Physics meets Sociology (social network analysis)

Physics meets Sociology (discussing social network analysis)

Host: GERME – METICES – ULB

Type: Education – Lecture

Date: Friday, May 15, 2009

Time: 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Location: Salle Van Buuren (Janson, ULB, campus Solbosch)

Description: Francisco Santos (PhD in Physics, post-doc at ULB) will try to explain his research work (simulations on social networks) to an audience of sociologists (in a non-formal language understandable to us). Santos published in topjournals like Nature and Physical Review Letters on his research on social networks.

Let us try some interdisciplinary debate! What can sociologists learn from physics? And what can physics learn from sociology?

Check out the publications of Francisco Santos: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~fsantos/index.html

Please let us know if you want to attend: irina.bussoli (at) ulb.ac.be or dirk.jacobs (at) ulb.ac.be

LOCALMULTIDEM conference Brussels 28-29 January 2009

FOR DISTRIBUTION AMONG YOUR E-LISTS AND OTHER COLLEAGUES POTENTIALLY INTERESTED. SORRY FOR CROSS-POSTINGS.

Dear colleagues,
The LOCALMULTIDEM project (Multicultural democracy and immigrants’ social capital in Europe), funded by the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission is coming to an end, and we are organising a final conference to present the main results and findings of the project 28th and 29th January in Brussels.

This two-day conference aims at engaging in a constructive debate around the civic and political inclusion of migrant-background minorities into the public sphere of their places of settlement. For this purpose, the teams of the project LOCALMULTIDEM will present various aspects of the main findings of an ambitious comparative project carried out in eight European cities (Barcelona, Budapest, Geneva, London, Lyon, Madrid, Milan, and Zurich). The study focuses on the interplay between institutional, discursive, organisational, and socio-economic factors in fostering or hindering migrants’ civic and political inclusion. The first day is organised around a series of presentations of the main findings of the project that are primarily aimed at engaging in a fruitful discussion with stakeholders: policy-makers, civil society organisations, policy analysts, etc. Starting in the afternoon of Wednesday, the second set of sessions will be organised around the discussion with the academic community of a number of papers that are part of an edited volume that will result from the project. All interested members of the public are welcome to attend any of the sessions. Attendance is free of charge, but registration is required through a registration form you will find here. And you will find the programme here.

We wish to acknowledge the collaboration of the DG Research of the European Commission, the Committee of the Regions, the Office of the Region of Murcia in Brussels, the CINEFOGO Network of Excellence, the Migration Policy Group, and of Prof. Dirk Jacobs (ULB) in the organisation of this conference.

All are welcome. For any enquiries about the conference or the logistics, please email Elisa Rodriguez (erortiz@um.es). 
Best regards and seasons greetings,
Laura Morales

Localmultidem workshop Manchester

The LOCALMULTIDEM project holds a workshop on monday 24 november 2008 in Manchester. A closing conference will be organised in Brussels (in collaboration with ULB) on 28 and 29 January 2009.

——————

For the past three years, a team of scholars of various European universities have been carrying out a comparative study of the civic and political engagement of various migrant-origin gorups in several European cities: the LOCALMULTIDEM project (you will find more information on the project at http://www.um.es/localmultidem/). The project is coming to its end and, with the support of the Research Fund of the School of Social Sciences of the University of Manchester and of the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission, we are organising a symposium at Manchester to present some initial results of the project. All those interested are very welcome to attend (the programme is enclosed below). Please note, that for planning purposes, we need you to confirm if you are going to attend through the booking form that you will find on this website: 

http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/socialchange/events/lmd/index.html 

best wishes, 
Laura Morales 

LOCALMULTIDEM SYMPOSIUM Monday 24th November 2008 

Time: 3-6pm. 

Location: University Place, University of Manchester (room to be confirmed). 

_Presentation of the overall project_ 

3.00-3.20: ‘Presentation of the LOCALMULTIDEM project’, Laura Morales 
(University of Manchester). 

