[Air-L] "social networks" preceded "network community"

John Postill jpostill at usa.net
Sat Sep 15 08:28:55 PDT 2007


In a paper that preceded their article "Social networks and the study of
relations: networks as method, metaphor and form",  Knox et al (2006) write
the following (I haven't got the published article handy, sorry):

In fact, the earliest use of the network as a theory in anthropology is not in
the work of Bott (1957) and Barnes (1954), but in Radcliffe-Brown’s
presidential address “On Social Structure”, published in JRAI in 1940.
Here the concept of social networks emerges as central to his clarifications
as to what constitutes social structure. Making a clear distinction between
the identification of an empirical social structure, as “the set of actually
existing relations, at a given moment of time, which link together certain
human beings” (1940: 4) and the role of the anthropologist to reveal
structural form, Radcliffe-Brown contrasted the fact that “human beings are
connected by a complex network of social relations” (1940: 2) with what he
saw as the scientific role of the anthropologist to create abstractions
regarding the general characteristics of these social networks, or social
structure. 

All the best

John

Reference

Knox, Hannah; Savage, Mike; Harvey, Penny Source: Economy and Society, Volume
35, Number 1, Number 1/February 2006 , pp. 113-140(28)


Dr John Postill
Senior Lecturer in Media
Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield S11 8UZ
United Kingdom
+44 114 225 4628
j.postill at shu.ac.uk
http://www.johnpostill.co.uk

------ Original Message ------
Received: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 03:51:14 PM BST
From: Barry Wellman <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca>
To: aoir list <air-l at aoir.org>
Subject: [Air-L] "social networks" preceded "network community"

> Jose wrote in the last digest:
> "I think that this comparison is similar to that of VCs and 'Networked
> Communities', a term that has been there long before 'social networks'."
> 
> Sorry, Jose, but I think you're wrong.
> 
> I.
> 
> The explicit use of the term social network goes back to the 1950s, with
> J.A.  Barnes, the Cambridge anthropologist. Wikipedia has a handy
> historical section on this, and for more detail, see
> 
> Linton Freeman, The Development of Social Network Analysis: A Study in the
> Sociology of Science. Vancouver: Empirical Press, 2004.
> 
> (I have a shorter article, as the first chapter of Wellman & Berkowitz,
> _Social Structures_).
> 
> What's happening is that the social software mavens have been taking over
> "social network" as their own. There's been a lot of fuss on Wikipedia
> differentiating between the "social network" and the "social network
> service" article.
> 
> II.
> 
> I think I invented the term "networked comunities". Certainly I
> started using it much later -- in the 1970s. Dredging my vitae, it was
> probably used early on in:
> 
> Barry Wellman, "The Network Nature of Future Communities." Society for the
> Study of Social Problems, Aug., 1972. New York.(if you want to consider
> conference papers)
> 
> and in print:
> 
> Paul Craven and Barry Wellman, "The Network City". Sociological Inquiry 43
> (Winter, 1973): 57-88.
> 
> Barry Wellman, "The Form and Function of Future Communities." Pp. 301-313
> in Futures for Central Canada, edited by Larry S. Bourne, et al. Toronto:
> Univ. of Toronto Press, 1974.
> 
> Barry Wellman, "Community Transformations: Present and Future." Pp. 213-26
> in Participatory Democracy in Action, edited by Dan Chekki. Sahibabad,
> India: Vikas, 1979.
> 
> Barry Wellman, "The Community Question: The Intimate Networks of East
> Yorkers." American Journal of Sociology 84 (March, 1979): 1201-31.
> 
> Barry Wellman and Barry Leighton, "Networks, Neighborhoods and
> Communities," Urban Affairs Quarterly 14 (March, 1979):363-90.
> 
> Barry Wellman, Peter Carrington and Alan Hall "Networks as Personal
> Communities." Pp. 130-84 in Social Structures: A Network Approach, edited
> by Barry Wellman and S.D. Berkowitz. Cambridge: Cambridge University
> Press, 1988.
> 
> You could look it up as Casey used to say, as my vitae is online.
> Alas, these papers were written before word processing, so I don't have a
> handy search mechanism available.
> 
> And I'd rather write new stuff that search old.
> 
>  Barry Wellman
>  _______________________________________________________________________
> 
>   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC              NetLab Director
>   Centre for Urban & Community Studies           University of Toronto
>   455 Spadina Avenue          Room 418          Toronto Canada M5S 2G8
>   http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman            fax:+1-416-978-7162
>   Updating history:     http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
>          Elvis wouldn't be singing "Return to Sender" these days
>  _______________________________________________________________________
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> 
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers: 
> http://www.aoir.org/
> 






More information about the Air-L mailing list