Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

Migrant Networks

Item

Title

Migrant Networks

Author

Garip, Filiz

Asad, Asad L.

Research Area

Social Processes

Topic

Immigration

Abstract

Migrant networks—webs of social ties between individuals in origin and migrants in destination—are a key determinant of the magnitude and direction of migration flows, as well as migrants' adaptation outcomes. The increasing emphasis on migrant networks represents a new approach to migration research, which, until the late 1980s, had been dominated by economic or political explanations of migration. This entry summarizes findings on migrant networks from relevant areas of research in anthropology, sociology, demography, and economics; identifies the promising lines of inquiry recently undertaken; and points to key issues for future research, such as understanding how migrant networks impact migration behavior and migrants' experiences. Such research into the specific mechanisms of social transmission will need to engage with the ongoing discussions on network effects and their identification in the social science literature at large, which will require the interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers.

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Identifier

etrds0220

extracted text

Migrant Networks
FILIZ GARIP and ASAD L. ASAD

Abstract
Migrant networks—webs of social ties between individuals in origin and migrants
in destination—are a key determinant of the magnitude and direction of migration
flows, as well as migrants’ adaptation outcomes. The increasing emphasis on migrant
networks represents a new approach to migration research, which, until the late
1980s, had been dominated by economic or political explanations of migration. This
entry summarizes findings on migrant networks from relevant areas of research in
anthropology, sociology, demography, and economics; identifies the promising lines
of inquiry recently undertaken; and points to key issues for future research, such
as understanding how migrant networks impact migration behavior and migrants’
experiences. Such research into the specific mechanisms of social transmission will
need to engage with the ongoing discussions on network effects and their identification in the social science literature at large, which will require the interdisciplinary
collaboration of researchers.

INTRODUCTION
Migrant networks are webs of social ties that connect individuals in a sending
region to others in a receiving context. Research shows that these networks
influence the magnitude and direction of migration flows from the sending
region as well as migrants’ adaptation outcomes in the destination. This entry
summarizes findings on migrant networks from relevant areas of research in
anthropology, sociology, demography, and economics; identifies the promising lines of inquiry recently undertaken; points to key questions that remain
to be investigated; and provides a discussion of recent developments in other
fields that may be instrumental to answering these questions.
A focus on migrant networks represents a new approach to migration
research, which had been dominated by economic or political explanations
of migration until the late 1980s. Alternative theories connected migration
to wage differentials between sending and receiving countries (or regions
within the same country for internal migration), insurance and credit market
failures in the sending country, a two-tier occupational structure in the
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

receiving country, or exploitative capitalist relations between the sending
and receiving contexts.
With Douglas Massey’s programmatic article in 1990, however, scholars began to study the “cumulative causation” of migration, that is, its
self-feeding character. The theory posited that each act of migration leads to
a series of changes in the sending community, and these changes make future
migration more likely. With each new migrant, for example, the migrant
networks that connect individuals in the sending and receiving communities
expand. More individuals can rely on these networks to migrate, and, with
more migrants, the networks expand further. Through this feedback loop,
migration flows become self-sustaining and are eventually decoupled from
the economic or political conditions that initiated them in the first place.
A related line of research studied how migrant networks shape migrants’
experiences in the receiving context. Researchers found that migrant networks are a crucial determinant of occupations and wages in destination,
as well as the flow of money and goods between origin and destination.
Scholars also identified “ethnic enclaves,” spatially clustered networks of
businesses owned by migrants from the same origin, as a relevant unit of
analysis in understanding migrants’ economic success or failure in the receiving community.
Recent research has conceptualized how migrant networks span a “transnational” space and sustain economic, political, social, and religious activities
across national boundaries. This new approach challenges prior work that
focuses on either the sending or the receiving country context, and instead
points to the linkages between the two, which are essential to understand
where and how migrants strive to achieve social recognition and economic
advancement.
These research areas establish that migrant networks are critical to evaluating the causes and consequences of migration. Analyses of economic or
political conditions in sending and receiving contexts alone are no longer sufficient to understand the drivers and implications of migration; transnational
social ties and processes are also a critical component of migration decisions
and outcomes.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
MIGRANT NETWORKS AND MIGRATION
Scholars argue that migrant networks facilitate migration by providing
access to migrant social capital, that is, resources of information or help that
lower the costs and increase the benefits of migrating. Empirical evidence
from various settings shows how individuals who have social ties to prior

