Dense Social Networks Research Articles

Women, Children, and the Social Organization of Domestic Labor in Chile

Abstract This article explores the relationship of domestic labor and social reproduction in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Chile, paying particular attention to the roles of children. Children figured as products of women’s reproductive labors, but they were also themselves crucial members of a domestic labor force structured by age as well as gender. Drawing on classified employment ads, judicial cases, and the records of Santiago’s main orphanage, the analysis highlights how the labor of childrearing and the labor of children existed within the same social field. Women’s and children’s domestic work, while increasingly distinct, mutually shaped each other. Children influenced employment opportunities and work arrangements for women, both mothers and childless women, and placed in vivid relief the tensions that pervaded women’s remunerated and unremunerated labors. Women’s work in turn shaped the fate of children. Ultimately, the analysis suggests that domestic and reproductive labor was a resource allocated not just at the level of the individual household but on a societal scale across social groups. Circulating through households of different class statuses and across rural and urban spaces, the labor of childrearing (including wet nursing and fosterage) and the labor of children (as servants and criados) was mobilized across dense social networks. Even as the circulation of this labor linked disparate social groups, it simultaneously differentiated them, materially and symbolically, thereby reproducing the multigenerational patterns of patronage and hierarchy that were constitutive of Chilean society. Finally, while domestic work is often associated with private spaces, the analysis finds that public beneficence institutions played an active role in training, subsidizing, and distributing it.

Financial Commitment Within Federations of Small Groups: The Effect of Cell-Based Congregational Structure on Individual Giving

According to available research, congregations with strict rules and dense social networks are better able to screen out free-riders (“selection”) and encourage greater levels of commitment among members (“production”). Both selection and production raise levels of individual giving. Research testing these processes generally utilizes a measure of network density. This study examines whether organizations that are a “federation of small groups” are better able to monitor members and hold them accountable, thus assuring acceptable levels of commitment on the part of members. Results of multilevel modeling using data from the 2001 U.S. Congregational Life Survey indicate that cell-based congregations elicit higher levels of financial giving among congregants, net of all other effects, including network density. Moreover, cross-level interactions between the cell-based congregation variable and theological exclusivity as well as attendance are significant and positive. Cell-based congregations provide a context in which individual-level predictors of giving become more robust.

Reactive Nationalism and South Korea's Foreign Policy on China and Japan: A Comparative Analysis

The advent of post‐Cold War order, growing economic interdependence and dense social and cultural networks have greatly facilitated South Korea's bilateral ties with China and Japan since the early 1990s; however, disputes over the history and territory have recently strained such ties. Whereas Japan's renewed territorial claim over Dokdo Island, its distortion of history textbooks and Koizumi's tribute to the Yasukuni Shrine dealt a critical blow to Seoul–Tokyo relations, China's Northeast Project, which claims Korea's ancient kingdom of Goguryeo as a Chinese peripheral local government, provoked widespread anti‐Chinese sentiments in South Korea. Nevertheless, South Korea's nationalist responses were not uniform. Seoul responded to Tokyo in a much tougher manner with profound diplomatic implications, whereas public outcry over China did not escalate into any specific retaliatory actions. This article argues that such variation can be explained by the dynamic interplay of issue–character, domestic political terrain involving public opinion and leadership perception and feedback from political leadership in China and Japan.

Partners Forever? An Empirical Study of Relational Ties in Two Small-firm Clusters

Many researchers take as axiomatic the proposition that economic action in clusters is embedded in dense, durable and trust-based social networks. It is suggested here that the bias towards high-trust, enduring relations obscures the competitive dynamics of networks, even where co-operation can be identified. Drawing attention to the competitive motives underlying the construction of social networks, an investigation is made into the duration and brokering of dyadic relations in business owners’ advice networks. The analysis of 668 dyadic ties in a population of 113 small business owners in two textile and clothing clusters in Germany reveals considerable variation in the duration of social relations and the likelihood that they were formed through third-party brokers, many of whom were direct competitors creating more ephemeral links. The findings suggest that ‘marketless’ conceptions of social networks in clusters need to be balanced with a stronger concern for the role of competition in the social embeddedness of small firms.

