Ties That Matter: A Qualitative Exploration of Social Embeddedness in Chinese Immigrant Lives
(2025) SIMZ51 20251Graduate School
- Abstract
- Among all immigration categories, the proportion of Chinese new immigrants in Nordic society is increasing, and their social ties and embeddedness are also receiving more attention. However, there is still a relative lack of qualitative research on the tie construction and embeddedness paths of Chinese immigrants. To fill this research gap, this thesis aims to investigate how the first generation of immigrants from China constructed social ties and achieved social embeddedness in Sweden. This thesis innovatively incorporates time and sector factors based on Ryan's differentiated embedding theory, which emphasizes the dynamic change of immigrants' embedding state, transforming the theoretical framework to match the research object of this... (More)
- Among all immigration categories, the proportion of Chinese new immigrants in Nordic society is increasing, and their social ties and embeddedness are also receiving more attention. However, there is still a relative lack of qualitative research on the tie construction and embeddedness paths of Chinese immigrants. To fill this research gap, this thesis aims to investigate how the first generation of immigrants from China constructed social ties and achieved social embeddedness in Sweden. This thesis innovatively incorporates time and sector factors based on Ryan's differentiated embedding theory, which emphasizes the dynamic change of immigrants' embedding state, transforming the theoretical framework to match the research object of this thesis better. Combining semi-structured interviews and grounded theory, this thesis collected and analyzed interview materials from 10 Chinese new immigrants who have lived in Sweden for 1 to 5 years. Research has found that Chinese immigrants in Sweden build social ties through a combination of online and offline channels, and immigrants rely on these two channels to strengthen strong ties and expand new weak ties. Different types of ties play important but differentiated roles in emotional support, information acquisition, institutional trust, and identity recognition. Moreover, different types of ties present different forms of expression in different sectors, and they also affect the degree of embeddedness of immigrants. This study expands the application of social embeddedness theory in Nordic immigration research, providing personalized experiences for understanding the tie-building and social integration of East Asian immigrants, and opening up new experiential perspectives for further development in this field. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9195029
- author
- Meng, Jiao LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SIMZ51 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Social ties, Social embeddedness, First-generation Chinese immigrants, Swedish immigration
- language
- English
- id
- 9195029
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-25 11:22:26
- date last changed
- 2025-06-25 11:22:26
@misc{9195029,
abstract = {{Among all immigration categories, the proportion of Chinese new immigrants in Nordic society is increasing, and their social ties and embeddedness are also receiving more attention. However, there is still a relative lack of qualitative research on the tie construction and embeddedness paths of Chinese immigrants. To fill this research gap, this thesis aims to investigate how the first generation of immigrants from China constructed social ties and achieved social embeddedness in Sweden. This thesis innovatively incorporates time and sector factors based on Ryan's differentiated embedding theory, which emphasizes the dynamic change of immigrants' embedding state, transforming the theoretical framework to match the research object of this thesis better. Combining semi-structured interviews and grounded theory, this thesis collected and analyzed interview materials from 10 Chinese new immigrants who have lived in Sweden for 1 to 5 years. Research has found that Chinese immigrants in Sweden build social ties through a combination of online and offline channels, and immigrants rely on these two channels to strengthen strong ties and expand new weak ties. Different types of ties play important but differentiated roles in emotional support, information acquisition, institutional trust, and identity recognition. Moreover, different types of ties present different forms of expression in different sectors, and they also affect the degree of embeddedness of immigrants. This study expands the application of social embeddedness theory in Nordic immigration research, providing personalized experiences for understanding the tie-building and social integration of East Asian immigrants, and opening up new experiential perspectives for further development in this field.}},
author = {{Meng, Jiao}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Ties That Matter: A Qualitative Exploration of Social Embeddedness in Chinese Immigrant Lives}},
year = {{2025}},
}