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migrants—through family, community, or institutional (e.g., the church)
settings—are more likely to migrate themselves and migrate to the same destinations as those who had migrated before them. [Some researchers argue
that the process works similarly for refugees (i.e., political migrants), who
typically use social ties to other refugees to navigate their passage to a new
destination.] Studies also suggest that the expansion of migrant networks
and the accumulation of social capital initiate a process of “cumulative
causation,” through which migration flows become self-sustaining.
Cumulative causation theory suggests migration to be a path-dependent
process, whereby the current context of migration depends on previous
migration patterns. To capture this process empirically, studies categorized
sending communities with respect to their migration prevalence and
observed patterned changes in migrants’ characteristics across different
phases of community migration. At the early stages of migration from a
community, migrants are typically selected from a narrow stratum of the
social structure (e.g., from among those who have some education and/or
financial resources) that can weather the material costs and the personal risks
of migration while still finding it an attractive undertaking. As migration
gains prevalence, migrants become more representative of the community
at large. Researchers attribute this declining selectivity of migration to the
resources provided by previous emigrants, which increase the net benefits
of migration.
MIGRANT NETWORKS AND MIGRANTS’ ADAPTATION IN DESTINATION
Research shows that migrant networks often facilitate immigrant social,
political, and economic adaptation in the receiving context. Empirical
studies have found that newcomers with ties to experienced migrants are
more likely to locate jobs, to secure higher earnings, to establish a business,
to attempt to legalize, and to politically mobilize in destination. Scholars
have observed that new migrants often find accommodation, employment,
or both in migrant enclaves. Enclaves typically emerge in close proximity
to the areas settled by a migrant group (e.g., Chinatown in New York City)
and are thus a staple of many ethnic neighborhoods in migrant-receiving
settings. Enclaves—and ethnic networks more generally—provide a locus
for political mobilization. Hometown associations, destination-based organizations that allow migrants to maintain ties with and materially contribute
to their origin community, also offer places of support to migrants from the
same origin.
Additional research has shown that ties to migrant networks increase
the likelihood that a new migrant finds employment in the formal sector,
which offers higher wages than the informal sector. Studies have also found

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

that migrant networks are more important in determining the employment
outcomes of undocumented rather than documented Mexican workers in
the United States due to the more vulnerable labor market position of the
former. Similarly, among migrants to Germany, scholars have identified
migrant networks to be more important for the young and the less educated,
or those facing the greatest risk of unemployment. While migrant networks
are crucial for a newcomer to locate his or her first job, migrants typically
become less likely over time to use migrant networks to find new jobs (with
exceptions in some settings, such as Germany), typically drifting away from
jobs in the enclave economy.
These findings have led researchers to conclude that migrant networks
improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the job search, yielding higher
wages especially for new migrants in a receiving context. Researchers have
also argued that migrant networks provide benefits to employers, who save
time and money in recruiting, training, and finding replacement workers
since socially connected workers continually support one another. Scholars
have also shown that migrant networks can help self-employed migrants
navigate labor market uncertainties. Mexican domestic workers in the
United States, for example, have been shown to organize and to secure work
by collectivizing and sharing information through their migrant networks.
MIGRANT NETWORKS AND TRANSNATIONAL MIGRANT ACTIVITIES
Migrant networks influence both the initial decision to migrate from origin and the adaptation outcomes in destination. These networks, however,
unravel for some groups as migrants integrate into the receiving community
and sever ties to their sending country. But, for other groups, migrant networks continue to support economic, political, social, or religious activities
spanning both sending and receiving contexts. These “transnational” networks thus provide a new perspective for understanding migrants’ social,
political, and economic adaptation outcomes.
The transnational perspective (or “transnationalism”) offers a corrective to
earlier models of migrant adaptation that focus exclusively on the receiving
country without considering migrants’ ongoing relations with the sending
country. Glick-Schiller and colleagues first conceptualized transnationalism
in the 1990s as a process by which migrants build a social space linking
together their country of origin and their country of settlement. Revised
definitions underlined the fluidity of the transnational social space, which
is constantly reworked through migrants’ embeddedness in the sending
and receiving contexts. This embeddedness, in turn, shapes familial, social,
economic, religious, political, and cultural processes in these contexts.

