Qualitative Social Network Analysis: Visualising and ...

Qualitative Social Network

Analysis: Visualising and

Analysing the Personal Networks

of Suffragettes

© 2018 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

This PDF has been generated from SAGE Research Methods Datasets.

Qualitative Social Network

Analysis: Visualising and

Analysing the Personal Networks

of Suffragettes

Student Guide

Introduction

Sociologists often work with research questions and data that are ‘relational’ in

nature. This means that they are not primarily concerned with individual actors,

but with the relationships between actors. Social network analysis (SNA) is a

method that takes the ‘connections’ or ‘ties’ between actors as the focus of

analysis, and assumes that the structure and patterning of relationships matters

for what individuals think and do. While SNA can have a strong quantitative

focus, this data exemplar will illustrate ways in which you might analyse network

data qualitatively (QSNA). The data used is provided by Dr. Gemma Edwards

from the University of Manchester, and is taken from research she conducted

on the personal social networks of suffragettes. The aim of this research was

to explore how ordinary women at the turn of the twentieth century became

involved in the militant campaign for ‘Votes for Women’ in Britain. The focus

was on their interpersonal relationships, considering that we know from existing

studies of social movements that ‘networks matter’ for participation (Passy, 2003).

The analysis focuses on two suffragettes who were members of the Women’s

Social and Political Union (WSPU): Helen Watts (from Nottingham) and Mary

Blathwayt (from Bath). Gemma analyses how their interpersonal relationships

shaped their choices around activism. The data provided relates to Helen Watts

SAGE

2018 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

SAGE Research Methods Datasets Part

1

Page 2 of 13 Qualitative Social Network Analysis: Visualising and Analysing the Personal

Networks of Suffragettes

specifically, and comprises a sample of letters surrounding her activism in 1909,

and visualisations of her social network. The exemplar will help you to think about

how visualisations and qualitative data from historical archives can be used in

dialogue to analyse social networks qualitatively.

Social Network Analysis Using Qualitative Sources

Data about people’s relationships, connections and ties to others is often

produced in the course of qualitative research. We find this kind of ‘relational’

data in interview narratives, ethnographic accounts, and documents such as

letters and diaries. Qualitative (textual) materials, such as the sourcebook of

historical letters accompanying this exemplar, are valuable sources of relational

data because they not only hold important clues about who people know, but

also provide insights into what these relationships mean, and why they matter.

In social network analysis, we extract relational data about who knows whom.

It is useful to input this data into a matrix, which can be used as the basis of

visualisation (and if desired, measurement) in computer packages like Pajek (de

Nooy, Mrvar, & Batagelj, 2012) or UCINET (Borgatti, Everett, & Freeman, 2002).

Figure 1 shows an example of a matrix in UCINET, used here to record the social

ties of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst (‘1’ is used to denote a tie, ‘0’ is used to

denote no tie).

Figure 1: Example of a social network matrix in UCINET

SAGE



1



In UCINET, the programme netdraw easily creates visualisations of the data

contained within the matrix (these visualisations are also called sociograms).

There are some examples of visualisations below and in the data provided.

Sociograms are valuable even when the analysis of the network is to remain

primarily qualitative. Visualisations of the network can reveal its key structural

features, and can be an important stage in analysis (D’Angelo, Ryan, & Tubaro,

2016). Qualitative data sources, however, are crucial in helping the researcher

to interpret what the network visualisations mean, and to investigate not just the

structure of people’s relationships, but their content (Edwards, 2010).

Data Exemplar: The Personal Social Networks of Suffragettes

The data used in this exemplar are drawn from Dr Gemma Edwards’ research on

SAGE



1



the personal social networks of suffragettes. This research aimed to understand

how ordinary women became involved in militant, and at times violent, protests

during the campaign for ‘Votes for Women’. In particular, it explored the role

played by their interpersonal networks, drawing upon previous research about the

importance of social networks for social movement participation (Passy, 2003).

