Louise Ryan’s Social Networks and Migration: Relocations, Relationships and Resources is a thoughtful exploration of how social connections shape and are shaped by the experience of international migration. Across its eight chapters, the book spans Ryan’s twenty year research trajectory to show that migrant networks are neither static scaffolds for mobility nor simple sources of support but living, shifting, and narrated worlds of relationality. By weaving together conceptual insights, methodological innovation, and rich storytelling, Ryan offers a compelling reflection on the role of social networks in different migratory dynamics to London.
At the heart of the book lies a question that seems deceptively simple: what does it mean to study migrant networks? Ryan begins by acknowledging a paradox. Scholars frequently invoke “networks” as an explanatory device (e.g., as means to access jobs). Yet, too often, the term functions as a metaphor or a catch all label, obscuring the heterogeneity and dynamic nature of social ties.
Specifically, Ryan reminds us about the importance of critically and systematically describing the antecedents and consequences of social ties. Building on the work of scholars like Barry Wellman, Ann Mische, and Harrison White, Ryan’s answer is to approach networks as narrative constructions: relationships exist in the world, but they are also remembered, interpreted, and presented by migrants in the act of storytelling. This dual perspective is captured in her signature framework of “telling network stories,” which guides the book’s conceptual and methodological agenda.
Ryan grounds her arguments in an extensive body of qualitative research she conducted with people who migrated to London, spanning Irish nurses of the 1940s, post 2004 Polish arrivals, French professionals, Somali refugees, Caribbean elders, and highly qualified Irish migrants during the 2010s recession. These longitudinal and cross cohort studies are brought into dialogue for the first time in this monograph, creating an archive of voices that together illuminate the lifecourse of migration and many of its complexities. In an early and memorable vignette, Kathleen, an Irish nurse who left for London in 1949, recalls the push and pull of family ties, the excitement of adventure, and the indignity of medical inspections before departure. Her narrative illustrates a theme that runs through the book: networks are rarely linear or uniform. Kinship can encourage, resist, or complicate migration; strong ties can offer care or impose obligation; and the social world of migrants is entangled with broader political and institutional structures.
Methodologically, the book is a testament to the power of qualitative social network analysis. Through the combined use of in depth interviews, lifecourse narratives, and participant aided sociograms, Ryan creates thick descriptions of relational life. Migrants are invited to map their connections visually and narratively, explaining not only who is in their network, but why these ties matter—or sometimes why they do not.
In that context, I found especially useful the idea of the “networked self,” which denotes the process by which the interaction between interviewer and interviewee shapes relational data collection. Indeed, Ryan shows many examples where the interviewee makes strategic decisions about how to present herself and her network in one light or another (e.g., actively adding people from diverse backgrounds to the description of her own network as the participant realizes said network may look highly homogeneous). Evidence of the networked self seems to clearly come to life when developing participant aided sociograms, as that tool easily allows participants to see their network with great clarity.
Still thinking about methods, by repeating interviews over time, Ryan captures the fluidity of social ties: some relationships strengthen, others fade, and new ones emerge in response to shifting life circumstances. This temporal sensitivity is a hallmark of the book, allowing it to bridge individual-level biographies with historical events such as economic recessions, the Brexit vote, and the COVID 19 pandemic. The longitudinal nature of some of her data also allows Ryan to better capture the creation and dissolution of long-lasting relationships such as friendships, that is, relationships that, by definition, go beyond specific events or interactions. In that regard, a particularly powerful contribution of the book is its lifecourse perspective on evolving networks. Migration is not a single event but a series of transitions, and relationships reflect that temporal trajectory. Ryan’s longitudinal lens allows her to capture the slow dance of embedding and dis-embedding, as migrants forge new friendships, sustain long distance ties, and navigate the emotional work of belonging.
Thematically, Social Networks and Migration moves fluidly between the intimate and the structural. Stories of arrival highlight the intersection of personal agency and structural opportunity. Migrants draw on familial or friendship ties to secure housing or important professional information, yet those same ties may be insufficient or even burdensome in hostile contexts. For example, in her discussion of employment, Ryan revisits Granovetter’s famous thesis on strong and weak ties. Migrants’ labor market experiences reveal that access to jobs depends not simply on the number of connections but on their quality, trust, and positioning within social hierarchies.
Weak ties can indeed open doors, but only if social capital can be activated and recognized in the host society. Otherwise, as the story of Maryam, a Somali migrant, shows, professional credentials and previous social status may be devalued, pushing skilled migrants into underemployment or “benefit traps.” Networks in these contexts become arenas of negotiation, resilience, and sometimes disappointment. Ryan introduces the idea of “vertical ties,” that is, (weak or strong) ties connecting participants to people in higher social positions—and thus typically bridging structural holes—showing how this type of ties can be activated to achieve better outcomes (e.g., a new job in the host society that is more attuned with the migrants’ academic credentials).
Transnational networks also receive thoughtful treatment in the later chapters. Ryan resists romanticizing the digital era’s promise of frictionless connectivity. While WhatsApp and social media can maintain the illusion of proximity, they do not eliminate the emotional and material costs of distance. Migrants experience the burdens of long distance care, particularly when aging parents or dispersed family members require attention that cannot be delivered remotely. The book’s discussion of COVID 19 and Brexit is poignant in this regard, as border closures and political upheaval revealed the realities of distance even in an era of digital hyper connection.
As a contribution in the sociology of migration, Social Networks and Migration is as much about the practice of research as it is about its subject. Ryan writes reflexively about her own positionality as a migrant and as a researcher embedded in overlapping academic and personal networks. Her candid reflections on the co construction of narratives—how migrants present their networks in interviews and how researchers interpret those presentations—underscore the strengths of the book. By framing networks as discursive as well as structural, she opens space for a relational sociology attuned to meaning, perception, and affect.
The book’s contributions are significant, but it also invites some gentle critique. Its empirical base is rich but primarily anchored in European migration to London. While Ryan acknowledges the situated nature of her data, readers looking for systematic comparisons with Global South-North, and especially South-South, migration trajectories may find the scope narrower than the conceptual framework implies. Moreover, those steeped in quantitative social network analysis might wish for more explicit bridges between qualitative and quantitative approaches, even as Ryan persuasively argues for the unique value of the former. Finally, I believe her theoretical framework could find in the concept of “cultural holes” a valuable tool as many of the stories Ryan is examining are as much about spanning holes in sociometric space (structural holes) as they are about spanning holes in cultural space (cultural holes).
Despite these caveats, the book absolutely succeeds in its central aim: to advance the study of migrant networks beyond static metaphors and instrumental assumptions. By presenting networks as lived, narrated, and evolving, Ryan re-humanizes a concept that is often flattened into nodes, edges, and a good deal of math. Her writing moves with ease between theory and anecdote, allowing the reader to feel the texture of migration while appreciating its sociological significance.
In sum, Social Networks and Migration is both a culmination and an invitation. It consolidates two decades of scholarship into a coherent framework while opening pathways for future research that is temporally sensitive and narratively attuned. For migration scholars, the book offers not only a set of findings but a way of thinking—a reminder that every act of migration is also an act of connection, and that every connection carries a relational story that (re-)produces the self.