Social Networks and Agency in Forced Migration from Ukraine to Switzerland
Journal
Global Networks
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2026
Author(s)
Abstract
ABSTRACT
This article examines how people displaced to Switzerland under Temporary Protection following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine exercise agency through social relations and networks. Drawing on in‐depth interviews and participant‐elicited sociograms, I adopt a relational sociological lens to analyse agency in forced migration by situating action within embedded social relations and the temporal horizons of past experiences, present coping and imagined futures. The analysis shows that favourable legal provisions—particularly, state‐supported private hosting—together with high levels of popular solidarity expand displaced people's capacities for action by enabling social connections, fostering belonging and facilitating relational embeddedness. The article makes three contributions. First, it offers an empirical contribution to the growing literature on forced displacement from Ukraine by examining the effects of private hosting in Switzerland on migrants’ agentic processes. Second, it demonstrates how the social agentic engagements of forced migrants are mediated by how they make sense of their past and imagine their future, underscoring the role of temporality in relational agency. Third, it identifies a distinct form of agentic engagement in which networking and community building are not merely instrumental to agency but constitute its very expression.
This article examines how people displaced to Switzerland under Temporary Protection following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine exercise agency through social relations and networks. Drawing on in‐depth interviews and participant‐elicited sociograms, I adopt a relational sociological lens to analyse agency in forced migration by situating action within embedded social relations and the temporal horizons of past experiences, present coping and imagined futures. The analysis shows that favourable legal provisions—particularly, state‐supported private hosting—together with high levels of popular solidarity expand displaced people's capacities for action by enabling social connections, fostering belonging and facilitating relational embeddedness. The article makes three contributions. First, it offers an empirical contribution to the growing literature on forced displacement from Ukraine by examining the effects of private hosting in Switzerland on migrants’ agentic processes. Second, it demonstrates how the social agentic engagements of forced migrants are mediated by how they make sense of their past and imagine their future, underscoring the role of temporality in relational agency. Third, it identifies a distinct form of agentic engagement in which networking and community building are not merely instrumental to agency but constitute its very expression.
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Wiley
Volume
26
Number
3
Subject(s)
Division(s)