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Scholars have suggested multiple social spaces for study, including
migration circuits (migrant networks as well as the resources or ideas that
flow through them), transnational social formations (the movement of
individuals, symbols, and resources between settings), and transnational
lives. Researchers also recognized the political and scholarly implications
of the transnational approach: the transnational movement of people (and
the goods, ideas, and symbols that move with them) may ultimately render
state borders obsolete, facilitate the upward socioeconomic mobility of
impoverished populations, and lead to improvements in gender relations
across contexts.
Empirical studies have shown that transnational migrant networks or institutions (such as hometown associations) organize the flow of money and
goods (also known as remittances) to families and communities in the sending
context and to migrants in the receiving context. Remittances from international migrants amounted to US $325 billion in 2010 alone, far exceeding
the volume of official aid to, and almost reaching the level of foreign direct
investment flows in, developing countries. Given the magnitude of these
flows, several studies have investigated remittances’ impact on poverty and
inequality in the migrant-sending regions.
Many studies have suggested that remittances reduce poverty and initiate a development dynamic by relaxing the production and investment constraints in the origin economy; by providing income growth opportunities; or
by creating a vessel for risk diversification. Researchers working in different
settings find that remittances help migrant-sending families establish small
businesses in origin, afford better education for their children, and accumulate wealth.
But researchers have also argued that remittances may produce a cycle
of dependency and thus stunt development in origin. This is especially
the case if the funds are used for consumption rather than income- or
employment-generating productive activities, hence contributing to a
lifestyle that cannot be sustained long term or through local means. Recent
work, however, has found that remittances—even when dedicated to
consumption—generate strong “multiplier” effects in the origin economy.
A related debate has considered the impact of remittances on economic
disparities in origin communities. Several studies have found that remittance flows decrease income or wealth inequalities, while others have
observed the opposite pattern. Recent work has attempted to reconcile these
patterns by showing how the impact of remittances on inequality depends
on the cost or past level of migration. In communities where the cost of
migration is high, and the level of past migration is low, remittances reach
middle- to high-income households and increase inequality. In communities where the cost of migration is low, and/or the level of migration is

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

high, remittances reach lower income households and decrease inequality.
These findings—contested in some settings—suggest an inverse U-shaped
relationship between migration prevalence in a community and inequality.
While abundant research has examined the impact of monetary remittances, few recent studies have pointed to “social remittances,” or the ideas,
behaviors, norms, cultural meanings, and social practices that typically
travel from the receiving to the sending communities through transnational
migrant networks. Researchers have found that transnational migrant
networks—especially ties to former female migrants—fostered more
egalitarian gender norms in origin communities. In some settings, these
networks also have helped to diffuse ideas about political participation and
civic engagement from the destination to the origin communities.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
MIGRANT NETWORKS AND MIGRATION
There is overwhelming evidence establishing how migrant networks provide
information or help to provide resources that increase the migration propensities between origin–destination pairs. But recent research has also found
that resources from prior migrants are not equally beneficial in all settings
nor across all social groups. Studies have shown that ties to prior migrants
are a stronger determinant of first than subsequent trips. (In Mexico, these
ties are also more important in rural than urban regions.) Studies have also
found that prior migrants may not possess sufficient resources to help others due to conditions in destination (such as hostile immigration policies or
limited economic opportunities). Migrant networks also operate differently
for men and women, leading scholars to demonstrate that the gender composition of the networks is often a key component of the observed migration
patterns. In many settings, men (women) benefit more from ties to prior male
(female) migrants.
Migrant networks also have differential effects on individuals’ migration
depending on the diversity of the resources available through them. Having
ties to prior migrants with diverse experiences (e.g., in different occupations
or destinations) increases the set of options available to potential migrants
and, thus, increases migration propensities in some settings. Diverse experiences (e.g., to many destinations), however, may also imply the availability
of fewer resources in each destination, and, as a result, dampen the positive
effect of migrant networks on migration choices.
In high-risk settings—such as international migration requiring border
crossing without documents—resources of information or help from trustworthy strong ties (e.g., family members or close friends) are typically more

