Artists’ mobility instigating enduring global networks?

In the arts world, a new organizational form emerged in recent decades: the so-called artists’ residence. In previous research, we have examined what this new organizational form offers to artists, why they go there, or in other words, the factors that determine the appeal of this new organization. We found that no generalizations on the subject must be made, given the diversity within this organization form. Through several interviews with artists three archetypes of residences came to the fore: 1) the R&D or ‘refuge’ type, 2) the production type, and 3) the dispersion type, which could contribute to one’s fame. In this research, we will focus on the latter, and consider these international reputation-building ‘events’ a transition. By studying ego-centered networks, we aim to reveal if these transitions cause first, more network ties, second, more prestigious ties and third, more global ties. We will do so by not only focusing on absolute networks and ties, but also on relative ties, that is first, compared to thenetwork of the actor previous to the event, and second (a dynamic approach), compared to another actor that has not been subject to this transition (an artist that did not undertake a residence; we will therefore make use of ‘similar pairs’) (a relational approach).