***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org *****

I know that when I read Mustafa Emirbayer's "Manifesto for a Relational
Sociology" it all clicked for me.

The only quote I have at my fingertips defines the problem nicely:

"…whether to conceive of the social world as consisting primarily in
substances or in processes, in static “things” or in dynamic, unfolding
relations… Rational-actor and norm-based models, diverse holisms and
structuralisms, and statistical ‘variable’ analyses- all of them beholden
to the idea that it is entities that come first and relations among them
only subsequently- hold sway throughout much of the
discipline…increasingly, researchers are searching for viable analytic
alternatives, approaches that reverse these basic assumptions and depict
social reality instead in dynamic, continuous, and processual
terms (1997:281)."

Hence, the need for relationalism. SNA to me is the methods that are
intimately linked to this theoretical perspective or paradigm.


Emirbayer, Mustafa. 1997. “Manifesto for a Relational Sociology.” American
Journal of Sociology 103:281-317.
Emirbayer, Mustafa and Jeff Goodwin. 1994. “Network Analysis, Culture, and
the Problem of Agency.” American Journal of Sociology 99:1411-54

Jordi


At 01:15 PM 1/5/2006, Barry Wellman wrote:
>***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org *****
>
>Dear Sergio Romero (and others),
>
>Your homework assignment is to write 100 times:
>
>"Social Network Analysis is not 'a method' but a paradigm.
>A way of looking at the social world and analyzing it."
>
>To see it as only a method is to miss the whole point of SNA.
>
> Barry, INSNA founder
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
> Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director
> wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
>
> Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto
> 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162
> To network is to live; to live is to network
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
>_____________________________________________________________________
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Jordi Comas
Visiting Assistant Professor
Management
Bucknell University
570 577-3161
[log in to unmask]

http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/jcomas

Dissertation and Research Blog: www.netsweweave.blogspot.com


"There is nothing so practical as a good theory." Kurt Lewin

"Not all learning leads to intelligent behavior." James March

_____________________________________________________________________
SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social
network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send
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UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.