January 2011 – Archaeological Networks

A new handbook is to be published soon by SAGE titled ‘The SAGE handbook of Social Network Analysis’. It is edited by John Scott and Peter Carrington. A full list of chapters can be read online.

Looking at the scope and contributors, this seems like another future reference-work by largely the same authors that brought us Carrington, Scott & Wasserman eds. 2005. Might just attest of the high institutionalisation (and North-American focus) of SNA. The scope is not limited to methodology though. A number of theoretical chapters are included, possibly as a result of the popularity of the idea of the network as a metaphor.

Some chapters might prove to be of particular interest to archaeologists, anthropologists and historians:
Network Theory: Stephen P Borgatti and Virginie Lopez-Kidwell
Kinship, Class, and Community: Douglas R White
Animal Social Networks: Katherine Faust
Corporate Elites and Intercorporate Networks: William K Carroll and J P Sapinski
Social Movements and Collective Action: Mario Diani
Scientific and Scholarly networks: Howard D White
Cultural Networks: Paul DiMaggio
Qualitative Approaches: Betina Hollstein
Kinship Network Analysis: Klaus Hamberger, Michael Houseman and Douglas R White

For those interested in social network analysis and data mining:

A new journal has been launched called ‘social network analysis and data mining’. Published by Springer and edited (among others) by Alhajj, Memon, Batagelj, Carrington, Freeman, Goldberg, Hanneman, Klamma, Pattison, Scott. Largely established researchers in social network analysis and computer science I have the impression.

It sounds like this new journal emerged as a reaction to the recent popularity of network ideas, as well as the challenges posed by the availability of large and complex datasets. There seems a particular focus on online environments. It is supposed to be multidisciplinary but focuses on social sciences, mathematical sciences, medical sciences, biological sciences and computer sciences.

Nevertheless, some of its content is definitely of interest to historians, archaeologists and anthropologists. The first issue includes reviews, an anthropological viewpoint, corporate networks and networks in online environments.