ABSTRACT

Organizations and networks emerging from migrant groups and communities have been attracting increasing interest in the past few years. Of course, this phenomenon is not new. Migrant organizations were already an important subject of the early studies on international migration as part of immigrant institutions (Breton 1964; Park and Miller 1969; see also Abbott 2009). These institutions were and still are considered to be relevant for the process of assimilation (or, more broadly, integration) because they provide resources for progressive adaptation to the receiving society. Some authors, however, also regard migrant organizations as a basis for ethnic retention. Whether or not these two processes are in opposition to one another is a matter of ongoing dispute, although the concept of ethnic pluralism has become so widely accepted that a considerable number of scholars and policy stakeholders now tend to reject the idea of an opposition between ethnic identity and integration.