Anthropology - Analyzing large kinship and marriage networks with
Pgraph and Pajek
White DR, Batagelj V, Mrvar A
SOCIAL SCIENCE
COMPUTER REVIEW
17 (3): 245-274 FAL 1999
Abstract:
Five key problems of kinship
networks are boundedness, cohesion, size and cohesive relinking, types of
relations and relinking, and groups or roles. Approaches to solving these
problems include formats available for electronic storage of genealogical data
and representations of genealogies using graphs. P-graphs represent couples and
uncoupled children as vertices, whereas parent-child links are the arcs
connecting nodes both within and between different nuclear families. Using
results from graph theory, P-graphs are shown to lend themselves to solutions of
the problems discussed. Relinking of families through marriage, for example, can
be formally defined as sets of bounded groups that are the cohesive cores of
kinship networks, with nodes at various distances from such cores. The structure
of such cores yields an analytic decomposition of kinship networks and
constituent group and role relationships. The Pgraph and Pajek programs for
large network analysis help both to represent kinship networks and their
patterns and to solve problems of analysis.
Author Keywords:
kinship, marriage networks, large network
analysis, graph theory, cohesion, social groups and roles, genealogy, graphic
representation, Pajek, Pgraph
Addresses:
Univ Ljubljana, Fac Comp & Informat Sci, Ljubljana
1000, Slovenia
Publisher:
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, THOUSAND OAKS