The research used historical archives relating to suffragettes to map, analyse, and

compare their social networks. Two middle-class suffragettes who were in their

mid-twenties at the time are included in the analysis: Helen Watts (a member

of the Nottingham Women’s Social and Political Union), and Mary Blathwayt (a

member of the Bath Women’s Social and Political Union). Helen Watts’ archive

includes letters written around the time of her activism, and her speeches

delivered on release from prison in 1909 (Nottingham Archives Office), while

Mary Blathwayt’s archive consists of diaries, written by her and her family, which

recorded her involvement with the suffragettes between 1906 and 1913

(Gloucester Records Office). The data provided for exploration is from Helen

Watts’ archive specifically, and comprises eight letters and three network

visualisations. This data exemplar is intended to illustrate one way in which you

might approach the analysis of social networks qualitatively.

Analysing Social Networks Qualitatively

In what follows, Gemma details the reasons for doing Qualitative Social Network

Analysis, as well as how you might approach it. She uses historical documents

to show the importance of personal social networks amongst members of the

suffragettes.

Watts’ and Blathwayt’s Personal Social Networks

In order to conduct an analysis of Watts’ and Blathwayt’s personal social networks,

some basic relational data first needs to be extracted from the historical sources

relating to their involvement with the suffragettes. The basic data we need for

SAGE



1



a personal network analysis (also called ‘ego-net’ analysis, see Crossley et al.,

2015) are (1) data about the individual/ego’s ties to others (their ‘alters’), and (2)

data about the ties between the alters. The Helen Watts letters are particularly

valuable in this respect (see the sourcebook). As an archive of correspondence,

they act as a historical trace of her relationships at the time, providing one way

to see who she was in contact with (see network visualisation 1 in the data

provided). You can also see from the letters in the sourcebook how network data

is embedded within the narrative of the historical sources, just as they might

within interview narratives. In Letter 1, for example, Watts ‘talks her ties’ to others,

and in the process provides important contextual information about how she met

certain individuals, what role they played, what she thought of them and so on. In

Letters 4 and 5, we can see how the act of communication itself is constructing

a relationship and attempting to establish a tie, for example on the basis of

homophily (i.e. we have lots in common – ‘I too am a clergyman’s daughter’,

letter 5). All of the relational data contained within the letters can be extracted to

produce another visualisation of Helen’s social network (see network visualisation

2). We might build up the picture of her network even further by adding the

relational data gained from other historical sources and over a longer time period

(see network visualisation 3).

When extracting relational data from qualitative sources, you will have to make

some important decisions, such as the time period you will cover (this will perhaps

be dictated by the data source), and where the boundaries of the network will be

drawn (when working with historical sources or documents you will have to take

a ‘nominalist’ approach to network boundaries, where the researcher must decide

the criteria for including and excluding ties). This relates to another important

decision you will have to make about what counts as a ‘tie’. Your research

question will help to inform you here, for instance you will be interested in mapping

particular ‘tie-types’ such as ‘friendship’ or ‘co-participation’, or perhaps certain

types of ‘exchange’, and this is what you should be looking for in the data source

SAGE



1



in order to ascertain whether or not to record a tie as present or absent.

Once the basic network data have been extracted from the qualitative sources,

it is useful to produce a visualisation of the network so that you can see the

relationships mapped out. UCINET and its accompanying netdraw was used to

create the visualisations in Figure 2 (Borgatti et al., 2002), while Pajek was used

to create the visualisations in the data provided (de Nooy et al., 2012). Firstly, you

create a matrix of your basic network data, which records whether ties between

people are present (1) or absent (0) and then produce a visualisation of the

network. While this is part of describing (and later, presenting) your data, it can

also be a valuable stage in your analysis. Figure 2 shows the visualisations

produced in my analysis of Helen Watts’ and Mary Blathwayt’s networks in 1909,

when they first got their opportunity to go to prison for the cause.

