Amministratori, possidenti, tessitori e contadini: ritratto relazionale di una comunità dell’ottocento veneto

Abstract

This article describes the hierarchical system, the management and the social integration of families in a textile community of the Venetian countryside, Follina (TV) in the nineteenth century. The article considers how families relate each other within the community, fitting in the social context. For these reasons it is important to measure the distance and the relationships ‘between’ families and ‘towards’ families who constitute the communitarian leadership, i.e. the notables who wield the economic (often wool entrepreneurs), the political and the parish power. The social network analysis is often cited in social history as a possible explanatory model of historical processes, as it would be able to overcome the rigid classification schemes of class membership. However, it remains a rarely practiced approach. If it is used in a formal way, it allows to understand the relational dynamics actually experienced by individuals, social groups, families and kinships. A relational dynamic reconstruction between 1834 and 1888 is carried out by means of a detailed study of kinship and godparenthood relations. This reconstruction allows to observe the role played by different elites over time and their different attitudes, in terms of integration or social isolation