Blurry Boundaries, Neutral Spaces: Migration and Forms of Friendship.

Abstract

While migration provides courage for migrants to rebuild and re-manage their connections with non-kin, we know relatively little about the implications of migration on migrants’ friendships over time and places. This article examines friendship in the context of transnationalism. Drawing upon qualitative interviews with 25 transnational migrants, I aim to grasp the friendship practices ‘here’ and ‘there’ to explore how migrants’ transnational experiences impact their friendship ties. Findings reveal that the diversity and challenges of migrants' relationships within transnational spaces offer opportunities for migrants to define friendship as a range of emotionally embodied activities that migrants negotiate or re-engage in values and expectations in relation to their culture, religion and gender. In this dynamic, friendship can be practised by participants as a critical negotiation process of homophily ties and cosmopolitan ties with non-kin. This study offers an empirical contribution to the understanding of how friendships are practised within and beyond borders, and to a wider sociological discussion on the influence of migration on personal life.