Paths of Legal Integration and Migrant Social Networks: The Case of Filipina and Romanian Female Domestic Workers in Italy

Abstract

Migrant Capital presents state-of-the-art empirical, theoretical and methodological perspectives on migration, networks, social and cultural capital, exploring the ways in which these bodies of literature can inform and strengthen each other. In so doing, it brings the theoretical and methodological dimensions into dialogue with each other. The migrants discussed in the book are ethnically and socio-economically diverse and have a range of migratory trajectories and experiences. Various types of networks are looked at and compared: intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic; locally-based, national and transnational; informal and formal, including migrant community organisations. Migrant Capital is international in focus drawing on research from Australia, North America, the Caribbean and across Europe. Migration research often focuses on individual cases, thereby running the risk of over-emphasising the peculiarities of particular migrant groups and locations, leading to criticisms of empirical nationalism. The range of case studies in this collection can open up a comparative perspective in order to contribute to a broader theoretical framework rooted in empirical research.