Respondent-driven sampling: A new method for studying street children with findings from Albania

Sampling methods to study street children often rely on convenience approaches. Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a relatively new methodology for sampling hard-to-reach populations utilizing peer-driven recruitment. It includes both field and analytical procedures to account for non-random recruitment patterns and generates statistically valid samples. This article describes RDS and assesses its effectiveness to recruit a diverse sample of street children, defined as children aged 10–17 years who engage in economic activity on the street in Tirana, Albania. This is the first publication on the use of RDS among street children. This article describes the demographic profile of street children and assesses whether they are sufficiently networked to justify the use of RDS as a sampling approach. Beginning with 10 initial recruits, 293 street children were recruited within 9 weeks. The sample included children of various ethnicities and principal work activities, as well as those with both a short and long history of street work. Males greatly outnumbered females (93.9% vs. 6.1%) and 20.6% of children reported sometimes sleeping away from home. Children had dense social network ties, irrespective of whether they slept at home every day. They also formed social networks related to ethnicity and type of work, but less so with respect to gender. Examination of recruitment patterns revealed important biases that may exist in other methods utilized to study this population. The importance of analytical adjustments applied in RDS is also demonstrated. RDS could be an important breakthrough for researchers and policymakers, providing a more accurate profile of street children's characteristics.

The Political Economy of International Labor Migration Law

rade specialists look at the field of migration and often ask, “Why are there so few international commitments to liberalize movement of workers, compared to the extensive commitments that exist to liberalize trade in goods?” Goods are usually single purchase events and do not broadly entail a continuing relationship between buyer and seller. Even services, while entailing more complex and durable relationships than a purchase of goods, are relatively unidimensional. Individuals, on the other hand, are multidimensional, and their movement as workers involves long-term relationships of great complexity with governments and with employers. Migration specialists often refer to the aphorism attributed to the Swiss author Max Frisch: “We imported workers and got people instead” (Borjas 2007). People come with cultures and skills, and they grow up in dense familial and social networks. They have spouses and children. They need education, health care, political engagement, and all of the other fruits of society. They bear responsibilities to society as well, including taxes and perhaps military service. So, as we discuss migration, we must recognize that it requires breaking and restructuring many relationships: a costly endeavor in the deepest sense. Yet despite these costs, large numbers of people today seem eager to move. However, there are substantial barriers in place to prevent these people from achieving their desires to move in order to seek a better life. These barriers demean human welfare. So it seems worthwhile to grapple with the complexity in order to evaluate whether and how to unlock substantial welfare gains. Individuals will only decide to undertake migration if they perceive that it is worthwhile to them. Throughout history, some have decided to do so, while many others have not. But we must also recognize that there are costs and benefits that are external to the individual migrant. The migrant may be permitted to decide whether to accept these costs and benefits for his or her own family, but what about costs and benefits of the migrant’s decision that are felt by the migrant’s former compatriots, or by the migrant’s new hosts? The role of international law, in this as in other contexts, is to allow states to constrain themselves where their unregulated action would be less desirable than action constrained by international law. International law has not broadly responded to state restraints on immigration. There are a number of reasons why there is little international law addressing such state restraints. One reason is that these restraints are fairly recent. The United States, which was once a nation of immigrants, only began to restrict immigration in 1875, and then restrictions were limited to those who were destitute, engaged in immoral activities, or physically handicapped (Neuman 1993, p. 1883). This restriction seems to be intended to protect the public fisc, as opposed to jobs. The U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 responded to concerns about competition from cheap immigrant labor, as well as racism. In fact, throughout the history of immigration restrictions we see the influence of both protectionism and racism. However, the late nineteenth century was still a period of effectively liberal policies toward migration. Roughly 60 million Europeans emigrated to the New World between 1820 and 1914. This liberalism ended in the imposition of country-of-origin quotas during the early twentieth century (O’Rourke 2004). During the early twentieth century, many popular destination states began to establish restrictions on immigration. During the past 60 years, global society has made important strides toward free movement of goods, money, and even some types of services. Yet human migration for economic and noneconomic reasons remains broadly constrained. The book The International Law of Economic Migration: Toward the Fourth Freedom, recently published by the Upjohn Institute (see p. 7), explores the law and policy of international economic migration. It analyzes the economics and politics of migration in order to assess the fit between the legal rules and institutions that presently exist to govern international economic migration, and the goal of maximizing welfare. In fact, there are practically no multilateral international legal rules regulating migration for economic purposes. This work shows that, in order to establish the domestic and international political conditions for welfare-enhancing liberalization of migration, it may be necessary to establish binding international legal agreements regarding liberalization.The gains from total trade liberalization, according to a recent World Bank study, are estimated at $155 billion annually, while the gains from a 3 percent increase in the stock of migrants is $175 billion (World Bank 2006, p. 41). Not only does migration reform provide greater aggregate gains, but the gains are distributed more greatly to developing countries. No wonder thoughtful observers ask why economic migration is not on the global agenda.

