Klaus Hamberger

Random alliance networks

Abstract The morphological properties of kinship and marriage alliance networks, such as circuits, are typically considered as indicators of sociological phenomena — yet, they may also be partly coincidental. To assert the contribution of chance to these morphological features, we develop a standardized method where empirical alliance networks are compared with a random baseline. We apply our framework to a variety of empirical cases and show that some corpuses are remarkably well reconstructed by our random model, while others still feature significant divergencies which may be partly connected to field-based experience. On the whole, our approach may be used to scrutinize the matrimonial role of social groups as asserted by native or ethnological theory.

Scanning for patterns of relationship: analyzing kinship and marriage networks with Puck 2.0

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.

Matrimonial circuits in kinship networks: Calculation, enumeration and census

The article presents a series of new methods for analyzing the morphology of kinship networks via the study of matrimonial circuits (closed chains of kinship and marriage ties). The article gives a simple definition of matrimonial circuits in mixed graphs and introduces the technique of representing matrimonial circuit types by characteristic vectors. This technique is used to develop (1) an arithmetic approach to the algebra of circuit composition, (2) a method for the complete enumeration of matrimonial circuit types, and (3) an algorithm for finding and counting matrimonial circuits in empirical kinship networks. All methods have been implemented in the software Puck (Program for the Use and Computation of Kinship Data).

From village to bush in four Watchi rites: A transformational analysis of ritual space and perspective

Understanding ritual performances in terms of changes of perspective is increasingly common in anthropological analyses. However, less attention has been paid to the fact that perspectival transformations not only make up the internal dynamics of a given ritual but also connect it to other rituals. Drawing on a series of related Watchi-Ewe rituals (divinatory, initiatory, funerary, and hunting), this article proposes to analyze ritual space as a system of perspectival transformations operating both within and between rituals. By conceiving of each ritual as constructing the same relational architecture from a different point of view, it becomes possible to understand the relationship between female diviners and male hunters within the context of a larger set of interconnected relations (between men and women, humans and animals, masters and slaves, the living and the dead), realized in the virtual space of ritual performance. Understood as a controlled variation of perspective, the transformational analysis of ritual thus becomes a valuable methodological device, both to elucidate the model through which a society conceives its relational universe and to render intelligible seemingly contradictory and otherwise unexplainable ethnographic facts.

The order of intersubjectivity

Comment on SAHLINS, Marshall. 2013. What kinship is—and is not. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.