On How a Combination of the Social Network Paradigm and Focus Group Interviews Can Provide Insights into ‘Cultural Fluidity’

The study of a culture’s fluidity (cultural stability or cultural change) is ideally a longitudinal endeavor. However, such a procedure may often be financially and time-wise unfeasible for the researcher. I present evidence from existing literature as to why an approach that combines the Social Network Paradigm (SNP) with Focus Group Interviews (FGI) can be a viable alternative. In my view, cultural fluidity can be empirically assessed in a two-step procedure, namely by (1) disentangling the societal and contextual conditions that facilitate/undermine interethnic relations and (2) examining whether and how individuals internalize inconsistent information emergent in interethnic relations. Cultural fluidity could therefore be ‘mapped’ as patterns of exchanging cultural information between ethnic groups. The SNP can inform the study of how levels of within-city social cohesion–how well varying groups function together–contribute to facilitating or undermining interaction between migrants and country natives. The key postulate is that cultural information flows between nodes in networks of individuals through a process of communication, which is another form of saying that people learn from other in their networks about varying life aspects. The FGI can provide a more in-depth view on the immediate process of cultural fluidity in communal environments. That is, it can provide a glimpse into how in real life settings, novel cultural elements are discussed, resisted, and negotiated, and, thereby, study how novelty becomes habit. Where available, I present initial empirical evidence from own work. I end the presentation with a detailed research plan and specific testable hypotheses.