“Why Are You Still Out There?” Persistence among Deep Rural Communities in the Northern Plains

In the face of on-going population loss and despite all dire warnings to the contrary, the clear persistence of certain rural communities continues in unexpected areas of the Great Plains. It is this persistence that is becoming the most difficult element to explain. Thus, this paper turns the traditional research question on its head and asks why some deep rural communities endure. As a result, we introduce a new concept in rural studies-community persistence-and, consequently, we advance a theoretical model to explain why some communities survive without natural amenities or adjacency to a metropolis. Our concept of persistence attempts to answer the question, "why are you still out there?" when most of society has given up on deep rural populations. We offer a sharp distinction between community persistence and the much-discussed concept of community sustainability. Moreover, our theory incorporates place-based sociological, economic and political factors associated with community persistence. In particular, our integrated theory suggests that persistent communities develop dense social networks, high human capital and deliberative civic engagement so that these towns stood out from the crowded field of contenders for sub-regional prominence. Since we are embarking on a long-term investigation about deep rural communities, this paper offers a preliminary analysis using existing data sources. Our unit of analysis is the county and our sample includes all deep rural counties in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. We employ two measures of persistence: per capita income and civilian labor force. Both our initial analysis of the ten most persistent counties and a more rigorous test of the entire sample indicate a high proportion of college graduates, high population density, and competitive political parties are most closely associated with persistent communities. Our findings suggest that a broad mix of social, economic, and political factors are essential to community persistence in deep rural areas. We connect our findings to rural development policy efforts and also discuss avenues for future studies that build on our theory.

“Post”-Conflict Displacement: Isolation and Integration in Georgia

The Abkhaz civil wars and continuing territorial conflicts in Georgia have resulted in the long-term displacement of more than 200,000 people since the early 1990s. Although the international and local discourse is about integrating internally displaced persons (IDPs), little research has documented the meaning of isolation or integration for the daily lives of the IDPs or the local population. We engage the discourse about integration and isolation by analyzing the composition, size, and density of social networks in the “post”-conflict environment and the socio-spatial characteristics of social interactions and social networks. We combine a formal social network analysis with a daily path analysis to explore how socio-spatial patterns are formative of social networks and explore how various demographic factors, including gender, dwelling status, and employment status, may be related to the nature of social interactions and social networks. Our results are initially puzzling and suggest the need to rethink the meaning of isolation and integration within postconflict situations. We had expected to find greater diversity of social interactions in both populations, especially IDPs in private accommodations, because they are generally thought to have more diverse social interactions. The social network and daily path analyses, however, suggest evidence of social isolation within social networks among the entire population, not only among IDPs. We find a high degree of social isolation in two ways: (1) the persistent dominance of family and kin in all social networks and (2) highly dense (or closed) social networks in the entire population across gender, dwelling, and migrant status. The only demographic factor that appears to distinguish patterns is whether an individual engages in income-generating activity. Finally, using narrative interviews, we also explore the meaning of integration and isolation during displacement in the Georgian context.

