THE SMALL WORLDS OF AMBRIDGEPOWER, NETWORKS & ACTANTS

Dr Nicola M. Headlam @networknicola

Academic Archers 2 session on Power Relations

Saturday 18th February 2017University of Lincoln

PAPER STRUCTURE

• Small Worlds of Ambridge, Power Networks and Actants

• Conceptual: • Layering Dimensions of Place-based power• Networks & Deep structures

• Empirical: It takes a village• Current matriarchal structure and cliques• Emerging contractual and brokerage structure • Intimate network

• Scenarios: Ambridge 2037• Research results from exploring consequences of

the dimensions of place based and networked power in Ambridge

• Casting mind 20 years hence – how might the network power have shifted?

• Scenario 1: Archers and Aldridges (status quo)• Scenario 2: recombining the network (brokerage

power)• Conclusion

DIMENSIONS OF POWER

PLACE-BASEDSTATECRAFT

• Who/whom and where – spatial political economy • Frequency of interaction:

territoriality, relationality, propinquity • Affect sentiment, kinship, trust

• Scholars posit that tracing who holds power under plural governance forms require that attention be paid to the multi-dimensional factors concerning how people interact.

• Power according to this account may be wielded as numerous and overlapping forms of embodied capital following Pierre Bourdieu. • Symbolic and cultural capital may be as defining

as economic status, • even erotic capital has been posited as an

explanatory frame for understanding differentiation within social structure.

A MU LT I G EN E RAT I O N AL V I E W O F I N E Q U AL I TY

• Social scientists talk (with varying degrees of rigor) about different forms of capital: for example, physical, financial, human, social, and occupational. It is useful to think about some of these forms of capital in terms of their perishability. That is, once they exist, how long do they keep? A key potential multigenerational effect works through great wealth amassed in a single lifetime but passed on from generation to generation. The accumulation of a stock of physical and financial capital in one generation takes a family out of the middle-class mode of wealth accumulation and transmission. For the contemporary middle class, wealth accumulates in gradual phases of saving within a single lifetime: for buying a house, for paying for college, and for retirement. Parental wealth at midlife is largely transformed into the human capital of the next generation—indexed by educational attainment and used in occupational settings—making possible the next generation’s turn at wealth accumulation. Human capital and occupational incumbency may keep well for most of a lifetime, but unless they are transformed into financial capital they tend to perish thereafter. On the other hand, physical and financial capital can, if substantial enough, transcend individual lives. Robert D. Mare

ANIMATING POWER – LAYERING TIES

• 1. Kinship• 2. contractual /

employment relations, • 3. formal governance

roles• 4. informal governance

roles • 5. Information sharing• 6. Problem solving• 7. intimate and “trust-

based” networks. • 8. strength of weak

ties

Kinship : who you are. Birth/marriageOthers are what you do (not

neutrally!)

kinship,

contractual and

employment

relations,

formal governanc

e roles

informal governanc

e roles

Information sharing

Problem solving

intimate and “trust-

based” networks.

strength of weak ties

Small worlds of AmbridgeFig 1Dimensions of Network power

Family ties - birth or marriage

Legal, employment or tenancy

Church warden, parish council, nfu

Panto, SAVE compaign, village shop

Bridging capital (gossip!)

Skills with people or things, reliable

Trust

Multiple loose connections not one strong cliique/clan

Family ties - birth or marriage

Legal, employment or tenancy

Church warden, parish council, nfu

Panto, SAVE compaign, village shop

Bridging capital (gossip!)

Skills with people or things, reliable

Trust

Multiple loose connections not one strong cliique/clan

Fig 2: Formal and Informal Power Relations

kinship,

contractual and

employment

relations,

formal governanc

e roles

informal governanc

e roles

Information sharing

Problem solving

intimate and “trust-

based” networks.

strength of weak ties

peggy

justin

pat n

tony

david

neil

lynda

ed

kirsty

jenny

carol alan

fallon

jazzer

gill

oliver

brian

johnny

jim

kenton

joe

Fig 3: who wields thesekinds of power in Ambridge?