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important than those from weak ties (e.g., community members or other
acquaintances). In lower risk contexts (e.g., internal migration), however,
resources from weak ties—often broader in scope compared to those from
strong ties—have a larger effect on individuals’ migration propensities.
Individuals lacking the informational or financial resources necessary to
migrate to a high-risk context sometimes resort to a stepwise migration
strategy. They first draw upon migrant networks in order to migrate to an
intermediate destination. Once in this low-risk destination, migrants collect
additional resources before attempting a trip to their final destination.
The majority of research has thus focused on migrant networks as channels
of information or help from prior migrants that facilitate more migration.
A number of recent studies have argued that the visible signs of prior
migrants’ success (such as newly acquired land or a recently built house
in the origin community) are sufficient to encourage more migration—by
demonstrating its efficacy—without any direct information or help from
the migrants themselves. Several studies have also shown that migrant
networks often act as conduits of normative pressures that make migration
more likely. In many sending regions, researchers observed a “culture of
migration,” whereby individuals come to value migration positively as
a rite of passage or an affirmation of identity. In the Mexican setting, for
example, researchers have noted the social sanctions exacted on young
men who do not attempt a US trip: they are often viewed as lazy and
unenterprising, and even undesirable as future mates. In other settings,
researchers have connected the increasing mobility of women to the wider
acceptability of egalitarian gender norms due, in large part, to earlier female
migrants.
In addition to providing resources or creating normative pressures,
researchers have described how migrant networks support the development
of migrant institutions, such as smuggling businesses for undocumented
border crossing, which facilitate future migration. In the Mexico–US setting,
for example, research has found that women are more likely to rely on
smugglers to cross without documents compared to men.
Although the majority of work has observed positive effects of migrant
networks on individuals’ migration, some studies have also discussed how
certain groups (e.g., women in patriarchal societies) may be denied access
to the resources from these networks or face negative normative pressures
related to migration. Research has also argued that migrant networks may
impose—possibly nonconsensual—social obligations on prior migrants,
requiring them to serve as useful resources to potential migrants. Research
has also found that migrant networks, by facilitating migration, may lead
young adults to give up potential opportunities in origin (e.g., acquiring
education).

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

MIGRANT NETWORKS AND MIGRANTS’ ADAPTATION IN DESTINATION
Countering ample evidence on the benefits of migrant networks for adaptation outcomes in destination, recent research shows that migrant networks
may also limit new migrants’ opportunities by channeling them into the less
profitable, more failure-prone informal ethnic economy. Research has also
argued that migrants’ immersion in coethnic migrant networks may reduce
their interactions with non-coethnics, thus impacting their future social and
economic adaptation trajectories (by instilling a strong sense of ethnic identity or hindering language acquisition, for example). These negative consequences are especially detrimental for women, who are more likely to take
on responsibilities within the home and are thus less likely to establish ties
to non-coethnics through employment.
The negative effects of migrant networks may also accumulate over
time and impede the economic mobility of second-generation migrants
(i.e., those born and raised in destination). Portes and Zhou describe a
process of “segmented assimilation,” whereby migrant networks can lead
to alternative paths. For one migrant group, for instance, ties to ethnic
networks may result in increasing acculturation and parallel adaptation
into the receiving community; another group’s coethnic ties, however, may
imply permanent poverty and relegation to the underclass. Recent empirical
evidence from the United States by Kasinitz and colleagues, however,
suggests that migrant networks may not actually be an impediment to
second-generation migrants, as their educational and occupational profiles
seem closer to their native counterparts than to their migrant parents.
MIGRANT NETWORKS AND TRANSNATIONAL MIGRANT ACTIVITIES
Many researchers celebrated the academic and political implications of the
new focus on transnational movement in the migration literature. Recent
work, however, has challenged the concept for its lack of innovation and
its presumed positive effects for migrants and nonmigrants alike. Scholars
have noted that transnational theories overlook the role of the state in both
facilitating transnational movement (or “transmigrations”) and expediting
migrants’ incorporation in the receiving context. Scholars have further questioned the notion of “transnational communities,” arguing that social relations between origin and destination are often fragmented by class, ethnic, or
other cleavages. Some researchers also raised concerns about the presumed
positive effects of transnational relations on gender equality, pointing to the
potential countereffects of agents at local and regional levels.
Scholars have also raised concerns about the premise of the transnational
perspective for illuminating empirical patterns. First, researchers criticize
the fact that most empirical findings have emerged from Mexico–US

