Networked Migrants and De‐Networked Policies—Examining the Nexus of Migration Regimes and Experiences Through a Relational Lens

ABSTRACT Drawing on theory and practice of social network research, this article examines the nexus between networked migration experiences and de‐networked migration policies in countries of arrival. Building upon classical network scholarship and our own contributions to qualitative network research, we show how migration policies in Europe tend to ignore or actively oppose the relational, meso‐level of migrants’ experience. This includes, for example, kinship networks, involving narrow definitions of family and ‘worthiness’. Such approaches, increasingly enforced by governments across the whole policy spectrum, hinder migrants’ social trajectories but also push them to find (networked) ways to resist and circumvent policy regimes, as demonstrated through our case studies of Sub‐Saharan forced migrants in Italy and Afghans in London. By taking a network lens—and working at the intersection of Relational Sociology and Policy Analysis—our argument goes beyond the agency‐versus‐structure binary, exploring the mediating meso‐level of relationality.