German migrants in Bulgaria and their social networks

Abstract

Recent researches have shown that there were about 7,300 German citizens with a valid Bulgarian registration certificate in Bulgaria at the end of 2017. This paper introduces several facts and observations about some of them, gathered during a pilot study between 2017 and 2019. Besides the classical ethnographic methods of conducting 40 interviews and observing gatherings, the methods of social network analysis, virtual ethnography and netnography have also been applied as research tools. On the whole, it can be said that Germans come to Bulgaria for different reasons; according to their motives they can be classified as labor, student, family, and retirement migrants. They all tend to create community structures, the less informal of which are social network groups. Modern social media tools provide an opportunity to form virtual groups through different internet-based networks. The results of the research show that the most popular and the most frequently used among the virtual groups are Facebook groups. The research analyzed 16 Facebook groups concerned with the life of German migrants in Bulgaria. Some of them were formed in order to share information about events related to the German community as well as to the folklore and cultural landscapes of Bulgaria. Other Facebook groups facilitate the communication regarding the organization of meetings (such as a Stammtisch, i.e. round-table with fellow regulars) outside the virtual space. Social network analysis can also be done from an ego-centered perspective, when we analyze the social network of a given person with the ego in the center, his/her alteri (the persons connected with the ego) in the periphery, and the relational ties between them. We can thus obtain information about other people (friends, relatives, colleagues, etc.) in their everyday life and the interaction with them through face-to-face and online com-munication. Data about the egocentric social networks of seven respondents has been obtained through the program VennMaker. The analyses show their social networks’ alteri, including their ethnic origin and type of relationship.