Network Analysis and Greco-Roman Prosopography
Shawn Graham, Giovanni Roberto Ruffini · 2007
Social network analysis as a distinct field of study had its genesis in the anthropological revolt against structural-functionalism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was born through an awareness among a new generation of scholars that structural- functional models failed to make adequate space for human agency. Attention to personal networks – who knew whom, and how closely they were connected – seemed better suited to understanding individual decision-making than the previous generation's focus on groups and roles. It quickly became evident that any serious attempt to map social networks of meaningful size – the population of an entire village, for instance – would all but require a rigorous quantitative approach...