Susan

Nicola headlam

Baltic creative10/02/2014

SNA FOR NETWORK WEAVERS

NETWORKS: IT TAKES A VILLAGE

IT TAKES A VILLAGE…

• Following the work of Manuel Castells power and control are configured through the calibration of networked forms of social life.

• Networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking logic modifies the operation and outcome in process of production, experience power and culture (Castells 1996)

• “Wherever human association is examined, we can see what can be described as thick spots – relatively unchanging clusters or collections of of individuals who are linked by frequent interaction and often by sentimental ties (Freeman &Webster 1994)

(FAIRLY) HARDCORE SOCIAL & NETWORK THEORY

•Network Theory (from metaphor to method)• Plurality, Governance, Brokerage, interaction•Actor Network Theory (ANT)•Non-human Actants & Material Cultures Subject and Object

•Social Network Analysis (SNA) •Sociometry, Phases of Network Development.

NETWORK THEORY - ROOTS

• Network thinking roots in • Georg Simmel and Jacob Moreno • Who will survive?• Sociatry• Dyads and triads • Stafford Beer and cybernetics• IT

Fig 1: Moreno, 1934

NETWORK CONFLATION

• If it feels more and more natural to think of collective phenomena in relational terms, it is because digital mediation is increasingly turning them into networks. Our professional sector resembled much more to a social network, since our colleagues invite us on LinkedIn. Friendship has literally become a matter of connection, now that it is mediated by Facebook. And when we look at our library we increasingly expect to see what other books “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought”. The more it is mediated by network technologies, the more collective life can be read through the theory of networks, measured through network analysis and captured in network data.

FAMILY AND SOCIAL NETWORK

• Family and Social Network (1957), Elizabeth Bott argued that conjugal role performance is related to the density of each spouse's social networks outside the nuclear family. The data Bott used to develop this hypothesis were drawn from the study of 20 working-class, London families.

• "When many of the people a person knows interact with one another, that is when the person's network is close knit, the members of his network tend to reach consensus on norms and they exert consistent informal pressure on one another to conform to the norms, to keep in touch with one another, and, if need be, to help one another. If both husband and wife come to marriage with such close knit networks, and if conditions are such that the previous pattern of relationships is continued, the marriage will be superimposed on these pre-existing relationships, and both spouses will continue to be drawn into activities with people outside their own elementary family (family of procreation). Each will get some emotional satisfaction from these external relationships and will likely demand correspondingly less of the spouse. Rigid segregation of roles will be possible because each spouse can get help from other people."

• — Elizabeth Bott, Family and Social Network. 1971 (2nd ed.). (Originally published, 1957). New York:Free Press.

SMART STRATEGY (!?)

• if family members maintain ties with a network of friends or neighbors who know one another and interact apart from the family members, the members of these external social networks can develop norm consensus and exert pressure on the network's members. When members of close-knit networks marry and when they continue to be drawn into network activities after marriage, they can develop a clearly differentiated conjugal role organization of tasks. The external close-knit networks provide the spouses with instrumental assistance and emotional support outside the couple and they, thus, lessen conjugal interdependence and make for a segregated role organization.

NETWORK METAPHOR TO METHOD

• This understanding of the network as a reflexive social form poses methodological dilemmas in relation to the establishment of an analytical position from which to consider how this form achieves its contemporary cultural purchase.

• There is an affinity between SNA and a thoroughgoing structuralism, where social networks became a means of mapping social structure. SNA becomes an attempt to emphasize the importance of social structure in a social science milieu dominated by methodologically individualistic approaches.

SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS (SNA)

• Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a mathematical tool for interrogating the networks of human and non-human interactions and is used in this paper to render the invisible networks of power and authority as visible. • Nodes (people, things, mixture)• Ties or edges (ways they link)

• Core to network analysis is the analysis of the centrality, peripherality and cohesion of actants in networks. We can also explore clusters and cliques.

SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSISMETHODS

SOCIOMETRY METHOD

• The paper develops a series of sociometric approaches to the ways in which power is wielded in the village of Ambridge arguing that several layers of power and authority exist at once

• Nodes are defined – the dreaded edges of the network• Data are generated – snowball techniques – degrees of separation• These ties are mapped, using Yed graph illustrator• The kamada-kawai algorithm for optimal spring is applied• algorithms for centrality are applied

BROKERAGE

“significance within networks is given to individuals that act as connectors within a network, boundary spanners who connect networks, information brokers and people who are peripheral to the network” (Granovetter, 1975)

• Multiple looser connections better than a small number of tight, cohesive connections

• Portfolio careers and the strength of ‘weak ties’

Nicola headlam

Baltic creative10/02/2014

SNA FOR NETWORK WEAVERS

SMALL WORLDS OF AMBRIDGE

Small Worlds of Ambridge

New research results

1. Kinship networks 2. doing-connections and actants3. the whole village system

Small Worlds of Ambridge

New research results

1. Kinship networks

FAMILY TREE - HIERARCHY

Map 11. Kinship & the 3 Cliques – disconnected (living only)

3) Grundies2) Brookfield Archers 1) Wooley/Aldridge &c.

“THE GRUNDIES & THEIR OPPRESSORS”

• Map 12: Grundy clique• 12 members• Joe b. (1) eddie (3) ed (4) george

(4)• 4 generations (range/age

structure/class)• 2 households – • Both in ambridge grange farm

and will/nic

Map 13Grundies with centrality

BROOKFIELD ARCHERS: A MINOR CLIQUE

• Map 14: the archer clique• 18 members• 3 generations• Gill b. (1) David (8) pip (8)• 4 households or 3.5 rickyard,

lower loxley, brookfield, shula’s• Pip, dan/dorothy, fallon/meriel

Fig 15 Brookfield Archer Clique

WOOLEY/ALDRIDGE/BRIDGE FARM ARCHERS

• map 16: Biggest clique - 29 members

• 4 generations• Peggy b. (1) lilian (8) kate (9)

henry (8) • 9 households (class position!)• James and Leonie conventional

(normative) nuclear family• Adam? Debbie? Ruari? Alice &

Chris?

MATRIARCHY AND GENERATIONS

Map 17: Matriarchy Kinship structure (living only)

Map 17 Ambridge Kinship Network Structure 2017Without centrality weighting (inc. dead)75 people with 196 connections

Map 18 kinship network structure 2017The Small WorldsWithout centrality weighting showing

Brookfield Archer Clique

Home Farm Aldridge Household

Grundy/Carter Clique

Snell Clique

Bridge Farm Archer Clique

Map 18 kinship network structure 2017The Small WorldsWithout centrality weighting showingEmphasising brokerage

Brookfield Archer Clique

Home Farm Aldridge Household

Grundy/Carter Clique

Snell Clique

Bridge Farm Archer Clique

Past links

Future links?

Map 19, Kinship showing linkages Brokerage with centrality applied (and including the dead)“you lot really are all related aren’t you?”

• Map 20 – highlight section of linkages brokerage

• Network theory suggests that in kinship terms the key nodes to watch in the extended network are offspring of;• Chris and Alice • James and Leonie

• Their bridging capital, brokerage and centrality, then create new dynastic power which has consequences up and down the generations – disrupting the settled matriarchal power structure and potentially creating novel powerbases;• Aldridge/Carter (Horribin)• Bellamy/Snell

Map 21: a fanciful future kinship network…

- Both Jill and peggy die - alice and chris have 2 children- Leonie and James have 2 more - (and return to the village)- And no-one else reproduces (!)

Kinship structure is transformed

-isolating both Brookfield and Bridge Farm Archers

And creating a whole new dynastyAnd network centrality forLilian!

Map 22 : Even more fancifulBuilding on Map 21- Both Jill and Peggy die - Alice and Chris have 2 children- Leonie and James have 2 more - (and return to the village)- And no-one else reproduces (!)

Kinship structure is transformed -isolating both Brookfield and Bridge Farm Archers- creating a whole new dynastyAnd network centrality forLilian!

