A handful of friends or a hundred acquaintances?

Social scientists have long analyzed personal networks to understand human interaction, social support, cohesion, and inclusion (e.g., Fischer, 1982; Wellman, 1979). Nevertheless, we focus predominantly on individuals’ core networks. Thus, the hundreds of more superficial or weak ties an individual has are habitually ignored - ties with, for instance, neighbors, colleagues, other parents at children’s schools, fellow members of associations or religious congregations, or social media contacts (acquaintances; Goffman, 1963; Morgan, 2009). In this talk, I argue why analyzing how acquaintanceship networks are composed and structured, how they differ across social groups, how they are mobilized, and how they affect individuals and societies should be a core task of the social scientific enterprise. I also propose a novel methodology and a research agenda for studying broad acquaintanceship networks.

Slides: https://bit.ly/ars2023-keynote

Photo by Raffaele Vacca.