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migration data. Second, researchers have argued that, in many settings, only
an elite minority within each migrant group maintains transnational ties.
The remaining majority of migrants eventually become more acculturated,
shedding their previous national and cultural attachments—including their
mother tongues—while simultaneously integrating more fully into the
receiving context.
These concerns notwithstanding, most researchers concede that the
transnational perspective, although not new in practice, provides a useful
theoretical and analytical lens for understanding migration flows as well
as migrants’ everyday lived experiences in both origin and destination.
In contrast to previous approaches that separately study the causes and
consequences of migration, or others that examine migrant adaptation
processes only within the receiving context, the transnational perspective
encourages scholars to investigate how social, political, economic, and
cultural processes shape (and are shaped by) the causes and consequences
of migration in both sending and receiving contexts.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Although network effects on migration are ubiquitous, most empirical evidence remains correlational. Many studies use survey data to show the (often
positive) effects of prior migrants on individuals’ migration propensities (or
other outcomes, such as wages in destination), but cannot directly observe
the mechanisms—the generative processes—underlying these effects. This
oversight raises two concerns.
First, studies assume the networks effects to be “social,” that is, to reflect
true interdependencies between individuals’ migration choices, but cannot
discard the plausible alternative explanation that those choices may also be a
response to some common and unobserved environmental factor. As Manski
argues, this identification problem is common in social science research,
where empirical analysis often cannot distinguish “social” effects (i.e.,
individuals responding to the behavior or characteristics of the group) from
“correlated” effects (i.e., individuals responding to the same environment).
Second, studies often disagree on what mechanisms explain the observed
effects of migrant networks on migration (or other outcomes). Most
researchers treat networks as hubs of information or help from prior
migrants, while others view them as conduits for normative pressures or
other institutionalized resources. Empirical analysis often fails to resolve this
ambiguity, as survey data cannot distinguish among alternative mechanisms
generating the observed associations.
To address the first problem, future work can follow the recent developments in causal analysis in statistics and econometrics. For example, similar

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

to Munshi, researchers can use instrumental variables estimation, which can
isolate network effects from environmental factors (given that the researcher
can identify a proper “instrument,” an exogenous factor that influences the
network measures but not the outcome of interest). Alternatively, future
work can utilize a mixed-methods approach, triangulating evidence from
survey data with that from qualitative observations, in order to increase
one’s confidence in the presence of network effects.
To address the second issue, future work can build on recent attempts to
systematically study the mechanisms of social transmission in networks.
Reviewing the network effects literature at large, DiMaggio and Garip
posit that there are three potential mechanisms through which networks
shape individuals’ choices: (i) social learning or facilitation, (ii) normative
influence, and (iii) network externalities. Social learning occurs when individuals infer the value of a practice from peers who engage in it, while social
facilitation occurs when individuals receive direct assistance from peers
that facilitates a practice (e.g., migrating or finding a job in destination).
Normative influence is present when network peers actively engage in
persuading someone to participate (or not) in the practice, and where the
density of ties among those peers determines the extent of their influence.
Network externalities are at work when the presence of peers engaging in a
practice leads to common resources that increase the value of that practice
for the individual.
Applied to the case of migrant networks, social learning or facilitation represents the mechanism most discussed in the literature. Studies describe how
prior migrants provide information about or help with migration, making
it a less risky and potentially more beneficial endeavor for new migrants.
Several studies also suggest normative influence as the generative mechanism for network effects in migration when they, for example, observe a
“culture of migration” in sending regions. Studies also connect migration
outcomes to network externalities, although they have not referred to the
mechanism as such. For example, scholars working on the Mexico–US context have observed how undocumented migrants use smugglers (coyotes) for
crossing the border, a common resource whose existence depends on a steady
flow of migrants.
Future work can use this typology to consider alternative mechanisms driving the network effects on migration (or migration-related outcomes). No
study to date has attempted to distinguish these mechanisms empirically,
which is difficult to do with the survey data available to researchers. Thus,
future work could focus on collecting qualitative data targeted at understanding the processes through which social ties to prior migrants shape
individuals’ migration decisions or experiences.

