Social and spatial networks: Kinship distance and dwelling unit proximity in rural Thailand

Abstract

We address a long hypothesized relationship between the proximity of individuals' dwelling units and their kinship association. Better understanding this relationship is important because of its implications for contact and association among members of a society. In this paper, we use a unique dataset from Nang Rong, Thailand which contains dwelling unit locations (GPS) and saturated kinship networks of all individuals living in 51 agricultural villages. After presenting arguments for a relationship between individuals’ dwelling unit locations and their kinship relations as well as the particulars of our case study, we introduce the data and describe our analytic approach. We analyze how kinship - considered as both a system linking collections of individuals in an extended kinship network and as dyadic links between pairs of individuals -patterns the proximity of dwelling units in rural villages. The results show that in general, extended kin live closer to one another than do unrelated individuals. Further, the degree of relatedness between kin correlates with the distance between their dwelling units. Close kin are more likely to co-reside, a fact which drives much of the relationship between kinship relatedness and dwelling unit proximity within villages. There is nevertheless suggestive evidence of a relationship between kinship association and dwelling unit proximity among kin who do not live together.

The built environment, spatial scale, and social networks: Do land uses matter for personal network structure?

“…For example, a person's relationships in their neighborhood may not necessarily represent their broader web of relationships in the city or even more extensive spatial scales. Whereas research often does not examine the spatial location of alters and implicitly assumes that they are all equally useful and spatially accessible, scholars have increasingly suggested that distance to people matters for forming ties (i.e., a propinquity effect) (Festinger et al, 1950;Hipp and Perrin, 2009;Kowald et al, 2015;Verdery et al, 2012).…”

Global Network Inference from Ego Network Samples: Testing a Simulation Approach

“…This is especially true of comparative network studies. A study on social integration, for example, would need to measure network cohesion 125 digitalcommons.unl.edu across many neighborhoods, villages, or schools (Sampson & Raudenbush, 1997;Browning, Cagney, & Iveniuk, 2012;Verdery, Entwisle, Faust, & Rindfuss, 2012). Traditionally, a researcher would have to collect full network data in every context, a tall order by any survey method standard.…”

A social network perspective on ICT and urban travel

“…However, studies on the association between spatial proximity and social networks have often found that spatial proximity affects the kinship ties between individuals (Verdery et al 2012). A similar case is seen in Latané et al's (1995) findings on the diminishing strength of social influence with increasing spatial distance.…”

“…This was done to reduce the load of the people being interviewed. Verdery et al (2012) while studying the relationship between the proximity of individuals' dwelling units and their social network association, use only one kind of tie (e.g. kinship, family ties) to establish the hypothesis.…”

“…However, we have identified the following gaps in literature: firstly, studies into the relations between social networks and travel only consider part of the ego's network (Tillema et al, 2010); secondly, when tie-strength is taken into account as well as location of egos and their networks, only one kind of tie (e.g. kinship, family ties) is considered (Verdery et al, 2012); thirdly, the distribution of social networks over space and its associated characteristics have not been studied. In addition, studies on the effects of the C/T balance, socio-demographics and location of egos on networkedness of people are not available for emerging economies like India.…”