The Limits of Law in the Mandated Territories: Becoming Manamba and the Struggles of Sisal Plantation Workers in Tanganyika

This article examines the limits of legal regulation of sisal plantation workers in the Mandated Territories of Tanganyika 1923–1958. By focusing on the making of the 1923 Labour Ordinance and its subsequent amendments I demonstrate the tension and conflict between colonial desires to control and manage labouring subjects, while simultaneously ensuring a regular flow of labouring bodies to plantations. The failures confronted on a daily basis in managing migrant labour – that originated not only from diverse provinces within the territories but also from across the boundaries of empire – rendered the limits of legal codes visible and necessitated their constant revisiting. Migrating men and women capitalissed on the ambiguity of the laws, the multiplicity of regulating agents, and a dense social network among migrant workers in challenging the laws as well as the racial and gendered assumptions about ‘native’ subjects that were embedded in the laws and the practice of their implementation.

Kinship, ritual kinship and political milieus in an alpine Valley in 19th century

In my paper I will present some results about ritual kinship and political mobilization of popular groups in an alpine Valley: the Val de Bagnes, in the Swiss canton of Valais. There are two major reasons to choose the Val de Bagnes for our inquiry about social networks: the existence of sharp political and social conflicts during the 18th and the 19th century and the availability of almost systematic genealogical data between 1700 and 1900. The starting point of my research focuses on this question: what role did kinship and ritual kinship play in the political mobilization of popular groups and in the organization of competing factions? This question allows us to shed light on some other uses and meanings of ritual kinship in the local society. Was ritual kinship a significant instrument for economic cooperation? Or was it a channel for patronage or for privileged social contacts? The analysis highlights the importance of kinship and godparentage for the building of homogeneous social and political networks. If we consider transactions between individuals, the analysis of 19th century Val de Bagnes gives the impression of quite open networks. Men and women tried to diversify their relations in order to avoid strong dependency from powerful patrons. Nevertheless, when we consider the family networks, we can notice that most relations took place in a structured social space or a specific “milieu”, were intense contacts enhanced trust, although political allegiances and social choices were not fully predictable on the basis of such preferential patterns. In a politically conflictual society, like 19th century Bagnes, ritual kinship interacted with kinship solidarities and ideological factors shaping dense social networks mostly based on a common political orientation. Such milieus sustained the building of political factions, which show surprising stability over time. In this sense, milieus are important factors to understand political and religious polarization in 19th century Switzerland.

Affiliative Segregation of Outsiders from a Community: Bonding and Bridging Social Capital in Hachimori‐cho, Japan

Abstract:Social capital makes cooperation possible even in situations of social dilemma. People develop bonding social capital when their network is dense. However, bonding social capital tends to make them look inward and to foster strong out‐group hostility, which hinders the development of bridging social capital between groups. I investigated the possibility that bonding social capital may help develop bridging social capital from which all group members gain profits. Fieldwork was conducted in Hachimori‐cho, Japan, where outsider Saru‐Oiage volunteers are segregated from community residents. The volunteers have dense social networks and develop bonding social capital. They gain skills and take pride and responsibility in their actions from the bonding social capital, so that they can pursue the same interests as community residents, namely, expel monkeys from farmlands. Residents accept volunteers eagerly because they work well, and the existence of “good” outsiders contributes to the development of local identity. An affiliative relationship between volunteers and residents is maintained by the enormous efforts of the coordinators. Because the coordinators recently immigrated to Hachimori, they could understand the situations of outsiders as well as those of community residents, and they gain the most benefits from bridging social capital. These conditions were necessary for bridging social capital, or the cooperative relationship, between the two groups in Hachimori‐cho.

