Stanley Théry: Social network analysis between Tours notables and Louis XI (1461-1483)

<p>Since his coronation in 1461, Louis XI preferred to live near the city of Tours. His court, household, chancellery and many other officers had to follow him, and they installed themselves in the town. As a result, the bourgeoisie of Tours and central authorities of France grew closer and weaved a social network. Moreover, many Tourangeaux notables participated in the construction of the modern state by becoming king’s officers. The purpose of the study is to define both the advantages and disadvantages of the social networks analysis in order to understand the involvement of the bourgeoisie in the French monarchy.</p> <p>In order to reconstitute the network, information on the relationships between each person is needed. This information can be found in a serial source like the municipal accounts. Firstly, this source shows that the town gave gifts such as meat, fish and wine, to dignitaries in order to get services in return, and had to buy goods,. Consequently, a relationship between the merchant, the buyer, the donor and the donee is revealed. Secondly, the bourgeoisie of Tours organized missions toward dignitaries to present requests; this produced a relationship between the travelers and the recipients. This two means allow the production of graphs that help analyze the groups of influence and special relationships between the town and the central power and even discover the people which structured the network.</p

Models of historical networks: A methodological proposal

<p>Network analysis is more and more currently used in historical and archeological studies and several recent initiatives in France (RES-HIST), United Kingdom (Connected Past) or Germany (Historical Network Research) illustrate this trend. However, most studies remain strictly empirical: the aim being to characterize a specific network or some index regarding given actors. If this first step is necessary, it does not allow comparison nor generalization. Our objective is to propose a way to gain generalization regarding historical network analysis and to provide basis for comparison.</p> <p>One alternative from the data-driven process would be to create ideal models of networks derived from expected behaviors of actors. In other words, we should be able to compare our observed networks with networks created by a given process.</p> <p>In my PhD regarding states and regional groups behaviors at the United Nations General Assembly (Beauguitte, 2011), I perform network analysis in a “classical way”: data collection, definition of (hopefully relevant) periods of observation, measures and interpretation. My main hypothesis regarded a possible political world regionalization: states should act more and more through regional groups at the UNGA. An alternative way would be to draw (and measure) the network expected if this regionalization process was complete.</p> <p>The following figures regard speeches habits at the UNGA: most speakers are state representatives (yellow circles), but regional groups also talk (blue squares), and state representative can support group declarations. In this last case, it can be represented by a 2-mode network state-group, a link indicating that the state a supports the declaration made by the group A.</p> <p>The sequence below is completely hypothetical. The first step shows a purely stato-centric situation: groups talk but states do not support (density equal 0) and the last step would be an optimum regarding regionalization: only regional groups talk (and density remains at 0).</p> <p>Between these two optimal situations, b shows a group vs group configuration, c a limited regionalisation process, leaving apart some states and groups and d shows a more complex picture where one state supports two regional groups. These small figures are basic representations of stylized facts, but all can be characterized by some given measures (density, number of components, degree distribution etc.) and could be used as references when dealing with actual data.</p> <p>L. Beauguitte, 2011, L’Assemblée générale de l’ONU de 1985 à nos jours : acteur et reflet du Système-Monde, Thèse de doctorat, Université Paris 7, available on Thèses en ligne.</p

Social Network Analysis as a Complementary Methodological Tool in History

<p>Committees of experts play a decisive role in the Swiss policy-making process. Expertise is awaited from those commissions, which have an influence in diverse policy areas such as defence, economy, cultural and social policy or environmental matters. Scientists, along with industrialists, politicians and civil servants, hold an important place in those commissions. Working on the 20th century, we look at all the committees of experts at several dates (1910, 1937, 1957, 1980, 2000 and 2010), which represents 1’094 commissions and 9’026 persons, of whom 1’009 scientists. Bivariate statistical analyses on those data show that scientists not only represent a significant proportion of commission mandates but also often have key positions, either as committee president or holding several mandates simultaneously. These observations, however, do not concern every academic domain equally and undergo changes during the 20th century. A phenomenon of power concentration in the hands of scientists in the fields of law and economics can be observed in the middle of the century. Conducting social network analysis on our data helps understanding where the power of influence stands in the committees of experts and who, among scientists, holds it. The ways individuals are related to each other through their participation in commissions show power centres and strong networks among scientists of the same field. In a historical perspective, this methodology allows the display of data to show the developments and changes over time. In this case, it is a powerful complementary tool to bivariate statistics in order to understand which scientific knowledge has a power of influence on the Swiss policy-making process and to show the changes that can be observed over a long period of time. The presentation will have a double purpose: on the one hand, it will show the results of a network analysis in a historical perspective and, on the other hand, it will discuss the relevance of such a methodology in history.</p