At present the only way to keepThe Brookfield Archers as central involves Kate’s daughters (!)Watch very carefully if pheobe shows Any more than a possing interest in Freddie…

KINSHIP CONCLUSION

• The 2017 Matriarchal structure will not outlive Jill and Peggy

• Watch out for Alice/Chris or any movement that brings Leonie/James back to the village as the interconnected Granny power of the mother and mother-in-laws could transform the structure of kinship in Ambridge

• Brookfield archers and their reproductive strategy is key – they are late to the party but so far are not showing great skills in this regard

•

Small Worlds of Ambridge

New research results

1. Kinship networks 2. doing-connections and actants3. the whole village system

Map 23 – heuristic device for farm as network

U N F O L D I N G T H E S O C I AL : Q U A S I -AC TAN T S , V I RT U AL T H E O RY , AN D T H E N E W E M P I R I C I S M O F B RU N O L AT O U R

AU T H O R ST R O E L S M AGE LU N D K RA RU P ,

A N D E R S B LO K

• All the well-known structures of society are suddenly no-where to be found; instead, we now find concrete relations of humans and non-humans acting together. Over here is the man-computer-spreadsheet-office hybrid that we used to call ‘bureaucratic rationalism’; over there is the vibrating man-virus-laboratory relation that we used to call ‘scientific fact’, and so on. Sociology of associations entails a change of focus from ‘society’ (of humans) to ‘collectives’ (of humans and non-humans). And, symmetrically, its method changes as well: from theoretically interpreting human actions to obstinately ‘following the actor’ by tracking and mapping its multiple associations.

• Map 24 actants and doing–power not being power

• Nodes are a mixture of human and no-human actants

• 95 nodes with 305 connections

• Similarities and differences in clique formation structure based on

• contract, employment, membership of some formal and informal governance bodies

Map 25Segment of actants and doing-powerBridge Farm clique

Interesting that by virtue of connectionsboth within and beyond the farm rob has most centrality

High incidence here of interlinked business / brand power

Map 26Segment of actants and doing-powerHome Farm/BL/The Esate

Interesting that by virtue of connectionsboth within and beyond the farm jenny has equal centrality to Brian – though arguably in lower status enterprises Eg informal governance campaigning &c.

Interconnections with the shoot, will g and the stables, shula Etc.

Map 27Segment of actants and doing-powerBrookfield

Interesting that very limited connections Without the hollow-tree tenants…Not very diversified strategy

Map 28Segment of actants and doing-powerThe Bull

Map 29Segment of actants and doing-powerGrange Farm

Grundy modus operandi highly diversified inTerms of their contractual relationshipsAs reliant on land-owning class for paid workThis means that all have multiple connections Whilst this signals low-status or rentier relationsIn strictly netwotk terms it offers the potential for high innovation through differentiation

The strength of weak ties suggest that multiple connections offer competitive advantages in aKnowledge economy

As long as Ed keeps on getting certified, Commensurable, verifiable and transferable skills

Map 30 Doing with degree of Centrality and hierarchy applied

Fig 31: Ed Grundy - King of Ambridge??

KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY ASSETS

• Innovation across networks• Our contemporary knowledge

economy privileges multiple connections and the possibility for the diffusion of knowledge through the combining of new knowledges in new context

• Knowledge as capital may displace ownership of land/property in this economy

• Ownership will continue to be a material reality BUT this bridging and brokering capital is seen as the key competitive advantage in innovation.

• Will Ed inherit the earth? If Ed can convert this network centrality, open-ness and connectedness into capital (and thus land) his clan/clique will inherit…

Small Worlds of Ambridge

New research results

1. Kinship networks 2. doing-connections and actants3. the whole village system

Map 32: the intimate network

2037SCENARIO 1 : CLAN CONTINUITY

• Wooley/Aldridge/Carter Not only are there the most of them but they have established a series of independent households with assets. Aguably showing Socioemotional Wealth Preservation (ref)

• Brian has done his best to *ahem* fragment the Home Farm Aldridge legacy through sub-optimal strategy in the pants department

• But Adam, Debbie, Alice, Ruari all childless (so far) • Inheritance politics at Bridge Farm have been less

intense lately but wiley old Peggy did try to “pick a winner’ she won’t try that again. Hazel factor??