Neighborhood Characteristics, and Child Care Type and Quality

Research Findings: Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, this article relates neighborhood characteristics to the type of child care used in families with toddlers and preschoolers (N = 1,121; representative of children in Chicago in 1996–1998). Neighborhood structural disadvantage was assessed via U.S. Census data, and neighborhood processes (i.e., density of social networks, collective efficacy, and level of participation in neighborhood organizations) were accessed with a community survey. Child care decisions (i.e., whether they chose care in centers; child care homes by non-relative, by relatives, and exclusively by parents) and the quality of center child care (Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale–Revised) were assessed in a longitudinal sample. After controlling for family characteristics, various neighborhood characteristics were related to child care characteristics. In communities with denser social networks, children were less likely to experience care in child care homes by unrelated adults. Children were more likely to be in child care homes and less likely to cared for by parents exclusively or by relatives when collective efficacy was higher. Center care quality was lower in disadvantaged neighborhoods and higher for publicly funded programs. Further, neighborhood structural disadvantage was more negatively related to quality when mothers had less education. Practice or Policy: These findings provide further evidence that public programs such as Head Start and public pre-kindergarten programs may be especially important to ensure that children living in poverty in disadvantaged neighborhoods have access to the types of child care that promote school readiness.

Societal Economic Costs and Benefits from Death: Another Look

B. Yang and D. Lester (2007) have produced an innovative contribution to the relevant literature. Unlike previous studies, they incorporate estimates of cost savings from suicide. Their argument could be strengthened in 3 ways. First, they may have underestimated some of the cost savings by relying on inflated estimates of mental health usage by suicidal persons. The present analysis shows that only 20% of suicidal individuals see a mental health professional during the last year of life, much lower than previous estimates. Further, persons dying of cancer are 4 times more likely than suicides to report high usage of medical services. Second, our economy relies heavily on the health care sector for job creation, so that we need to exercise caution in interpreting savings in medical care; such savings may also represent costs in employment opportunities for nurses, doctors, and other medical personnel. Third, an anticipated criticism, the costs of the grieving of significant others, needs to be considered. Suicidal persons are shown to have less dense social networks, a sign of fewer potential grievers than in the case of natural deaths. Future work is needed to adjust lost earnings for the lower occupational status of suicides; this is another reason why Yang and Lester may be underestimating cost savings from suicide.

Jewish Russian and the field of ethnolect study

This article demonstrates how the field of Jewish interlinguistics and a case study of Jewish Russian (JR) can contribute to the general understanding of ethnolects. JR is a cluster of post-Yiddish varieties of Russian used as a special in-group register by Ashkenazic Jews in Russia. Differences between varieties of JR may be explained in terms of differing degrees of copying from Yiddish. The case of JR allows the general conclusions that (i) the diffusion of ethnolectal features into mainstream use is facilitated not only by a dense social network but also by a relatively sufficient number of speakers with a variety of occupations; and (ii) in addition to matrix language turnover and lexical and prosodic features, an ethnolect may be characterized by new combinability rules under which stems and derivational suffixes belong to the target language (here Russian) but their combination patterns do not.

The Competitive Advantage of Regional Clusters: An Organizational—Evolutionary Perspective

Research on the competitiveness of regional clusters of firms in the same and related industries has been dominated by a profoundly optimistic view, concerned far more about the integrative possibilities of dense social networks than the dysfunctional consequences of such networks. I argue that this approach, which draws selectively on the transaction cost, knowledge-based and institutionalist perspectives, is one-sided in its fundamental premises, focusing on the presumed benefits of network homogeneity and coherence. It has led researchers to pay insufficient attention to the role of variations and imperfections in copying routines and competencies as a basis of cluster competitiveness. The evolutionary perspective calls into question the common view that competitive cluster network structures develop towards coherence and homogeneity. It views the cluster as a multilevel organizational system whose development is strongly influenced by variation generating processes at the micro-level. I discuss these processes, with special reference to competitive advantage, and outline some of the challenges they imply for empirical research.

