Migrant organisations: embodied community capital?

Migrant organisations have been conceptualised as a reflection of ethnic-social networks and almost an embodiment of community level social capital. However, the development and networking practices of these organisations are driven by a much broader set of factors, including divisions within a community and the local opportunity structure. In this chapter, D’Angelo focuses on the case of Kurdish community organisations in London and discusses the effectiveness of mixed-methods Social Networks Analysis (SNA) to explore these aspects. His empirical research confirms the important role of community organisations in fostering social capital at individual and community level, but also reveals the co-existence of conflicts and cooperation within these networks and the potential tensions between the interests of individual organisations and those of the broader community.