Putting friends in a box: Methodological considerations regarding
the technique of mapping migrants’ friendships
Harriet Westcott
School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney
Abstract
This paper presents the methodological and conceptual issues that arose when using
mapping as a technique to investigate the friendship experiences of 20 skilled
migrants to Australia. Following Spencer and Pahl (2006) and Butera (2008) a map
was used to gather data about migrants‟ friends with the aims to: distinguish between
old and new friends; show the geographic location of friends as being in or outside
Australia, and demonstrate participants‟ perceived emotional closeness with their
friends. Semi-structured interviews explored the data on the map, and highlighted
methodological issues which were: the ambiguity of participants‟ definitions of their
friends; normative or perceptive bias; time and language constraints, and participant
error, and the need for participants to have accurate memory.
Findings add to the literature on friendship after „rupture‟, particularly regarding the
impacts of migration to the ways that participants define their friends. It is shown
that old friends outside Australia may be perceived by the participant as emotionally
close, even when the friendship is inactive, or requires work to maintain due to
feelings of nostalgia. Methodologically, it is concluded that the map is a useful tool
to gather data, and as a catalyst to generate discussion during interviews with
migrants about their friends.
Keywords: friends, migrants, method, mapping, methodological issues
Introduction
This research focuses on the friendship experiences of skilled migrants to Australia.
Following migration to another country friendship is „ruptured‟ as old friends are
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necessarily left behind, and new friends made (Spencer and Pahl, 2006: 106). I will
discuss the friendship-mapping diagram used to gather data that showed the ways that
this rupture impacts on the face-to-face enactment of friendship and feelings of
emotional closeness with „old‟ friends that are geographically distant, and „new‟
friends made. The map and accompanying list of friends served as an icebreaker for
semi-structured interviews. I draw on responses from 20 migrants to consider some
methodological issues encountered with this mapping technique. In summary, these
issues, which should be understood as interlinked, are: participants‟ definitions of
their friends; time constraints; language barriers; participant error and understanding
of the task; remembering or memory; and normative or perceptive bias. Following a
discussion of my method, I address these issues using excerpts from interviews as
examples.
Background and method
I start with the premise that active friendship occurs face-to-face. There is a
substantial literature that demonstrates the importance of friends being in the same
physical place and having frequent contact to enact and maintain friendship (Aristotle,
2002; Derrida, 1997; Little, 1993; Montaigne, 1991; Pahl, 2000). When migrants
come to Australia, they experience a „rupture‟ from old friends by physical distance
and can no longer spend time together in active face-to-face friendships (Spencer and
Pahl, 2006: 106). Even though technological advances such as Internet applications
have made communication easier in real time despite geographic separation,
technology maintains rather than enacts friendship (Clarke, 2005; Panagakos and
Horst, 2006: 115; Vertovec, 2004). Typically, migrants face a period of initiating
new friends, which can bring challenges according to the availability and interest of
others in pursuing friendship, and cultural and language barriers (Bell, 1997; Cottrell,
2007; Kennedy, 2007; McDonald, 2010; Pollock and Van Reken, 2002).
Based on the importance of face-to-face friendship in the literature, I sought data that
would provide insights into the effects of physical distance on feelings of emotional
closeness of both „new‟ and „old‟ friends following „rupture‟. The aim of the
friendship map was to collect data that would do three things: distinguish between old
and new friends; show the broad geographic location of friends as being in or outside
Australia; and demonstrate participants‟ perceived emotional closeness to their
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friends. To this end, participants were asked to complete a friendship „map‟ adapted
from similar research by Spencer and Pahl (2006) in the UK, and Butera (2008) in
Australia.
Spencer and Pahl (2006: 46-8) used a map of five concentric circles and asked
participants to record those in their „personal community', specifically, anyone that
was „important‟ to them „now‟. The nearer the person recorded was to the centre of
the circle, the „closer‟ the participant perceived the relationship with them to be.
