Paper short abstract:

Through the lenses of everyday social networks the paper discusses categories of membership identities of different types of migrants as well as of non-migrants in an urban environment characterised by high ‘diversity’.

Paper long abstract:

What are the social networks of different types of habitants of a small Swiss town composed of, how are they structured and on the basis of what criteria are cultural and social membership categories constituted? In other terms, how can we best describe the conjunction between the forms of social networks and membership identities in an environment characterized by diversity? The paper presents preliminary results of an ongoing research who recorded the personal social networks of 300 habitants of a small Swiss town, Neuchâtel, networks of different types of migrants as well as of non-migrants. The egocentric social networks as well as the membership categories as they appear through a multigenerator instrument (a "name generator" and a "position generator") will be discussed. Through focusing the importance and role of social relations in the context of a specific urban and diverse space, the paper will contribute to the debate of the role of cross-cutting ties as well as of ethnicity/nationality on mechanisms of social exclusion and inclusion.