The Limits of Primordial Affinity to Ethnic Trust: The Social Origins of Ethnic Trust among North Korean Refugees in London

The creation of trusting relationships with coethnics is identified as a step towards refugee integration. However, coethnic trust has been considered primordial, and empirical explorations on restoring refugees’ capacities to trust their coethnics have remained limited. This study addresses the gap by considering in-group trust decisions as a situational product shaped by contextual conditions using social network data on North Korean refugees settled in London. The network analyses test the effects of contextual arrangements, while accounting for network-level covariates affecting trust decisions. Findings demonstrate that social conditions within the host country support the emergence of trust ties despite the unfavourable pre-migration experiences of refugees. More specifically, a sense of belonging in the host society and placing trust in host government are associated with trusting impulse towards coethnics. The implications from the findings suggest that features of the post-migration environment signal trustworthiness of interactional partners, including coethnics.