Figure 2: Network visualisations of Helen Watts’ personal network in

1909 (top), and Mary Blathwayt’s personal network in 1909 (bottom)

SAGE



1



SAGE



1



The visualisation (along with some basic measures of the structural properties of

the network, such as its density, the centrality of nodes, number of components

and so forth, that you can easily perform in UCINET) helps you to observe

interesting structural features about the network, which you can investigate further

with the qualitative sources. For example, in the network visualisations in Figure

2, you can see that data about the attributes of the people in the network have

been added by using different shapes and shades for the network ‘nodes’. These

tell us useful information, such as whether Watts’ and Blathwayt’s contacts were

women from their local area or outside of it (circles are local, triangles not);

women who had been involved in militant protests before, or not (black nodes

had been arrested); women who were in the same suffrage organisation as them,

or from other organisations (square nodes are the non-militant suffragists). The

visualisations of the network are therefore helping to both raise and address

analytic questions. Analysis proceeds most fruitfully, however, when a dialogue is

established between the network visualisation and the qualitative data.

By looking at the network visualisations in Figure 2, we can observe some obvious

differences that we might want to investigate qualitatively using the historical data

sources. Watts’ network is one single component in which everyone is tied to

everyone else, something we could refer to as a ‘clique’. Nearly all the people

in it are local women from Nottingham. Blathwayt’s network, in contrast, looks

like it has different clusters within it, with different degrees of interconnection.

The attributes of the people in it are also more diverse. Many have been to

prison already (the black nodes), one is a prominent member of the non-militant

suffragists (the square node, Lillias Ashworth Hallet), and her parents occupy a

central position (they in fact mediate all her contacts).

We might assume from the visualisations that Blathwayt is the more heavily

involved in militant activism because she is tied to many more suffragettes who

have been to prison, but in fact it is Watts who goes on to be arrested (twice in

SAGE



1



1909), and Blathwayt who, over time, distances herself from militant tactics and

eventually resigns her WSPU membership. An analysis of the qualitative sources

is crucial for explaining this. Look at the letters provided in the sourcebook.

Despite some mild challenges made to her action by family (letter 6), and

references to stigma and losing friends (letter 4), the letters between family and

friends reveal a close-knit, supportive network around Watts. Watts talks further

in her speeches about how she came to develop a strong sense of shared

purpose and identity within her Nottingham clique. Indeed, close-knit network

structures like hers have been associated with high levels of trust and solidarity

and the development of collective identity. Watts finds ultimate motivation from

feeling that she is part of something bigger than herself, and her sense of self-

identity is transformed into a group identity, as captured well in letter 7 from her

Nottingham comrade, who calls her ‘Nottingham’s representative!’ By contrast,

Mary Blathwayt’s mother writes in her diary about how the family are struggling

to make up their minds about the moral legitimacy of the militant tactics being

used by suffragettes. This is made all the more pertinent as they are confronted

by examples of violence and arrest on the part of those within their personal

network, while also being exposed to counter-influences (for example from the

non-militants they know, like Lillias Ashworth Hallet). They enter a period of moral

ambiguity, and find no such shared purpose, identity, or agreed script as we see

in Watts’ network.

Mary Blathwayt is constrained by her parents when it comes to participating in

militant events. She records in her diary that she had a letter asking her to

take part in a militant event that she knew would lead to her arrest. This is

particularly significant considering the central mediating position we know that her

parents have in her network, and which is shown in the visualisation (the more

central nodes are bigger in size). McAdam and Paulsen (1993) show that a major

constraining factor when it comes to involvement in ‘high-risk’ activism is non-

supportive family. Watts manages to circumvent this countervailing influence by

SAGE



1



keeping her intention to get arrested a secret from her family and close friends,

who do not appear in her network until after her arrest. We can see from the letters

in the sourcebook that much of the letter-writing activity was about getting to grips

with her action and repairing familial relationships (letters 1, 3 and 6 in particular).