Población, riqueza y diversidad mediática: análisis de la relación entre cibermedios e indicadores sociales en España

Media are embbebed in dense social networks. By identifying their ecology it is possible to find relations among diversity, specialization of the media brands and social development. The Infotrends Database stored records on cybermedia by focusing in the editorial and geographical features of the media brand. Our study showed a digital communication map in Spain in the 2004 with relevant key findings: 1274 online media with a high level of specialization disseminated across 19 different Autonomous Communities in Spain. We explored relations among media, economy and population, analyzing specially the Information Society variables, to explore if the new technologies change the relationship between media and society. At this time, things did not change extremely: diversity of media on the Internet still depends of population taxes, general wealthness and proximity to power and decission centers.

When Do Older Adults Become “Disabled”? Social and Health Antecedents of Perceived Disability in a Panel Study of the Oldest Old

Disability carries negative social meaning, and little is known about when (or if), in the process of health decline, persons identify themselves as "disabled." We examine the social and health criteria that older adults use to subjectively rate their own disability status. Using a panel study of older adults (ages 72+), we estimate ordered probit and growth curve models of perceived disability over time. Total prevalent morbidity, functional limitations, and cognitive impairment are predictors of perceived disability. Cessation of driving and receipt of home health care also influence older adults 'perceptions of their own disability. A dense social network slowed the rate of labeling oneself disabled, while health anxiety accelerated the process over time, independent of health status. When considering perceived disability, the oldest old use multidimensional criteria capturing function, recent changes in health status and social networks, and anxiety about their health.

The Backyard as a Dialect Boundary

This article shows that individuals in groups with tight-knit and dense social networks display considerable variation, despite the fact that they share a set of common social characteristics. Drawing on case studies from Tristan da Cunha English, spoken on a South Atlantic island, interindividual variation is traced in two members of the same family, who have identical social backgrounds and are in frequent face-to-face contact with each other. Results from a quantitative analysis of four selected variables and the evaluation of a perceptual dialectology study are interpreted in terms of their relevance for accommodation theory, social network theory, and mobility-related effects on language change. The study thus examines the role of individual variation and seeks to provide explanations for individuation (i.e., unexpected patterns of language usage on a micro level in single speakers), outlining its general relevance for sociolinguistic theory.

Unions as social capital: the impact of trade union youth programmes on young workers' political and community engagement

Jarley (2005) recently proposed a model of social capital unionism that contends that unions should strive to recreate the dense communities of the past by systematically creating social networks among workers. Underlying this approach is the notion that sustained personal contacts with members are necessary to generate the generalised reciprocity norms that mobilise workers in times of need and sustain unions in periods of relative calm. This paper describes one union's attempt at social capital building among their young members. We also report on survey results that suggest that building social capital is challenging but potentially rewarding as dense social networks are correlated with union knowledge which in turn is correlated with increased union participation as well as community and political engagement.

Friends’ religiosity and first sex

Researchers have established that individual religiosity influences sexual behavior and that religious support can increase consistency between personal religiosity and behavior. Researchers are less certain, however, of the effect that religious friendship networks have on sexual behavior. In addition, the effects of network characteristics such as density and one’s position in a social network have not been established. This paper uses a network subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the effect of friends’ religiosity on the probability of first sex. We find that friends’ religiosity has an independent influence on adolescent sexual behavior that is similar in magnitude to personal religiosity. We also find evidence that friends’ religiosity has the strongest influence on the sexual behavior of adolescents who are embedded in dense social networks, in which teens’ friends are also friends with one another. These results support the hypothesis that group influences depend on the degree of embeddedness within the network and highlight the importance of studying religion as a property of groups as well as individuals.