Understanding connectivity: The parallax and disruptive-productive effects of mixed methods social network analysis in occupational science

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article introduces social network analysis (SNA), a theoretical perspective accompanied by a set of methodologies, to occupational science. The convergence of SNA and occupational science is timely for both fields. By providing methodological approaches that flesh out a structural view of social networks, SNA measurements and mathematical terminology can effectively bridge the complexity of diverse interpretive frameworks used to understand occupational engagement and other constructs for humans as socially occupied beings. By focusing attention on the relationship of occupations to connectivity between agents, occupational science can make significant contributions to the ways in which the mattering or meaning of what people do with others nurtures the development and sustainability of social networks. We provide a brief history and roots of SNA in naturalistic observation, current terminology, and four widely used SNA research designs: egocentric, sociometric, sequenced, and two-mode. Drawing examples from our decade-long journey using SNA with narrative phenomenological conceptual frameworks, we illustrate how we used SNA with experience-near ethnographies to meet different objectives. In the discussion, we reflect on the parallax view created by the synergies between the disciplines and how the disruptive-productive effects that occur with mixing narrative phenomenology and SNA methods could address (mutual) methodological gaps that have seemingly limited conceptual development in the social sciences.