| Resum: |
The ethnographic monograph has traditionally served as the flagship of anthropologists, offering rich and multifaceted descriptions of social and cultural phenomena. However, as a qualitative and interpretive science, little effort has been made to systematically quantify the comprehensive social and cultural relations depicted within them. Traditionally, "rich" ethnography has been equated with "messy" data by statistically inclined scholars. Yet, with the rise of big data and artificial intelligence, social scientists are increasingly embracing the complexity of such "messy" data. Building upon the strong tradition in GRAFO of bridging quantitative and qualitative research, we propose utilizing ethnographic monographs as a unique form of "messy" dataset to conduct ex post facto social network analyses. They are rich in details, social and cultural complex, and comprehensive. We just need to "scrap" or "mine" the social network described in them. We selected two monographs for this exploration: "The Children of Sanchez" (Oscar Lewis, 1963) and "The Children of Gregoria" (Regnar Kristensen and Claudia Adeath, 2020). Both meticulously detail the lives of extended families living half a century apart in the marginal zones of Mexico City, employing the same ethnographic narrative style. The former describes a social network of 227 individuals, while the latter portrays one of 170. Starting with a close reading of both monographs, we quantified the relationships between individuals, weighing their economic and violent interactions, and recorded also other aspects of their social relationships (kinship, affinity, friendship, gender, generational differences, etc. ). Subsequently, we conducted social network analyses on the "scraped" data using Gephi and R. The results were remarkably clear. They significantly challenged previous interpretations and gave new insights into household economics, gender roles, and violence. We shall present some of our findings in the seminar and set the stage for discussing our experience with "datafication" of rich, complex, ethnographic monographs. |
visitant ::
identificació
(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Antropologia Social i Cultural)
