Building models for social space: neighourhood-based models for social networks and affiliation structures

Abstract

We propose a quantitative relational framework for social space. We suggest that social space cannot be specified simply in geographical, network or sociocultural terms but, rather, requires an understanding of the interdependence of relationships among different types of social entities, such as persons, groups, sociocultural resources and places. We also suggest that social space cannot be regarded as fixed: unlike the Euclidean space of Newtonian mechanics, social space is constructed, at least in part, by the social processes that it supports. In the general stochastic relational framework that we propose, relationships among social entities are regarded as the fundamental elements of so..