Longitudinal Social Network Studies and Predictive Social Cohesion Theory

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9978282White This project reanalyzes data on social networks from 18 anthropological field sites and historical studies of sets of social relationships, involving a network of collaborators and students in US as well as foreign universities. Formal concepts such as biconnectedness - sets of multiply connected actors - are defined for social networks and analyzed in extant data sets. For specified sets of social relations multiply connected sets of actors are hypothesized to have greater cohesiveness, as expressed in measurable behavioral criteria. Bicomponent members are hypothesized to enjoy more social capital than others. The project will train a large international set of collaborators to work on a coordinated set of analytical themes centered on the nature and impact of bicomponent network social relationships. The significance of the research is that the researchers will be able to predict the development of social institutions, the likeliness of social change in groups, the impact of divisiveness, and the fact that the project will train a set of researchers and advanced students in a quantitative analytic technique useful for a wide range of social analysis. Workshops will be convened in Paris, Cologne, Madrid, and possibly Mexico to develop and coordinate the methods.