Formalist and Relationalist Theory in Social Network Analysis
Formalist and Relationalist Theory in Social Network Analysis Emily Erikson Yale University 17 March 2011 Draft Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Peter Bearman, Scott Boorman, Richard Lachmann, David Stark, Nicholas Wilson, the participants of Boston University’s Society, Politics & Culture Workshop, and Yale University’s Comparative Research Workshop for their helpful comments. s Abstract: There is a widespread understanding that social networks are relationalist. In this paper, I suggest an alternative view that relationalism is only one theoretical perspective in network analysis. Relationalism, as currently defined, rejects essentialism, a priori categories, and insists upon the intersubjectivity of experience and meaning, as well as the importance of the content of interactions and their historical setting. Formalism is based on a structuralist interpretation of the theoretical works of Georg Simmel. Simmel based his theory on a Neo-Kantian program of identifying a priori categories of relational types and patterns that operate independently of cultural content or historical setting. Formalism and relationalism are therefore entirely distinct from each other. Yet both are internally consistent theoretical perspectives. The contrast between the two plays out in their approaches to culture, meaning, agency, and generalizability. In this paper, I distinguish the two theoretical strains. 2 Since its inception in the 1930s, social network research has become an increasingly vibrant part of sociology inquiry. The field has grown tremendously over the last few decades: new journals and conferences have been created, programs and concentrations in social network analysis have been created in institutions in both North America and Europe, and large numbers of scholars have been attracted to the field from across a wide disciplinary array, including sociology, anthropology, management sciences, computer science, biology, mathematics, and physics.
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