Archaeology as practical mereology: an attempt to analyze a set of ceramic refits using network analysis tools

<p>After two decades of research there has been renewed interest in the refitting analysis of archaeological objects (Cziesla et al. 1990; Hofman and Enloe 1992; Schurmans and De Bie 2007). This analysis is time-consuming, but the result is the most unambiguous criterion to determine the relationships between archaeological objects (contrary to stylistic features, for instance). This kind of information is obviously relational, but, surprisingly and to our knowledge, no attempt has been made to use network analysis to analyze these relationships (Brughmans 2012). In this paper, we propose some preliminary methodological developments in this direction, in order to combine network and refitting analysis. The discussion is based on ceramic objects discovered in a rainforest rock-shelter, at Liang Abu, East-Kalimantan, Indonesia (Ricaut et al. 2011). Searching for conjoining sherds is usually done to reconstruct a vase, rather than as a heuristic method to understand the dynamics of a site. There is plenty of literature regarding stone tool refitting (Art and Cziesla 1990), but ceramic refitting has been considered less-widely and is notably absent in Shepard’s classical manual (Shepard1956) Focusing on ceramics will lead us to determine the specific properties of refitting relationships according to the type of archaeological object. Such characterizations have already been proposed, such as Bollong’s six points typology (Bollong 1994), but the description was limited to a quantification of each type. We discuss that graph analysis can provide an integrative framework for the different metrics, and that the number of relations can be summed in addition to describing the structure of a set of refitting relations. These structural properties could enlighten taphonomic phenomenons and site formation processes, information which are valuable to the understanding of complex karstic stratigraphy, as found at Liang Abu.</p

Resilience in times of Early Modern financial crises: the case study of Simon Ruiz network, 1553-1606

<p>In Spanish second half of the 16th century, a merchant called Simon Ruiz had built a network of business partners which allowed him to be one of the wealthiest merchants in the Iberia Peninsula. The Spanish Empire maintained military conflicts with almost all Europe, which further contributed to the insolvency of the Spanish Crown, resulting in three different bankruptcies (1557, 1575 and 1596) and several constraints in financial and commercial activity. In such troubled periods, trust in credit affairs was at stake and directly interfered with the liquidity of commercial firms. Hence, it is no surprise that several companies in Europe, defaulted.</p> <p>In this conjuncture, Simon Ruiz’s company and business network has not collapsed, maintaining its activity for 53 years. How and why did this business network resist to such contrarieties? In this paper, it is argued how the resilience of the network was fostered in two distinct, but complementary approaches: on one hand, the business strategies Ruiz used to face different economic conjunctures; on the other hand, the structural characteristics of the network, using variables of mathematical network analysis. Which strategies could prevent an Early Modern business company from collapse in an adverse economic scenario? We believe network analysis can contribute for the answer. To approach these questions, we will support our analysis on the bills of exchange and the commercial correspondence of Simon Ruiz private archive.</p

Interactions and network analysis of a rock art site in Morro do Chapéu, Bahia, Brazil

<p>We present a network analysis of human representations painted in a prehistoric rock shelter located in the municipality of Morro do Chapéu, in the state of Bahia, Brazil. This particular set of rock art was classified according to common attributes shared by all the figures. The network created from these criteria allows us to study the behaviour of specific patterned elements considered as salient identity markers.</p> <p>The region of the Chapada Diamantina is located in the central part of the state of Bahia. Mostly above 1000 meters, it shows a rich vegetation in the middle of a semiarid zone. The municipality of Morro do Chapéu lies in the north, on a sandstone belt separating the two most important hydrographic basins of Bahia, São Francisco and Paraguaçu rivers.</p> <p>In order to analyze the diversity of human representations, we developed a classification based on shared binary morphological and technical attributes. A 2-mode network was then mounted to<br>visualize the relations existing between all the elements and their variables. This method allowed us to identify clusters of similar figures and outliers, with original combinations of attributes.<br>Furthermore, we wanted to verify this method, still new in rock art studies, against another statistical test. MCA, or Multiple Correspondence Analysis, offered us a geometric analysis of the same data. It resulted in fairly similar results.</p> <p> </p

