Contenu du sommaire : Mobilités, migrations internationales et réseaux sociaux : approches inter- et transnationales

Mexicans from the state of Michoacán make use of their established migratory networks to organize the reproduction of a sacred local image, to venerate in their various places of installation in the U.S., so as to develop a religious network. In the Mexican region of Morelos, the religious transnational network—built by Seventh Day Adventists, although later incorporating other religious denominations—becomes the frame facilitating the development of a migratory network. Through the comparison of these two empirical cases, this paper illustrates the intertwining of religious and migratory networks. Our methodological proposal suggests the necessity of considering both types of networks simultaneously, through analysis of the intertwining of religious practices and mobility approaches, in order to understand how religious and/or migratory networks are activated or decline during specific periods of time.

This article aims to highlight the concrete modalities through which members of elite Malian families have access to student international migration. The article stresses how this access requires different kinds of resources that are all connected to social networks. One consists of the spatial dispersion of those families, providing foreign anchor points which facilitate geographic mobility. Another is the strong social capital possessed by those Malian bourgeois families, with robust family ties with the ruling strata, allowing them to gain access to the significant economic resources needed to support foreign tuition fees.

In this paper, the notion of transnational mobility is being questioned in the light of two research projects. The first observes the movements of workers from the hospitality sector in Andorra, and the second deals with Portuguese posted workers in French construction. Comparing these studies enabled us to identify specific traits of transnational mobilities, in contrast to more traditional migrations, especially with respect to time. The resources mobilized by the workers, along with the time and space boundaries of their activities, lead us to question the relationships between networks and migrations. Our principal argument is that social networks are concomitant with mobility, rather than a prerequisite, and are focused on professional activities. This concept takes some distance from a perspective in which networks are bound to communities, places of origin and families. It questions the “already well-established” network, associated with individuals' practices and trajectories.

The article discusses the professional paths and transnational connections of Tunisian importers of “made in China” commodities. It questions how these traders can reach the Chinese marketplace to access these cheap goods, considering this implies a transnational mobility in China, and examines the complex and indirect ramifications of the globalized trade route between China and the Mediterranean area.Through analysis of the social relations and geographical trajectories of two Tunisian entrepreneurs, we will focus on social and spatial networks that structure their mobility and access. Connection to the source of goods, and the establishment of sometimes diverted trade routes, entails patient relational constructions, established through the personal network of transnational traders, which is itself reinforced in specific locations, and through the experience of practiced or encountered mobility.

In order to understand the underlying logics of the migrants' dispersion into a transnational social space, it is crucial to study migratory trajectories. Nevertheless, the social and spatial mobility thus revealed are insufficient to understand these logics. The use of the social network perspective as an analytical category suggests that social capital is the deciding factor in the migrants' path. Then different reticular mechanisms surface, claiming to act as operational matrices of individual migrations. These are based on so-called disposable ties, family ties or rural community ties. Research on Bolivian migrants working in the garment industry in São Paulo provides the empirical data on which this article is based.

Based on a corpus of qualitative data, this study examines the mobility of skilled Senegalese migrants and the progressive networking which is an integral part of it. The construction of a transnational network is not disconnected from their life trajectory and careers anchored in various places of mobility. Based on an organized social capital, these associations become reticular and transnational. This associative transnationalism is also rooted in a historical basis which, if not a source of legitimization, remains a basis of reproduction.

Based on an ethnographic survey conducted in 2007 of a group of indigenous Mexican migrants, the article deals with changes in ethnic network activations observed in various places of migration (Mexican towns, and those in the U.S. Midwest). Analyzing the interactions between migratory projects, networks and local backgrounds, the article discusses the layout of the “transnational ethnic network,” a cornerstone of the literature on minority populations. It first shows that the “new destinations” of Latin-American migrations to the U.S. are not favorable to community practices. It then sheds light on the motivations and strategies devised by migrants who wish to distance themselves from ethnic networks, highlighting the role of key actors (smugglers, and employers) in the status and migratory experience of this process. Finally, it discusses how some factors (gender, race, and migratory status) either facilitate or prevent separation from the group of origin. The capacity to (de)activate community networks seems a fully-fledged component of the migratory project, although such skill sets are unequally distributed. This capacity orients mobility and settlement according to local settings and migrants' responses to them. Thus, the dynamic and geographical scope of transnational networks is brought to light.

This article aims to analyze how the “mobility turn” and, more precisely, the use of media and information and telecommunication technologies (ICTs), are reshaping the territoriality of migration. Through the concepts of relational space and multiple attachments, it is a matter of examining the relational modes between distant places enabled by ICTs and how they are reshaping the sense of belonging for people of Haitian origin. Through the diachronic study of media practices within the Haitian community in Montreal, from anti-Duvalier exiles to a transnational community, it will query how media sustain the creation of connected belongings and attachments.

This article aims to analyze the consequences of an armed conflict on the functioning of a cross-border merchant and migratory network. It is based on a longitudinal study of the mobility of the inhabitants of Deir Mqaren, a village located in the Wadi Barada region of Syria. The approach is to discuss the distinction between voluntary and forced migration in a region where cross-border mobility has existed for decades. By focusing on the conditions of individuals' movements, our aim is to analyze the process of polarization of migratory flows between Syria and Jordan. This shows the evolution of the mechanisms allowing refugees to circulate within a cross-border area despite a coercive mobility regime. This article focuses on the actors' point of view. Here, we intend take a different stance from that of the institutional paradigm, instead highlighting refugees' status as free agents, despite the structural constraints with which they are constantly confronted.