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increased flexibility that people have in the organization of their personal
relationships and life trajectories, not only less normative and less stan-
dardized than in the past but also more diverse in the prioritization and
merging of family, friendship, ex-kin, or work-related ties (Allan 2008 ).
Furthermore, individualization narratives have been predicting the weak-
ening of personal relationships, in particular the decline of kinship ties,
as a result of the decreasing normative weight of the family as an institu-
tion (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002 ). The main argument in this book
is that despite greater freedom in the construction of personal life, largely
driven by lifestyle or individual preferences as well as the questioning of
blood and alliance principles, individuals’ personal networks and sense of
connectedness are likely to be constrained or bounded by life course expe-
riences, normative orientations, and differential social positioning related
to birth cohort, gender, or social class.
The second concern of this book was to assess and further explain these
changes in the context of broader societal effects and national histories,
the roots of which go deep into the past. The essential values of European
societies focusing on individual autonomy and self-fulfilment, gender
equality, and equal opportunities over the life course are seen to be framed
by the specific historical paths, welfare regimes, and socio-economic con-
ditions experienced in each country. We have argued in this book that
changes in personal networks will therefore be influenced by the oppor-
tunity structures and normative orientations stemming from the national
contexts in which they exist and evolve over time. Drawing on a configu-
rational perspective (Elias 1994 ; Widmer 2010 ), our main hypothesis
was that the extension and complexity of networks, together with their
consequences for the type of social capital available to those concerned,
would be influenced by the historical pathway and social development of
each society. We thus expected to find a strong contrast between personal
networks in Portugal, where family and kinship members have played an
important role as mediators of social integration and social control, and
Switzerland, where opportunity structures, wealth, and normative orien-
tations have favoured individual autonomy and self-development over
mediation by the family as a group. The case of Lithuania, a society which
has undergone a dissimilar path to modernity in many respects, both
historically and in terms of its recent political projects and normative
K. Wall et al.