The History of the Family · 2014 · 14 citations · 6 references
Social SciencesAnthropologySociologyCultural AnthropologyFamily DemographyKinship StudiesGenealogyKinship ClassificationKinship NetworksKinship SystemsKinship TheoryMarriageGenealogical NetworksJewish KinshipKinship RelationsKinship RelationshipsKinship Structure AnalysisMarriage Exchange NetworksMarriage NetworksSocial Exchange Processes
The article introduces Puck, a software tool designed to analyze kinship networks and rigorously examine how marriage choices shape global network patterns, while also identifying cross‑cultural organizational properties and situating actors within broader social processes, as illustrated with a 19th‑century Parisian Jewish banking dynasty dataset. Puck operates by identifying, counting, and classifying matrimonial circuit structures, managing and analyzing genealogical datasets—including non‑genealogical relations and random simulations—while its theoretical foundations and main functions are illustrated using a 19th‑century Parisian Jewish banking dynasty dataset.
The article presents the software Puck (Program for the use and computation of kinship data), a computer tool for the in-depth analysis of kinship networks. Its core feature consists in identifying, counting and classifying matrimonial circuit structures (resulting from marriages between kin or affines). Such matrimonial censuses make it possible to explore in a rigorous fashion one of the most central questions in kinship studies: the relationship between particular marriage choices and the patterning of the global kinship network that emerges from them. At the same time, Puck constitutes a general tool for the management, treatment and exploratory analysis of genealogical datasets, including non-genealogical relations and random simulations. Puck has been designed to meet two complementary expectations: the identification of the recurrent, cross-cultural organizational properties of kinship networks, and the ability to situate particular actors within social processes involving both genealogical and non-genealogical factors. This article presents the theoretical foundations and main functions of Puck, using concrete examples drawn from a genealogical dataset of upper-class Parisian Jewish banking dynasties present in Paris during the nineteenth century.
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Controlled Simulation of Marriage Systems
White · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · 1999 · 23 citations · Full text