A Comparison of Informal Networks in Two Labrador Communities

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。该项目包括30个月的跨学科研究，旨在了解北极社区的人们如何在应对高水平的社会变化时形成社会联系。这项研究将在加拿大拉布拉多的Nain和Goose Bay社区进行。在那里，与北极的许多城镇和村庄一样，资源开发、土地定居和新的治理机制促使人们在如何谋生和处理外部利益方面进行了重大调整。虽然对这些变化的个人描述是可用的，但对社会相互联系的地方模式的系统调查却很少。这一点很重要，因为社会关系在影响个人对变化的看法方面发挥着重要作用。这个项目调查了社会联系的模式——被称为社会网络——因为它们是由北方居民创造和重塑的。它试图了解网络连接如何影响人们的生活、生计以及对他们的政治和经济机遇/挑战的理解。这项研究对两个社区的800名居民进行了采访。访谈的重点是人们在寻找住房和工作，或确保家庭健康和传统粮食收获时所利用的联系。有时，就像分享传统食物一样，这些联系确保了必要和重要的货物和主食的流动。在其他情况下，连接促进了与经济或政府计划有关的信息的流动。在这种情况下，连接的模式必然是非常不同的。然而，综合起来看，社会网络影响了一系列重要因素，从公众对发展项目的看法到地方卫生成果和教育成就。项目研究人员正在使用新的方法，旨在从个人账户中生成大型网络的复合模型。这些模型使研究小组能够做的不仅仅是简单地表示这些网络。利用网络理论的方法，这些模型提供了一个用数学术语呈现资源和信息流动的机会，然后可以将其与其他地方的类似结构进行比较。对这些网络的准确了解将使当地居民和决策者能够更好地了解和管理北方的变化速度，并了解当地社区在与理事机构和外部利益集团（如保健提供者和资源开发商）的互动中如何继续作出反应和变化。该项目是在努纳茨亚武特政府（拉布拉多的因纽特行政机构）和拉布拉多-格伦费尔卫生局的合作和支持下开展的，由纽约城市大学的一组研究人员执行，他们专门从事综合人种学、网络科学、社会学和公共卫生的项目。该项目的研究预计将于2010年8月完成

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This project includes 30 months of interdisciplinary research aimed at understanding how people in Arctic Communities form social connections in response to high levels of social change. The research will take place in the communities of Nain and Goose Bay, located in Labrador, Canada. There, as in many Arctic towns and villages, resource development, land settlements, and new governing mechanisms have prompted significant adjustments in how people earn a living and deal with outside interests. While individual, personal accounts of these changes are available, there has been little systematic investigation of the local patterns of social interconnection. This is important because social connections play a significant role in influencing individual perspectives on change. This project investigates patterns of social connectedness - called social networks - as they are made and remade by Northern residents. It seeks to understand how network connections influence peoples' lives, livelihoods, and understandings of their political and economic opportunities/challenges.The research entails 800 interviews with residents of the two communities. Interviews focus on the links people make use of as they go about finding housing and jobs, or securing household health and traditional food harvests. Sometimes, as with the sharing of traditional foods, these connections ensure the movement of necessary and important goods and staples. In other cases, connections facilitate the movement of information relating to the economy or government programs. In such cases, the pattern of connections is bound to be quite different. Yet taken together, social networks influence a range of important factors, from public opinion about development projects to local health outcomes and educational attainment.Project researchers are using new methodologies aimed at producing composite models of large networks from individual accounts. These models allow the research team to do more than simply represent these networks. Using methods from Network Theory, the models provide an opportunity to render the flows of resources and information in mathematical terms, which can then be compared with similar structures in other places. Precise knowledge of these networks will allow local residents and policy makers to better understand and manage the pace of change in the North, and to understand how local communities continue to react and change in their interaction with governing bodies and outside interests (such as health providers and resource developers). The project is undertaken with cooperation and support of the Nunatsiavut Government (the Inuit administrative body for Labrador) and the Labrador-Grenfell Health Authority, and is being carried out by team of researchers from the City University of New York that specialize in projects that integrate ethnography, network science, sociology, and public health. The research for the project is expected to be complete by August, 2010