A critical examination of the advantages of investigating community and leisure from a social network perspective

Abstract

In an attempt to appreciate the contribution that social network analysis might offer to the study of leisure, four distinctive, though not mutually exclusive, approaches to social network analysis are considered and an overall critique of the approach offered, paying special attention to the work of Wellman. Within this critique is a discussion of the ontological, epistemological and methodological problems confronting the social network perspective, particularly the works of those analysts, such as Stokowski (1994), who have attempted to merge structural analysis with more action-based perspectives. Some comparisons are made with figurational sociology and structuration theory, and attention is drawn to three central explanatory tools deployed within network analysis: the strength of weak ties, sociometry, and network density.