Tag: personal networks

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10th International summer course “Theory, Methods and Applications of Personal Networks” in Barcelona

The ICONIC crew attended, from 1st to 5th of July, the 10th edition of the Summer Course on Personal Networks, held by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. The event was a great occasion for students, academics and even non-academic people to find out about how and why social networks, especially personal networks, influence our everyday life in society. From the spreading of diseases, smoking behaviour, or social support to migration issues and coauthorship networks, the event covered all types of topics and analysis employing different (mixed) methodologies.

During summer course, the team members were involved in different workshops, irrespective of their qualitative or quantitative specific. Now we are more than apprentices in data collection and visualization with Vennmaker (a course taught by Alejandro García Macías with the support of Ignacio Fradejas-García and Paula Escribano, Universidad Autonoma De Aguascalientes, Mexic & Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain) and ready to employ Network Canvas demo (Bernie Hogan, Joshua R. Melville, University of Oxford, United Kingdom) during interviews. Another demo presented was Egoweb, a project developed by UAA & UAB. One central focus of the school was on how to do personal network analysis with R language and environment, from the basics to multilevel modelling (with Tom Smith and Raffaele Vacca, University of Florida, USA). Gabriel Hâncean, ICONIC principal investigator, introduced students to hive-plots with HiveR, that is, a new rational and easy way for visualizing network data. The last hands-on workshops were held by Jürgen Lerner (University of Konstanz, Germany), on comparing personal networks with clustered graphs (and by using EgoNet – visone), and on modelling personal networks with ERGMs.

Besides the workshops, we participated to a series of lectures about the fundamentals of personal networks analysis, research questions, name generators, and qualitative dimensions of personal networks. The sessions were held by Miranda J. Lubbers and José Luis Molina (UAB), professors at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and organizers of the Summer School.

The whole team contributed to the introductory workshop to hive-plots with HiveR, assisting the other participants with different issues encountered during R exercises. Also, the team members attended the ORBITS research project meeting 2019 (more details here). The meeting consisted in a discussion about the status of the fieldwork in Romania, Bistrița-Năsăud County, and on how to grow the Orbits project for the next years.

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Whole, personal or egocentric networks?

We had the pleasure to listen to Professor José Luis Molina from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, in Timișoara. He gave an inspiring keynote address titled Whole, personal or egocentric networks? What do we know about personal networks and why it matters. The talk about social networks was linked to the concept of liquid society which refers to emergent, changing social structures, which are partially based on agency and personal interactions.

During his talk, professor Molina pointed out that the study of egocentric/personal networks is especially suited for identifying such structures, linking places within and across nations, and networks of organizations or institutions. Egocentric/personal networks informed social network thinking from its inception but just recently the availability of personal network data with both strong and weak ties have contributed to the development of a growing number of contributions in this area.

Nevertheless, in order to fully develop this approach is necessary to distinguish between egocentric (small number of alters), and personal networks (large number of alters). Thus, while egocentric networks are especially useful for social support and health applications, he contended that personal networks are better suited for the study of emergent social structures.

Drawing on more than a decade of research collecting personal networks with a large number of alters, the presentation aims to take stock of the main lessons learned, and reflect upon the theoretical contribution of personal networks to the understanding of social structures and its dynamics.

The talk was held at the West University of Timișoara, Romania, on September, 15.

The presentation delivered at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Romania, on September, 17, can be seen below.

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Analyzing multiple networks from diverse perspectives – international workshop

The first ICONIC international workshop Analyzing multiple networks from diverse perspectives will take place from September 15 to 26, 2018, actually representing a series of lectures, seminars, roundtables and a hands-on workshop meant to cover many different uses and practices of social network analysis. This omnibus workshop is the first of such scale in Romania, taking place in two cities – Timisoara and Bucharest –, for six days, and approaching numerous topics, like personal networks, transnational (migrant) networks, coauthorship networks in science and semantic networks. It has also a multidisciplinary purpose, bringing together social sciences, computer and data science, linguistics and digital humanities, and ethics.

The special guest and keynote speaker is Professor José Luis Molina (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology) who will deliver two lectures. The first one, on September 15, 09.30 AM, opens the second day of the 5th International Conference of the Romanian Sociologists Society, Living in a liquid society, in Timisoara, held at the West University of Timisoara. A second one is due on September 17, 09.30 AM, in Bucharest, at the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, University of Bucharest. Professor Molina’s lectures will start from a general question: Whole, personal or egocentric networks? What do we know about personal networks and why it matters. Alongside professor Molina, two invited guests will join the workshop: Adina Nergheș (Digital Humanities Group at the KNAW Humanities Cluster) and Angelina Irena Kussy (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology).

During the whole period no more than five sessions, roundtables and a practical workshop will bring together around 20 researchers. In Timisoara, the ICONIC team and its guests are part of a panel devoted to Living in a liquid society, living in transnational social fields. In Bucharest, we will analyze networks from multiple perspectives for two consecutive days (September 18 and 19, 2018). The last two days of this scientific meeting, September 25 and 26, are dedicated to semantic networks, from a theoretical and practical standpoint. The hands-on workshop speaker and mentor is Adina Nergheș.

The full programme is available here.

For detailed information about lectures and panels, participants and abstracts please check the booklet.

If it’s September, it’s the social networks season!