Unlike social network analysis, which has used a similar approach, Spencer and Pahl
(2006: 45) were interested in the closeness rather than the number of relationships or
connections. Social network analysts such as Wellman (1982: 73) have interpreted
the individual‟s personal community broadly, asking participants to record anyone
they were “significantly „in touch [with]‟ informally”. Consequently, Wellman
(1982: 79) gathered broad data on personal community ties regardless of the quality
of the relationship or the degree of closeness, and hence elicited participants to record
community ties that they disliked, rather than „friends‟ per se. Yet, despite being
discriminate in identifying the closeness of the relationship, a drawback of Spencer
and Pahl‟s (2006) work was that it did not focus on friends exclusively either, aiming
instead to examine the extent that family and friendship relations were suffusing.
Butera‟s (2008: 61) work on gender and friendship extends Spencer and Pahl‟s (2006)
personal community research by seeking to identify the „nature‟ and „level‟ of the
friendship by using a similar mapping technique that focuses exclusively on
friendship. Butera‟s (2008) circular map identifies the „closeness‟ of the person to the
participant. This map has no concentric circles, and instead the circle is divided into
four quadrants to gather data about number of friends and their spheres of relation:
work/study; family; social; commonality. However the division by quadrants leads to
some unaddressed methodological problems. For instance, some friends may „fit‟
into more than one quadrant, being for instance, both „family‟ and „social‟. Or
participants may not understand the use of broad terms such as „commonality‟ to
describe the link with their friend(s). Further the term „family‟ is not clearly defined
and can include both „given‟ blood relatives and individuals that are „chosen‟
(Gubrium and Holstein 1990: 490; Pahl, 2000: 38). Nonetheless, Butera‟s innovative
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use of quadrants is a useful starting point for my work because it provides a more
specific way to collect data about participants‟ friendships.
As I have highlighted, I sought to use a method that would identify how emotionally
close migrants felt to their friends, especially following rupture, and to understand
how this impacted on definitions of new and old friends. Consequently, in common
with Spencer and Pahl (2006) and Butera (2008) the participant was located at the
centre of the friendship map. Participants were instructed to add friends that they felt
emotionally close to near the centre of the map, and those with whom they felt more
distant towards the outside. Instead of a circle, and to make efficient use of paper, I
used a rectangular map.
Additional aims of the mapping tool were to enable a distinction between old and new
friends made pre- or post-migration to Australia, and to show the geographic location
of friends as in or outside Australia. This was in order to explore during the interview
experiences of enacting face-to-face friendship, and time spent with friends in the
same physical space as opposed to friendship over distance via technology. For this
reason, I divided the map into quadrants, which were: friends met pre-migration to
Australia now living outside Australia; friends met pre-migration to Australia now
living in Australia; friends met in Australia still living in Australia; and, friends met in
Australia now living outside Australia.
Following the criteria for skilled migration to Australia my sample of skilled migrants
was defined as those with a degree gained outside Australia and professional work
experience in a related field to their degree (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009).
Participants were recruited from volunteers to advertisements sent to migrant
organisations, media outlets and businesses and government offices in NSW. Anyone
of working age, professionally employed at the time of the interview, and from any
ethnicity or country of origin was included. Respondents were born in: America;
Bahrain; Bulgaria; France; Canada (x3); England (x3); Hong Kong/China (x3);
Indonesia; Ireland; New Zealand; Norway; Slovakia; Sri Lanka; and Zambia. Ages
ranged from 27 to 60 years. Nine respondents were male, 11 were female.
Discussion of methodological issues
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The mapping tool (see Table 1) I used was designed to capture participants‟ friends,
rather than any other individual with whom they have a social connection, or an
exchange relationship (Fischer, 1977). Like Butera (2008: 61), I specified that
participants record anyone they „considered to be a friend‟. It therefore differs
significantly from the aims of social network analysis, which whilst including
„friends‟ in data gathered, is concerned with the number of connections, rather than
the perceived quality of the social relation. However, two issues arise with this
approach. The first is that definitions of what constitutes a „friend‟ are ambiguous
(Pahl, 2000: 1). I therefore allowed participants to decide for themselves if that
„friend‟ might also be described as a current or ex-partner, family member, or
colleague, and asked them to record this additional information on their friendship
list. Some participants did include family members and others on their maps,
however, whilst this appears to represent Spencer and Pahl‟s „personal community‟
(2006) approach, I distinguish this work from it, as unlike Spencer and Pahl (2006),
but in congruence with Butera (2008), I constitute this data as a map of the
participants‟ friends. Rather than presenting an opportunity to assess suffusing
relationships between family and friends as with Spencer and Pahl (2006), the
inclusion of family members and others on the map is valuable to this research to help
define what each participant considers to be and defines as a friend. As the
interviews progressed, these definitions became contested for various reasons.
