Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Aknowledgement
22 Claire Wallace overlapping at all, they do not necessarily link up and these personal communities provide support and reinforcement independent of any instrumental investments. In other words, most people do not develop friendships primarily in order to profit, as Lin implies, but rather because they like to be with the other people who have something in common with themselves. This “investment” will even cost them time and money rather then win them these advantages. Pahl (2000) argues that these personal communities are becoming more important for social support in the context of modern western societies where family and kin relations have become more fragmented and traditional communities have broken down. This leads us to ask: what is the quality of ties in different social networks? Are they intense ties of mutual obligation or of a rather distant loyalty, such as to a school or a University? In my own study of how cross border traders establish social ties in a situation of potential risk and uncertainty, these ties often took the form of patron-client relations as traders sought to enhance their security by regularly providing a known border guard with presents, money or other favours (see Wallace, Shmulyar and Bedzir 1999) An important critical commentary is provided by Portes (1994). He points out that social networks do not necessarily operate in an efficient way - the ties of obligation may force one to take on a rather useless employee or to choose a bad business partner over a good one. Seen in another way, it can be a form of nepotism, corruption or “cronyism”. The studies of Evers and Schrader (1994) in South East Asia have pointed to a “trader’s dilemma” whereby using the benefits of social capital provided by the clan or ethnic group also means an obligation to support the members of the extended family or ethnic group. So traders are unable to accumulate capital for their economic activities - they have to give it all away to dependent relatives. He argues that at a certain point, in order to operate in a rationalistic market-oriented way, traders must distance themselves from these multiple ties of obligation.
