Increasing internationalization and marketization of higher education, global research collaboration, and staff mobility place academics' networking practices at the centre of higher education systems. Migrant academics are conceptualized with different network types including personal, local and transnational family and friendship networks. However, this research aims to understand the boundaries between different types of participants' networked relationships. The data of this paper comes from a larger research project on transnational family relationships of migrant academics conducted between 2018 and 2022. Life story interviews with 45 migrant academics from 27 different national backgrounds working at British universities were conducted. Additionally, sociogram maps are used as embedded in qualitative interviews. Migration background (as European or non‐European countries); gender; age; the length of the stay in the UK; academic position/contract type; annual income level and marital/relationship status were considered while forming the sample. The findings reveal that network forms and structures do not determine the resources and benefits of relationships; rather, individuals' actions over a time period and the meanings they attribute shape the positions of an alter (other actors that the focal person have connection with) within the personal network structure. As such, actions and meanings regarding those actions can bring one forward or backward in the personal network hierarchy. The boundaries regarding the content of these networks are usually blurred in relation to time, relationality and human agency attributing specific sets of meanings to certain relationships. The findings of this research translate into specific contributions to the discussions in migration and social network research. That is, research findings emphasized that different types of networks shaping participants' lives and migratory experiences are far from being stable and fixed, rather, they are characterized by being transmissive and dynamic. It is revealed that none of the network categories are homogenous, stable and fixed in terms of the content of the relationships. This adds to Emirbayer and Goodwin's (1994) discussions around the ‘form’ and the ‘content’ of networks. This paper underscores the significance of the historical settings, dynamism and the content of each relationship in understanding individual networks.

中文翻译：

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英国移民学者网络关系的多样性和流动性


高等教育的国际化和市场化、全球研究合作和员工流动性的提高使学者的网络实践成为高等教育系统的中心。移民学者被概念化为不同的网络类型，包括个人、本地和跨国的家庭和友谊网络。然而，这项研究旨在了解不同类型参与者的网络关系之间的界限。本文的数据来自于2018年至2022年间进行的一项关于移民学者跨国家庭关系的大型研究项目。对来自27个不同国家背景、在英国大学工作的45名移民学者进行了生活故事采访。此外，社会关系图也被嵌入到定性访谈中。移民背景（欧洲或非欧洲国家）；性别;年龄;在英国停留的时间；学术职位/合同类型；在形成样本时考虑了年收入水平和婚姻/关系状况。研究结果表明，网络形式和结构并不决定关系的资源和收益；相反，个人在一段时间内的行为及其赋予的意义塑造了个人网络结构中的改变者（与焦点人物有联系的其他参与者）的位置。因此，动作和与这些动作有关的含义可以使人在个人网络层次结构中前进或后退。这些网络内容的界限通常在时间、关系和人类机构方面是模糊的，将特定的含义赋予某些关系。 这项研究的结果转化为对移民和社交网络研究讨论的具体贡献。也就是说，研究结果强调，塑造参与者生活和迁徙经历的不同类型的网络远非稳定和固定，而是具有传播性和动态性。结果表明，就关系内容而言，没有一个网络类别是同质的、稳定的和固定的。这补充了 Emirbayer 和 Goodwin（1994）关于网络“形式”和“内容”的讨论。本文强调了历史背景、活力和每种关系的内容对于理解个体网络的重要性。