Overall

There are many more issues that can be pulled out of the network visualisations

and the wider historical archives that surround them. The point, however, has

been to illustrate the way in which a qualitative analysis of social networks involves

a dialogue between network visualisations, which can be helpful for looking at

the structure of social ties, and qualitative sources (here, letters, speeches and

diaries, but you might equally use interview narratives), which are helpful for

understanding the content, meaning, and consequences of ties. Jan Fuhse (2009)

argues that qualitative analysis is valuable because it can help researchers

unpack the ‘meaning structure’ of the social network. The meaning structure of

the network consists of the shared cultural scripts and discourses from which

individuals must draw (like the shared script on militancy); interpersonal

expectations relating to relationships (such as parents’ expectations of their

children); and interpersonal expectations relating to identities (such as the

development of collective identities and the obligations they entail). Qualitative

analysis therefore aims to draw upon textual, narrative sources in order to help

unlock the meaning structure of social networks, and to address the content and

consequences of social ties. From the dataset we have learnt that social ties

mattered for involvement in suffragette militancy. Not only did we find clues about

the importance of social ties by visualising the structure of social relationships in

which Watts and Blathwayt were embedded (composition, degree of homogeneity,

centrality of parents), but by probing the networks using qualitative historical data

we have also gained a deeper understanding as to how these social relationships

affected and influenced what they thought and what they did.

SAGE



1



Reflective Questions

1. Watts’ network is based on an archive of letters and speeches, and

Blathwayt’s network is based on diaries. How might the nature of the

source affect the quality and depth of network data? Can personal

networks be directly compared?

2. How could other sources of qualitative data like interviews and

ethnography, be used to (a) construct social network data, and (b)

analyse social network data?

3. What about the problem of ‘missing data’? Using historical archives

means relying on what has survived and been recorded. Even using

interviews, people may fail to recall all of their ties. Is missing data a

bigger problem for social network analysis than it is for other kinds of

social research?

4. Considering that the letters in the sourcebook are dated, how might

qualitative social network analysis address the issue of change over

time in social networks? Can network visualisations capture the

dynamic and changing nature of social ties?

Further Reading

Bellotti, E. (2014). Qualitative networks: Mixed methods in sociological research.

London: Routledge

Borgatti, S. P., Everett, M. G., & Freeman, L. C. (2002). Ucinet for Windows:

Software for social network analysis. Harvard, MA: Analytic Technologies.

Crossley, N., Bellotti, E., Edwards, G., Everett, M., Koskinen, J., & Tranmer,

M. (2015). Social network analysis for ego-nets. London: SAGE Publishing.

D’Angelo, A., Ryan, L., & Tubaro, P. (2016). Visualization in mixed methods

SAGE



1



research on social networks. Sociological Research Online, 21(2), 15.

De Nooy, W., Mrvar, A., & Batagelj, V. (2012). Exploratory social network

analysis with Pajek (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Edwards, G., & Crossley, N. (2009). Measures and meanings: Exploring the ego-

net of Helen Kirkpatrick Watts, Militant Suffragette. Methodological Innovations

Online, 4(2009), 37–61.

Edwards, G. (2010). Mixed-methods approaches to social network analysis.

National Centre for Research Methods. Working paper 015. Retrieved from

http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/842/

Edwards, G. (2014). Infectious innovations? The diffusion of tactical innovation

in social movement networks, the case of suffragette militancy. Social Movement

Studies, 13(1), 48–69.

Fuhse, J. (2009). The meaning structure of social networks. Sociological Theory,

27, 51–73.

McAdam, D., & Paulsen, R. (1993). Specifying the relationship between social

ties and activism. American Journal of Sociology, 99, 640–667.

Passy, F. (2003). Social networks matter: But how? In M. Diani & D. McAdam

(Eds.), Social movements and networks: Relational approaches to collective

action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

SAGE



1



http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/842/

Date post:	18-Dec-2021
Category:	Documents
Upload:	others
View:	2 times
Download:	0 times

Qualitative Social Network Analysis: Visualising and ...

Documents