(Forthcoming in the Sage Handbook of Social Network Analysis , edited by John Scott and Peter Carrington, Sage 2011)

Abstract

One of the debates surrounding social network analysis has been whether it consists of a method or a theory. Is network analysis merely a cluster of techniques for analyzing the structure of social relationships, or does it constitute a broader conceptual framework, theoretical orientation, or even philosophy of life? In an article two decades ago synthesizing emerging work on social networks, Barry Wellman argued that network analysis goes beyond methodology to inform a new theoretical paradigm: “structural analysis does not derive its power from the partial application of this concept or that measure. It is a comprehensive paradigmatic way of taking social structure seriously by studying directly how patterns of ties allocate resources in a social system” (Wellman 1988, p. 20). This paradigm, he goes on to argue, takes relations – rather than individuals, groups, attributes, or categories – as the fundamental unit of social analysis. This argument was taken up a few years later by Mustafa Emirbayer and Jeff Goodwin, who described the new “anti-categorical imperative” introduced by network analysis and explored its relationship to research on cultural and historical change (Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994). While disagreement remains among network analysts regarding this issue, a broader “relational perspective” within sociology has been simmering for the past three decades, often involving scholars who themselves do not use formal network methodology, or who use it only marginally in their research. Inspired by such eminent figures as Harrison White and Charles Tilly, this perspective has taken some of the broader theoretical insights of network analysis and extended them to the realms of culture, history, politics, economics, and social psychology. Fundamental to this theoretical orientation (if it can be called that) is not merely the insistence that what sociologists call “structure” is intrinsically relational, but also, perhaps more deeply, that relational thinking is a way to overcome stale antinomies between structure and agency through a focus on the dynamics of social interactions in different kinds of social settings. In this chapter, I will explore the historical origins of this perspective and its positioning in broader intellectual networks. While a relational orientation has germinated in a number of