Reassembling and generating cultural networks

A digital humanities research agenda

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.15.27784

Keywords:

cultural networks, digital humanities, cultural analytics, metaphysics of process, phenomena

Abstract

This paper proposes a research agenda to study cultural networks that assumes their role both in making meaning and as adaptative tools for humans and their communities. First, the agenda grounds the study of cultural networks in Whitehead’s (1861–1947) metaphysics of process, posing that cultural networks emerge during human’s production of relations with the world of phenomena. Then, the paper identifies two approaches to studying cultural networks, reassembling them or generating them. Thirdly, it contextualizes the importance of understanding cultural networks vis a vis the consolidation of the digital humanities in the academic domain, and the productivity of networks as tools to explore the cultural in networked domains of human experience. The final remarks locate the proposed research agenda within the context of multidisciplinary research on cultural analytics.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Juan-Luis Suárez, Western University

Full Professor of Digital Humanities and Director of the CulturePlex Lab at Western University (Canada). His research focuses on digital humanities, cultural analytics, and the humanities of the Anthropocene.

References

Abbott, A. D. (2016). Processual sociology. The University of Chicago Press.

Emirbayer, M., & Goodwin, J. (1994). Network analysis, culture, and the problem of agency. The American Journal of Sociology, 99(6), 1411–1454. https://doi.org/10.1086/230450

Erikson, E., & Feltham, E. (2020). Historical network research. In R. Light & J. Moody (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of social networks (pp. 762–774). Oxford University Press.

Fuhse, J. A., & Gondal, N. (2015). Networks and meaning. In J. D. Wright, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second edition, pp. 561–566). Elsevier Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.10447-7

Gondal, N. (2021). Multiplexity as a lens to investigate the cultural meanings of interpersonal ties. Social Networks, 68, 209–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2021.07.002

Gondal, N., & McLean, P. D. (2013). Linking tie-meaning with network structure: Variable connotations of personal lending in a multiple-network ecology. Poetics (Amsterdam), 41(2), 122–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2012.12.002

Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press.

Lupker, J. A. T., & Turkel, W. J. (2021). Music theory, the missing link between music-related big data and artificial intelligence. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 15(1). https://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/15/1/000520/000520.html

McNeill, J. R., & McNeill, W. H. (2003). The human web: A bird’s-eye view of world history (1st ed.). W. W. Norton.

Miccio, L. A., Gámez-Pérez, C., Suárez, J. L., & Schwartz, G. A. (2022). Mapping the networked context of Copernicus, Michelangelo, and Della Mirandola in Wikipedia. Advances in Complex Systems, 25(5n06), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219525922400100

Schich, M., Song, C., Ahn, Y.-Y., Mirsky, A., Martino, M., Barabási, A.-L., & Helbing, D. (2014). A network framework of cultural history. Science, 345(6196), 558–562. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1240064

Schwartz, G. A. (2021). Complex networks reveal emergent interdisciplinary knowledge in Wikipedia. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00801-1

Suarez, J. L., Sancho-Caparrini, F., & de la Rosa Pérez, J. (2011). The art-space of a global community: The network of baroque paintings in Hispanic-America. 2011 Second International Conference on Culture and Computing, 45–50. https://doi.org/10.1109/Culture-Computing.2011.17

Whitehead, A. N. (1979). Process and reality. Free Press. (Original work published in 1929)

Published

2024-09-30

How to Cite

Suárez, J.-L. (2024). Reassembling and generating cultural networks: A digital humanities research agenda. Metode Science Studies Journal, (15). https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.15.27784
Metrics
Views/Downloads
  • Abstract
    103

Issue

Section

Digital humanities

Metrics

Similar Articles

> >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.