195Linking Family Trajectories and Personal Networks
The main aim of this chapter is to conceptually (and empirically) bring
together trajectories and personal networks as different components of
social configurations, defined as structures of mutually oriented and depen-
dent people (Elias 1994 : 214). The underlying argument is that diachronic
chains of relations and the synchronic combinatory logic of relationships
both constitute structural arrangements. In a structural perspective
(Radcliffe-Brown 1940 ), behaviours (trajectories) and relations (personal
networks) form a system (Déchaux 2007 ). Considered as a sequence of
actions, an individual behaviour is akin to a trajectory in a specific life
sphere. Contextual factors condition a dynamic structure of relational
behaviours (such as co-residency) and system of relations (personal con-
figurations). A personal configuration and its associated social capital is
not some sort of static, ascribed social attribute. On the contrary, it needs
constant efforts of institution and maintenance to make it useful and
durable (Bourdieu 1980 ). However, the influences of endogenous and/or
exogenous contingencies contribute to limiting, developing, or modify-
ing an initial configuration, affecting the type of social capital in the same
way, be it bridging, bonding, or linking (Hawkins and Maurer 2010 ).
This means that the relations one has with specific types of significant
others depend on the relations one has or does not have with other signifi-
cant others. For instance, in terms of social capital, living for some time
with a partner without children fosters a certain kind of derived ties, as
Déchaux ( 2007 ) puts it, compared to living with a partner and children.
Refuting the hypothesis of pure relationships (Giddens 1992 ), Gouveia
and Widmer (2014) showed that the proportions of kin and non-kin in
personal networks may be adequately explained by socio-structural fac-
tors such as birth cohort, life events, and values. The multidimensionality
of life trajectories and the social roles they are associated with support the
idea that they constitute a generative mechanism of the development of
personal networks.
Co-residence trajectories are likely to impact the development of per-
sonal relationships, as co-residence enhances proximity and feelings of
Linking Family Trajectories and Personal Networks