant Social Capital

Abstract

Quantitative micro-studies that explore how context molds migration are heavily influenced by a few migration theories, although many exist (for review, see Massey et al 1994). Given the dominance of Neoclassical Economics and the New Economics of Labor migration theories in the field, most migration scholarship exploring context and individual migration behavior has focused on the economic aspects of context. In addition, many inspired by Social Capital theory have also investigated the social aspects of context, particularly the cumulative causation mechanisms of migration. Other theoretically and empirically relevant interests (e.g. war and armed conflict, political instability, colonial history) have received far less attention. Overall, in empirical analysis, the different accounts of migration are kept largely separate, and little evidence exists on how they may interact.

Authors

• Mao-Mei Liu, Brown University and Universitat Pompeu Fabra

• Sorana Toma, University of Oxford