The time that participants took to complete the friendship map had an impact on how
much thought they gave to the task. Recognising that participants are volunteering
their personal time to the research, I emailed maps prior to the interview, and
suggested that they could complete them in advance, and some did this wholly or
partially (Lee and Renzetti, 1993: 4; Spencer and Pahl, 2006: 47). At the pilot stage
most volunteers made mistakes on the map, such as placing a friend in the wrong
quadrant; subsequently I provided participants that completed the map at the
interview with pencils, erasers and spare map sheets so they could make changes
easily. For all participants, I suggested it should take about 10 to 15 minutes to fill in
the map. Although I wanted participants to complete the map accurately, unlike
Spencer and Pahl (2006), I wanted to gather first impressions of people participants
considered to be a friend. The map captured their preliminary thoughts, which I
sought to draw out during the interview, rather than being a final representation of
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their friends per se. Two of the respondents did feel constrained for time, for
instance:
Yes, because it is an enormous task [laughs]. I would really like to have some
more time to put all these names (Grace).
In these two instances, friendship maps were sent to me after the interview.
Participants also completed a list of all the friends that they had mapped. To find out
more about the sphere and nature of the relation, this list requested basic information
about their friends: gender; age; main area of friendship, e.g. work, social,
university/college etc; date of last face-to-face meeting; and, anything else that they
considered important to the friendship, such as whether the friend was also a family
member, described in their own words.
Previous sociological investigations into friendship have shown that interviews bring
out qualifiers about friendship status and affinity (Oliker, 1989: 172; Spencer and
Pahl, 2006). Indeed, during the interviews methodological issues with the map were
revealed. Some participants remembered friends during the interview that they had
not put on the map which then raised the question of whether the person was a friend.
In this example the participant who had included his brother as a friend, chose not to
add another family member – his aunt – as a friend to his map:
Gert – Well, I don‟t know, I was just thinking for example my aunt, I don‟t
really talk to her about, well she is my aunt, I don‟t know. She is not my…
but then again. Out of quite a few people she is probably someone I could rely
on for anything, really. So that is an exception I should not make. I think. I
don‟t know.
Researcher - It is up to you if you decide that she is a friend or not?
Gert – Sure.
Researcher -– It is completely up to you.
Gert – Yeah I am just trying to work things out, yeah. Yeah [pause]. Alright
yeah, we will leave it as it is for now.
For me, Gert‟s example highlights that sociologically the definition of „friend‟ is
ambiguous, and can include some family members, but not others. In a different
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example, the interview served as a way to jog the participant‟s memory of friends that
they wanted to add to the map:
Ignacio – Yeah. I will add a few I forgot.
Researcher – Why did you forget to put them?
Ignacio – Because they come like in waves.
Researcher – What do you mean?
Ignacio – These are the ones who were more close to me when I left, but then
there are some people who you don‟t see for 2 months – they are still your
friends. But you don‟t see each other so often.
Both examples demonstrate that meaning is generated in the „doing‟ of the process of
mapping and interview. In this way, the participant constructs a narrative of who to
include as their friends as they go along. Yet omissions may also simply demonstrate
that despite their best intentions, participants could not immediately recall to their
memory all of their friends. Friendship is usually something that is performed, rather
than documented on a map.
The participants‟ understanding of the task was an issue, in terms of both their
conceptual understanding of their friends, and their ability to complete the task as
directed. These themes are not new in sociological research, and Corbin (1971: 290)
notes that people do not think about their lives in the same ways as social scientists,
whilst in relation to friendship research Spencer and Pahl (2006: 48) found that
participants had not considered their personal community in such detail before. The
need to „map‟ friends by emotional closeness was a challenge for a few participants,
as shown here:
I guess they are on different levels, and I don‟t know if I got the order exactly
right for all of them. It is hard to just be cold, and make a list, you know.
