The Economic Sociology of Immigration: Essays on Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship

1. Economic Sociology and the Sociology of Immigration: A Conceptual Overview

1 Economic Sociology and the Sociology of Immigration: A Conceptual Overview ALEJANDRO PORTES THESOCIOLOGICAL perspective on the economy is currently experiencing a vigorous revival. Its resurgence has been due, in part, to mounting doubts within the discipline of economics itself that neoclassical theory provides a satisfactory framework for the explanation of numerous aspects of economic life. In part, economic sociology has gained renewed energy from the realization among sociologists that much of what is missing in the dominant economic approach is social in nature and, hence, within their purview. With some exceptions, sociology has left behind rigid versions of both functionalism and Marxism, and this has given the discipline new freedom to reconnect with its classical roots and explore what it has to say about different aspects of the contemporary world.! This revival may be further stimulated by linking theoretical developments in economic sociology with related subfields where a body of relevant empirical research has accumulated. Of these subfields , few have experienced more vigorous growth in recent years than the sociology of immigration. Unlike economic sociology, which reemerged as an outcome of recent theoretical debates, the resurgence of the sociology of immigration has been event-driven. More precisely, it has paralleled growing interest in the expanding immigrant populations of the United States and Western Europe and concern about the consequences of their presence. To the extent that 1 2 The Economic Sociology of Immigration immigration has been perceived as a "social problem," the growth of sociological research has followed the dynamics of other applied subfields of the discipline. However, unlike most of those subfields, the study of immigrant adaptation possesses its own independent theoretical tradition dating back to the origins of the discipline.2 Sociological studies of immigration and ethnicity bear directly on theoretical developments in economic sociology because they provide a distinct set of empirical materials to draw on for the generation and refinement of general concepts and hypotheses. Seldom are the social underpinnings of economic action laid bare with such clarity as in the processes that give rise to immigration and determine its outcomes. The linkage was already apparent in early sociological studies of immigrant groups in North America, where the focus was on the social structures that organized the transoceanic journey and permitted the survival of newcomers in a hostile environment. Robert Park's "marginal man" was rooted in the immigrant experience, which gave the concept the heuristic power to become a central feature of sociology's theoretical arsenal. Classical studies of the socioeconomic adaptation of immigrants, most prominently The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, not only reflected the sociological ideas of the time but influenced theoretical developments for decades to come.3 In the current climate of revived interest in what sociology has to say about economic life, the field of immigration represents, in Merton's term, a "strategic research site" (SRS)-an area where processes of more general import are manifested with unusual clarity.4 The task of integrating findings and hypotheses in the sociology of immigration with the more abstract concepts of economic sociology has not yet been systematically attempted. We believe that such an exercise can have a significant theoretical payoff. In order for the new economic sociology to live up to its promise, it must move beyond general sensitizing notions or critiques of the reigning economic paradigms and apply its propositions to concrete aspects of social reality. If it is possible to isolate specific areas of economic life that are best explained by a sociological perspective and identify the most useful applications of theoretical notions to this task, we will have contributed significantly to an emerging field. The remainder of this chapter attempts to lay the groundwork for this enterprise by reviewing central concepts in economic sociology and the sociology of immigration. I select a set of concepts from each subfield and investigate their interrelationships. Economic Sociology and the Sociology of Immigration 3 Five from Economic Sociology Socially Oriented Economic Action Economists and sociologists agree that economic action refers to the acquisition and use of scarce means. All activities required for the production, distribution, and consumption of scarce goods and services are conventionally characterized as economic.5 There is less agreement, however, on the array of motives of economic actors and on the socially patterned influence of others upon their activities. The triumph of the neoclassical perspective in economics hinged on the adoption of a set of simplifying assumptions...