• Bridge Farm Archers seem lacking in basic common sense and emotional intelligence unable to form stable households/couples WHY?

• Brookfield Archers don’t “roll deep”Because Gill is 10 years younger than Peggy the 4th generation of Brookfield Archers are yet to emerge (God help us!)

• Kenton’s wildcards of Mariel, and Fallon may be best hope?

• No Archers show any skills in the dating dept. Pip is disastrous both in terms of securing new and useful knowledge and judging character. Jill should be even more exercised about Toby (not about to capitulate) Questionable role of Fairbrothers

• Josh and Ben? Freddie and Lily? Dan/Dorothy – dark horses? Most immediate reproductive potential…

2037SCENARIO 2 : GENERATIONAL NETWORK POWER

SHIFT? (HEADLAM HYPOTHESIS)

• Future kinship structure:• If the hinges of• James and Leonie • Alice and Chris• Have families in Ambridge

• The 2037 Matriarchy could completely displace existing clans in favour of • Lillian/Linda• Susan/Jennifer

• Knowledge economy centrality structure• Ed, (king of ambridge) his wife Emma,

Fallon and Alice all have exceptional brokerage skills = they could, then, monetise these and create prosperity and prestige for themselves

• This will affect the status and prestige of • Susan/Neil, Clarrie/Eddie• Jolene/Kenton and Jenny/Brian• Not to mention their extant and

potential offspring

Nicola headlam

Baltic creative10/02/2014

SNA FOR NETWORK WEAVERS

NETWORK GLOSSARY

NETWORK GLOSSARY

• Actant• Broker/Brokerage• Boundary spanner• Centrality• Cohesion • Clique.• Cluster • Contact zone • Contract• Core/periphery• Degrees of separation• Dyad (intimate)• Ego-net• Genogram

NETWORK GLOSSARY 2

• Governance• Hub and spoke• Material Cultures • Interaction• information sharing• Intimacy/intimate network • Kinship• node• Non-human• Network : Theory• Network weaver• Peripherality• Place-based

NETWORK GLOSSARY 3

• Plurality • Power • Propinquity• scattered fragments • sentiment• Small world• Social Network Analysis (SNA) • sociatry• Sociometry• Tie• Triad• Trust

Nicola headlam

Baltic creative10/02/2014

SNA FOR NETWORK WEAVERS

LIST OF FIGURES 1

Small Worlds of Ambridge, Power Networks and Actants 1//• Fig 1: Dimensions of Network power• Fig 2: Formal and Informal power, government to governance• Fig 3 Weighted dimensions of power• Fig 4: Who wields these kinds of power in Ambridge?• Fig 5: Socioometric Geometry of a Community (Moreno, 1934)• Fig 6: Centralised, Decentralised and Distributed Networks • Fig 7: Knowing and Knitting Stages of Network Devt.• Fig 8: Scattered Fragments• Fig 9: Hub and Spoke Model• Fig 10: Small Worlds• Fig 11: Core/Periphery Ecosystem• Fig 12: Kinship & the 3 Cliques • Fig 13: Grundies clique 3• Fig 14: Grundies• Fig 15: Brookfield Archers clique 2• Fig 16: Brookfield Archers• Fig 17: Aldridges/Wooleys clique 1• Fig 18: Ambridge Kinship network structure 2017• Fig 19: Matriarchy 2017• Fig 20: highlight section of linkages brokerage

LIST OF FIGURES 2

• Map 21: a fanciful future kinship network… • Map 22 : Even more fanciful (Building on Map 21)• Map 23: heuristic of farming networks• Map 24: actants and doing–power not being power• Map 25: Segment of actants and doing-power (Bridge Farm

clique)• Map 26: Segment of actants and doing-power (Home

Farm/BL/The Estate)• Map 27 Segment of actants and doing-power (Brookfield)• Map 28 : Segment of actants and doing-power The Bull• Map 29: Segment of actants and doing-power Grange Farm• Map 30: Doing with degree of Centrality and hierarchy

applied• Map 31: Ed Grundy King of Ambridge• Map 32: Intimate Network