About how close you are to all of them, because it depends on the situation, I
think. (Benjamin).
Benjamin‟s comment highlights the challenge of the mapping task on a procedural
level, whilst also referring to the fact that friendship is not a static concept. A related
problem is that of participant error. Of course, I am only aware of the errors that
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became apparent during the interview; hence it is likely that some errors have not
come to light. For example, one Chinese participant misunderstood that the map
should be filled in to demonstrate the emotional closeness of her friends:
Researcher – Did you put people that you feel close to near the centre and
people that you feel more distant near the outside?
Yayoi – Ah, OK.
Researcher – Is that how you filled it in?
Yayoi – No I didn‟t. I was like... OK, I didn‟t get that bit then. OK, so it
should go like this – then close and – [changes map] – I mean, compared to
them.
The same participant did not write down an Anglo-Australian friend because she did
not know how to spell the name, and it was only when this friend was mentioned
during the interview that this omission emerged. For Yayoi, language was a barrier to
completing the map, in addition to her procedural understanding of the task. Other
participants inadvertently put friends in the wrong quadrant box on the friendship
map, for example, recording that the friend was in Australia when they were not, and
on talking it became apparent that they needed to be moved to another quadrant. In
these cases, the map was amended to more accurately record this.
Normative, or perceptive bias is another methodological issue, which affected the
friendship map and the information that participants presented during interviews.
Participants bring to the research their own ideas of what a friend is, and who a friend
should be (Spencer and Pahl 2006: 50). Indeed, this is part of what I set out to
discover. Participants may seek to favourably present how many friends they have, or
to the contrary, they may not necessarily reveal everything during the research
process (Oliker, 1989: 175; Vaughan, 1986: 202). In my work, normative bias
manifested in various ways. The process of filling in the map generated an emotional
response for some participants. For instance, John noted that he „felt mean‟ placing a
friend far away in closeness on the map: „I felt really bad because Yolanda is so
lovely and I put her way out there‟. John perceived a mismatch between Yolanda
being „lovely‟ and the position he attributed for her as emotionally distant on his map.
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In a few cases, participants felt that they should add a friend because of their previous
shared history:
Marion and Bettina are my school friends – the school in India. I put them
here because we were in the same class. But, em, it is difficult to maintain this
relationship because they are very busy people they both work, and em they –
I don‟t know. It is hard to sustain them, I need to work really hard at this one.
(Thea).
In Thea‟s case, her friendships with old school friends require attention to remain
active, however, they are significant to Thea who has included these friends on the
map due to nostalgia. In Max‟s case, his perception of a friend‟s emotional closeness
was decided during the interview to be inaccurate:
Max – Well, Sebastian, I have to say I have misplaced him. […] But, so,
these [friends that are emotionally distant on the map] … I speak to these
people less.
Researcher – So maybe you put Sebastian here [emotionally close on the map]
on the basis of what it was, rather than what it is now?
Max – I think that is an accurate summation.
Nostalgia has played a role in Max‟s perception of Sebastian as a friend, a perception
that has not kept track with the reality of their active friendship enactment.
Conclusion
There are many points to be learnt from this research in terms of adding to the
scholarship on migrants and their friendships and the methods used to gather data on
this topic. The process of participants completing the map did identify some
methodological issues, specifically: normative bias may have played a role in who
participants included on their map; language, time and an understanding of the task
were barriers for some participants, and participant error and memory recall had a
minimal effect on the accuracy of the data gathered.
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However, the map successfully provided both a means to identify which friends were
emotionally close, whilst the use of quadrants gave data on geographic proximity.
When used in conjunction with interviewing, the map provided insights into the
emotions that participants felt for their friends, in particular old friends included on
the map due to nostalgia. It is concluded that the map is a useful tool to gather data,
and as a catalyst to generate discussion during interviews with migrants about their
friends.
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Table 1 – Friendship diagram
Currently living in Australia Not currently living in Australia
Met after
Justine
moving to
Australia (‘new’
Pierre
friends)
Alice
Met before
moving to
Australia (‘old’
Claire
friends)
Benoit
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to the research participants for their time and insights. This paper has been
written with the assistance of an Australian Post-Graduate Award.
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