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In addition to focusing on how migrant networks influence individuals’
migration-related experiences, future research can study how these networks
evolve over time. Do migrants increasingly interact with natives of their settlement region? Under what conditions do migrants continue to maintain ties
to origin regions?
These questions remain essential to understand how migrant networks
form and change, as well as how they influence migration streams and
migrants’ transnational experiences. It took a large group of scholars
from multiple disciplines to show how migrants’ social ties—not just the
economic conditions they face in origin or expect in destination—are a
crucial determinant of migration outcomes. Future research on migrant
networks will continue to be fruitful if scholars from different disciplines
come together, closely follow, and contribute to the larger discussions in the
social science literature related to network effects.
FURTHER READING
DiMaggio, P., & Garip, F. (2012). Network effects and social inequality. Annual Review
of Sociology, 38, 93–118.
Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L., & Blanc-Szanton, C. (1992). Transnationalism: A new
analytic framework for understanding migration. Annals of the New York Academy
of Sciences, 645, 1–24.
Hagan, J. M. (1998). Social networks, gender, and immigrant incorporation:
Resources and constraints. American Sociological Review, 63(1), 55–67.
Kasinitz, P., Mollenkopf, J. H., Waters, M. C., & Holdaway, J. (2008). Inheriting the city:
The children of immigrants come of age. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Manski, C. F. (1995). Identification problems in the social sciences. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Massey, D. S. (1990). Social structure, household strategies, and the cumulative causation of migration. Population Index, 56(1), 3–26.
Munshi, K. (2003). Networks in the modern economy: Mexican migrants in the U.S.
labor market. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(2), 549–599.
Portes, A., & Zhou, M. (1993). The new second generation: Segmented assimilation
and its variants. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
530(1), 74–96.
Waldinger, R., & Fitzgerald, D. (2004). Transnationalism in question. American Journal
of Sociology, 109(5), 1177–1195.

FILIZ GARIP SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Filiz Garip is Associate Professor of Sociology at Harvard University.
Her research lies at the intersection of migration, economic sociology, and
inequality. Within this general area, she studies the mechanisms that enable

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

or constrain mobility and lead to greater or lesser degrees of social and
economic inequality. Her work has been published in Population and Development Review, Demography, Social Forces, and the American Journal of Sociology.
She is currently working on a book, which will characterize the diversity
of the Mexican migrant population in the United States. At Harvard, she
has taught courses on migration and economic sociology and has won the
George Kahrl Excellence in Teaching Award from the Department of Sociology. She is currently affiliated with the Weatherhead Center for International
Affairs, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and the
Inequality and Social Policy Program at the Kennedy School. She is also the
director of academic programming for the Undergraduate Research Scholars
program at the Institute of Quantitative Social Science at Harvard. Garip
received her PhD in Sociology and MSE in Operations Research & Financial
Engineering, both from Princeton University. She holds a BSc in Industrial
Engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul.
Personal webpage and CV: http://scholar.harvard.edu/garip.
ASAD L. ASAD SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Asad L. Asad is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Harvard University,
where he is a Beinecke Scholar, a National Science Foundation Graduate
Research Fellow, a Graduate Fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in
Inequality and Social Policy, and a Graduate Student Associate with the
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. His research interests include
culture, inequality, migration, political sociology, the social determinants of
health, and urban sociology. At the intersection of these fields, he explores
why people migrate (internally and internationally), and how migration
influences socioeconomic mobility. Asad holds an AM in Sociology from
Harvard University and a BA in Political Science and Spanish from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Personal webpage and CV: http://scholar.harvard.edu/asad.
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Migrant Networks

13

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