Network analyses of the diffusion of Hellenistic fired bricks

<p>Network analyses have been carried out in order to investigate the spread of Hellenistic fired bricks, being an example of the diffusion of innovations. General similarity networks have been used in two ways: as an exploratory tool for revealing possible trends and patterns in the complex relationship between various archaeological finds; and as a proxy for the diffusion process, the structural properties of which can be determined by statistical methods. These approaches have provided insights into the material, which would have been difficult to gain with conventional methods. However, the results should primarily be seen as promising lines of further investigation. The interpretation of quantitative network analyses must always take the wider historical and archaeological background into account.</p> <p>The combined information also forms a basis for modelling the diffusion process. Simulations can be tested against the temporal and geographical distribution of the material, as well as the structural properties of the similarity networks. In our case the simulations aimed at finding possible explanations for an apparent shift in the diffusion process, from a long period of limited use to sudden breakthrough. One model suggests that latent knowledge about the innovation may have diffused independently of the actual adoption decision-process. This would allow a ‘weak’ diffusion process to survive through an extended period of limited use without going extinct, and can be understood in terms of ‘re-invention’. Sudden transitions in the process behaviour can also be attributed to changes in the cultural patterns of decision-making.</p

Towards a study of the structure of the business & science social network of the 2nd Polish Republic

<p>This proposition is inspired by observations of the Network Sunrise project led by one of the authors. It focused on building a B+R cooperation network in Poland. We found out that one of main reasons for the small number of B+R cooperation examples in contemporary Poland is the insufficiency of social relations between scientists and entrepreneurs. We are asking – is it a characteristic of polish culture or is this an artifact caused by the events of the past?</p> <p>On the other hand the 2nd Polish Republic has seen many successful scientists-entrepreneurs, such as Jan Czochralski, Stefan Bryła or Karol Adamiecki. All of them co-operated with biggest companies in their fields providing them with innovation.</p> <p>We hypothesize that here existed a well-structured network of social relations between scientists and entrepreneurs in the Second Republic of Poland that had a positive feedback on the economic development of the country, but it was structurally destroyed by the Nazi and Stalinist practices during and post – WWII. We present a social network theory based argumentation supporting this hypothesis.</p> <p>Proving this hypothesis using archive material requires constructing a new data set and tackling new problems on the border between historical and social network research. In this proposition we describe our vision and plan for the research. We share preliminary results concerning well-connected individuals such as Jan Czochralski or Hugo Steinhaus. Finally we discuss problems and present ideas for solutions, asking for commentary of the scientific community working on historical social networks.</p

Inferring the intensity of Social Network from radiocarbon dated Bronze Age archaeological contexts

<p>This paper presents the design of a Social Network Model used to explore a regional scale network of interaction in LBA-Early Iron Ages. We intend to investigate how raw material and technological information flows may have influenced economical exchange and social interaction through time.</p> <p>To define these networks of interaction we use a dataset composed of more than 1500 georeferenced and radiocarbon dated archaeological contexts of a period between the Early Bronze Age and the first Iron Age (1800-750BC) from an area including the North-East of Iberian Peninsula, Southern France, Northern Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Southern Germany. Two different networks can be built from this data: one relating each site with each nearest neighbor in space and time, and another built on the bases of similarity distance (material culture).</p> <p>Our aim is to analyze the dynamical nature of those networks and explore two alternative hypotheses: demic processes and cultural transmission mechanisms to understand the birth-growth-death of dynamic links between the nodes of the network in a one millennium trajectory.</p

Tying up Columbus: A historical and material culture study of the networks that resulted from the first European voyages into the Caribbean (AD 1492-1504)

<p>On twelve October, 1492 the networks of the Old and New World ─ the former represented by Admiral Christopher Columbus and his crew, the latter by the indigenous people of the Caribbean ─ connected for the first time. In this paper we will combine material culture and historical sources to explore the structure and content of the relations between individuals and groups during this first encounter. These early interactions between Europeans and indigenous people had a formative influence on the development of later cross-cultural contacts and historical accounts of the first voyages have always been an invaluable resource for studying these. However, because sources like the famous Colombus Diario feature a complex set of inter-personal ties between Columbus, political players back in Europe, other crew members, and, last but not least, Caribbean indigenous people, it has been difficult to discern the larger structural patterns behind the events. To come to a deeper understanding of some of the actions of Columbus and other key players we will employ (ego-)network approaches to abstract and analyze the structure of ties that are mentioned in the documents. We will focus in particular on the importance of the exchange of goods for the relations between European and indigenous peoples and suggest that a material culture study of encounter contexts can aid in the further contextualization of these inter-personal networks. This will show how, by sharing, exchanging or otherwise incorporating material culture in their interactions, Europeans and Amerindians alike attempted to create and maintain ties of huge personal and historical interest.</p