Falling Through the Black Hole

Astronomers argue that stars do not exist in isolation: they become part of galaxies, which are further grouped into intergalactic clusters. So do migrants. ‘People migrate in networks’, notes Alejandro Portes (1995). Therefore, they should learn to obtain membership in their networks and to deal with its requirements (ibid). In application to high-skill and elite migrants, the unanswered question is how they manage to sustain their network membership on a daily basis. Seeking to answer it, this chapter studies the dynamics of global elite migrants’ networks, looking into the most challenging experiences that my informants had while navigating global opera networks and into agentic strategies they used to overcome those barriers. Synthesizing theories of ‘migrant network’ and ‘cultural production’ with the testimonies of my informants, I explore their most unpleasant networking problems and associated coping strategies.