ISBN:
9781315189062
Content:
"The paper explores rural kinship networks in 18th and 19th centuries Westphalia (Prussia). Kinship has become a major topic of family history during the last years. It has been regarded as archaic principle by European social scientists for a long time, restricted to the private sphere and irrelevant for public domains as politics, business and the field of education. This idea has been challenged by researchers who demonstrated an increasing significance of kinship networks with regard to economic, social and political processes of change during 19th century. The paper demonstrates the benefits of formal social network analysis. For two Westphalian parishes (Löhne, Kreis Herford; Borgeln, Kreis Soest) networks of kinship and godparentage (as spiritual kinship) have been analysed with various analytical approaches. Statistical analysis can provide for first exploratory insights into network composition, but formal network analysis allows for more accurate examination of social behaviour. Centrality is a basic network concept that helps to identify important actors and to recognise the overall power structure of social groups. The construction of godparent networks reveals strategies of social closure or, on the contrary, strategies of network expansion by peasants and other groups in rural society. Genealogical networks are characterised by a specific structural qualities and require specific analytical tools, as P-Graph analysis. There different approaches help to reconsidered the stuctural changes in rural society, from traditional peasant society to modern class society in late 19th century" (Abstract)
In:
The power of networks, London : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020, (2020), Seite 111-124, 9781315189062
In:
year:2020
In:
pages:111-124
Language:
English
Author information:
Fertig, Christine 1972-
