Date: 5th February 2019, 4PM

Venue: HAS CSS RECENS, Meeting Room (T.1.40)

Address: H-1097 Budapest Tóth Kálmán street 4. T building 1st Floor Room 40.

Title:  The anatomy of integration: mapping the networks of inter-ethnic family formations in Sweden, 1968-2012

Abstract:

Looking at a classical indicator of inter-group integration, this ongoing project studies patterns of family formation within and, particularly, between different immigrant groups in Sweden using register-based data for the 1968-2012 period. Transcending the native-centrism of existing studies, instead emphasizing the importance to also study integration between “non-native” groups, the complete complex networks of family relations between immigrant groups is examined.

Among viable mechanisms to explain patterns of inter-ethnic family formation, it is proposed that partner preferences between different migrant groups in Sweden can be partly explained by corresponding relations at the international level. Thus, in the scope of this project, the structure and dynamics of family formation networks in Sweden are compared with various corresponding networks at the international level: such as geographical proximity, collaborations, conflcts, economic ties, and – as tentatively analyzed in this presentation – dyadic measures of cultural similarity and international bilateral migration. In a similar vein, the application of blockmodeling methods on both types of networks allows for comparing the functional anatomies of, respectively, world system structures and the microcosm of international relations that are reflected in inter-ethnic family formations in Sweden.