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

Preface

Preface THIS BOOK is the product of a year-long collective project organized under the auspices of the Russell Sage Foundation and conducted at the Foundation's offices in New York City. Recent developments in economic sociology have garnered a great deal of attention, renewing the promise of a fresh perspective on economic events and institutions. At the same time, work in this field has consisted primarily of exegeses of the sociological and economic classics , trenchant critiques of the current orthodoxy in economics, and conceptual discussions at a high level of abstraction. The renewed momentum of economic sociology runs the risk of stalling by failing to connect with bodies of empirical knowledge that infuse it with fresh ideas and novel research questions. In parallel fashion, studies of immigration and ethnicity have experienced strong growth in the United States, fueled by a new wave of immigration, the seemingly intractable plight of domestic minority groups that were created by earlier migrant waves, and the contrast between the situation of these groups and the economic success of some of the most recent arrivals. The study of these phenomena has given rise to separate bodies of empirical literature. Although each body of research has developed its own theoretical perspectives and concepts, all have also developed propositions that are generally at a low level of abstraction. The basic goal of our project then, is to link innovations in economic sociology with the grounded propositions and factual knowledge accumulated by research on immigration , ethnic poverty, and ethnic entrepreneurship. We aimed at broadening the scope of each of these subfields by highlighting the interconnections among their concepts and thematic priorities as well as their fit with more general theoretical propositions. By the same token, the project sought to suffuse sociological thinking about economic processes with new insights stemming from fact-driven hypotheses. xiii xiv Preface To explore these linkages, the project brought together six social scientists who had worked extensively in one or more of the relevant subfields and whose scholarship combined attention to general theoretical issues with empirical research on relevant subject areas. Four members of the group spent the year in residence at the Russell Sage Foundation, while the other two attended several of the group's regular meetings and were kept abreast of its progress. Participants met frequently to discuss each other's research and every month they hosted an outside speaker, either a distinguished sociologist or economist, whose work had direct relevance to the year's collective project. The papers elaborated by each group member, the final versions of which constitute the chapters in this volume, benefited from these extensive discussions with our visitors and with each other. In addition to regular participants and visitors, many of the project 's sessions were attended by Robert K. Merton, the Foundation's scholar-in-residence, whose intellectual influence is evident in several of the following chapters. In addition to the contributions specifically acknowledged by different authors, we owe Bob a collective debt of gratitude for the enthusiasm with which he greeted the idea of this project, his unfailing support for it throughout the year, and the wisdom with which he steered us away from several serious pitfalls. Other members of the 1992-1993 "class" of Russell Sage fellows , in particular David Blau, Russell Hardin, and Robin Jarret, also deserve acknowledgment for their helpful comments on specific papers and their sympathy and support for the group's aims. The introductory chapter provides an overview of recent conceptual developments in economic sociology and the sociology of immigration and some of their key interlinkages. Its aim is to familiarize the reader with central ideas and propositions, several of which are developed at greater length in subsequent chapters. In Chapter 2, Bryan Roberts explores how social definitions of time and normative expectations about the proper duration of migration episodes affect the economic prospects of immigrants and, in particular, their propensity toward entrepreneurship. Data from turn-of-the-century European immigrant groups and from contemporary Mexican immigration are used to support his main propositions. Saskia Sassen provides a review and critique of orthodox economic perspectives on labor markets and shows how the spatial delimitations that are usually assumed to circumscribe local markets are inappropriate in the case of immigrants whose networks render their perceptions and utilization of space much broader than those usually assumed in the economic literature. Sassen uses evidence from several recent immi- Preface xv grant...