The Dictionary of Human Geography

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Suggested reading

Della Porta and Diani (1999); Laclau (1985).

social network The people – especially kin,

friends and neighbours – to whom an individ-

ual is tied socially, usually by shared interests

and, in many cases, values, attitudes and aspir-

ations. Most people are members of several

such networks, which may overlap only

slightly – in theirhome, family,neighbour-

hood, workplace and formal organizations, for

example. Such networks may be spatially con-

centrated, as both cause and effect: people

may chose to live close to others already

in their network(s), and may develop ties with

neighbours. Such networks are the main

medium for interpersonal interaction, and

therefore a core element of any social structure

• hence concerns regarding the potential
  consequences of declines in their strength (cf.
  social capital).
  Social networks provide the matrices
  through which much information flows and is
  evaluated. As such they are central compon-
  ents in models of change that involve inter-
  personal interaction, much of which has a
  spatial component (cf. contextual effect;
  diffusion; electoral geography; neigh-
  bourhood effect). They are often modelled
  formally as graphs, with individuals repre-
  sented as nodes linked by ties along which
  information flows (seegraph theory): those
  ties can be evaluated quantitatively according
  to the intensity of interaction between the two
  individuals. Such a representation enables
  analyses of, for example, the key roles of cer-
  tain individuals as nodes linking otherwise
  separate networks and their potential to act
  as change agents by channelling new informa-
  tion into a network. Research on such flows
  has suggested that weak ties (Granovetter,

1973. are often more important than strong
      ones as change stimuli. Strong ties usually link
      people with much in common whereas weak
      ties (links to acquaintances rather than friends,
      for example) may connect people with less in
      common, and therefore bring new information
      and ideas to their contacts.
      Withingeography, the importance of social
      networks has been recognized in the study of
      economic organization and change, as in the
      development of new high-technology indus-
      trial regions (such as Silicon Valley in
      California: see Malmberg, 1997; Scott, 2006),
      in electoral studies (Huckfeldt and Sprague,
      1995), and also in work on the exercise of
      powerwithin policy communities, where int-
      erest groups interact with politicians and

public servants. (See also actor-network

theory;network society.) rj

Suggested reading

Scott (1999); Sorenson (2003).

social physics An approach that suggests

aggregate humanspatial interactioncan be

explained and predicted using theories and

laws from physics. H.C. Carey (1858) first

codified social physics when he proposed

that use be made ‘. .. of the great law of

molecular gravitation as the indispensable

condition of. .. man [sic]’. But it was prim-

arily John Q. Stewart (1950), professor of

astronomy and physics at Princeton

University, together with geographer William

Warntz (1965), who first systematically pros-

ecuted social physics under the rubric of

macrogeography, a short-lived movement,

but one that helped pave the way for the sub-

sequent success of spatial science within

human geography. The Newtoniangravity

modelremains the best-known example, sug-

gesting that humans interact over terrestrial

space as do heavenly bodies in the celestial

system. The model gives a good empirical fit,

but its predictions are less satisfactory, and

its causal explanation worse. The lack of

explanatory purchase, as Lukermann (1958)

pointed out in a early critique, is because the

assumptions made in the physical models are

not met in the human realm: ‘the lacuna is of

the order of two worlds’ (Lukermann, 1958,

p. 2). There is nothing wrong with analogies

per se, but for them to succeed there must be

certain core similarities between the analogy

and the analogized. For many critics of social

physics, the similarities between human and

celestial movements were not just hard to find,

they were simply not there to be found. tb

Suggested reading

Barnes (1996, chs 4 and 5).

social reproduction The term encompasses

the daily and long-term reproduction of the

means of production, the labour power to

make them work and the social relations that

hold them in place. It includes the ‘fleshy,

messy’ and diffuse stuff ofeveryday life,as

well as a congeries of structured material social

practices that unfold in dialectical relation

with production. At its most rudimentary,

social reproduction is contingent upon the

biological reproduction of the labour force –

both day to day and generationally – through

the production, acquisition, distribution

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_S Final Proof page 696 1.4.2009 3:23pm

SOCIAL NETWORK