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Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology #46
Structural Models in Anthropology
Hage and Harary present a comprehensive introduction to the use of graph theory in social and cultural anthropology. Using a wide range of empirical examples, the authors illustrate how graph theory can provide a language for expressing in a more exact fashion concepts and notions that can only be imperfectly rendered verbally. They show how graphs, digraphs and networks, together with their associated matrices and duality laws, facilitate the study of such diverse topics as mediation and power in exchange systems, reachability in social networks, efficiency in cognitive schemata, logic in kinship relations, and productivity in subsistence modes. The interaction between graphs and groups provides further means for the analysis of transformations in myths and permutations in symbolic systems. The totality of these structural models aids in the collection as well as the interpretation of field data. The presentation is clear, precise and readily accessible to the nonmathematical reader. It emphasizes the implicit presence of graph theory in much of anthropological thinking.
- GenresAnthropology
220 pages, Paperback
First published February 24, 1984
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April 8, 2007
One of the better books on the subject.
July 1, 2022
One of the first books I read on social network analysis in the early 1990s. Anthropologists and Sociologists were deep into this thinking/research before the Physicists stumbled into the field in 1998 and renamed it "network science".
The book contains great examples, stories, analysis, and visualizations of human behavior in groups/societies. Where qualitative and quantitative research/analysis meet!
The book contains great examples, stories, analysis, and visualizations of human behavior in groups/societies. Where qualitative and quantitative research/analysis meet!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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