3.20-3.40: ‘Studying the Political Opportunity Structures of Migrants’ 
Participation: an illustration with the cases of Geneva and Lyon’, 
Manlio Cinalli (CEVIPOF-CNRS). 

3.40-3.50: Questions and Debate. 

_Presentation of city studies_ 

3.50-4.10: ‘Cosmopolitanism and the politics of belonging in North 
London’, Ranji Devadason (University of Bristol). 

4.10-4.20: Questions and Debate. 

4.20-4.30: Coffee / tea break 

4.30-4.50: ‘The Impact of Voting Rights is Migrants’ Civic and 
Political Engagement: a Comparison of Zurich, Geneva and Neuchâtel’, 
Marco Giugni (University of Geneva) 

4.50-5.00: ‘Civic and political participation by Filipino, Egyptian and 
Ecuadorian migrants in Milan, Katia Pilati (University of Trento) 

5.00-5.10: Questions and Debate. 

5.10-5.30: ‘The political participation and social capital of immigrants 
in Madrid and Barcelona’, Amparo González (CSIC and University Pompeu Fabra) 

5.30-5.50: ‘Patterns of networking among immigrant organisations’, 
Andras Kovats (MTAKI) 

5.50-6.10: Final Questions and Debate.

reading group

groupe de lecture (ouvert aux collègues de METICES-ULB)

Le vendredi 12 decembre de 13h-15h nous tiendrons une discussion du livre “L’analyse structurale des réseaux sociaux” de Vincent Lemieux & Mathieu Ouimet dans le groupe de lecture du projet ‘ethnic social capital’. Les participants sont censés avoir lu l’ouvrage en question.

Lemieux, V. & Ouimet, M. (2004) L’analyse structurale des réseaux sociaux. Bruxelles: De Boeck. (116 pages)

Voici un résumé de l’ouvrage: “L’analyse structurale, dans les sciences humaines, est une approche interdisciplinaire qui se fonde sur le postulat que les acteurs sociaux se caractérisent par leurs relations plutôt que par leurs attributs (le sexe, l’âge, la classe sociale, etc.). Ces relations ont une plus ou moins grande densité, la distance qui sépare deux acteurs est plus ou moins grande, et certains acteurs occupent des positions plus centrales que d’autres. Des théories permettent d’expliquer ces phénomènes, dont celle des liens forts et des liens faibles, et celle sur les trous structuraux où se trouvent les acteurs qui ne peuvent communiquer entre eux que par l’intermédiaire d’un tiers. Après avoir exposé les techniques de traitement et de collecte des données nécessaires à l’analyse structurale, on présente des études de cas qui sont analysés à l’aide des théories, des concepts et des techniques qui ont été exposés dans cet ouvrage. Les études de cas portent sur les relations de parenté, les réseaux sociométriques, le capital social, les réseaux de soutien, les réseaux de mobilisation, les interconnexions entre les entreprises et les réseaux de politique publique. L’ouvrage comprend aussi un glossaire où sont définis les principaux concepts utilisés dans l’analyse structurale”.

Merci de nous prévenir si vous comptez être parmi nous.

Le lundi 3 novembre de 14h-16h nous organisons un premier rencontre de notre groupe de lecture pour le projet “Le capital social ethnique et son impact sur la confiance généralisée et la participation politique parmi les groupes de minorités ethniques” (ETHNOCAP).
On parlera des textes suivantes:
- Putnam, R. (1995) “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”, Journal of Democracy 1 (6) 65-78.
- Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone. New York: Simon & Shuster.
- Putnam, R. (2007) “E Pluribus Unum : Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century. The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture » ”, Scandinavian Political Studies, 30 (2): 137-174.
Si vous participez, vous êtes invité à lire au moins l’article de Putnam de 1995 et l’article de Putnam de 2007.
Merci de nous signaler si vous comptez participer ou pas.

’social capital’ or ’social network’?

just for fun:

’social network’ has become more popular in worldwide internet traffic (according to google trends) than ’social capital’…

this is mainly due to the popularity of social network sites like facebook and the likes