Abstract

The life of a network: a story of birth, death and reinvention in long-run historical social network analysis

This paper explores the value of long-run historical social network analysis to examine the life (and death) of firm networking activity in foreign markets and in particular, the impact of agents abroad on the expansion and contraction of the network. This builds on the foundational work of scholars such as Bucheli, Salvaj and Kim (2019), Buckles (2022), Smith (2018) and Haggerty and Haggerty (2017) whose in-depth studies on networking activity over time have added greatly to the historical study of networks and the incorporation of SNA techniques into historical research. Using Baring’s trade and finance activity in Argentina as an illustrative case, this study constructs an egocentric network through their correspondence collections, adding to the work of scholars such as Vedoveli (2018). Reconstructing the network over an 80-year period (broken into 16 distinct periods) will demonstrate how the shape and composition of the network changed dramatically over this period. In particular, the case will highlight key relationships to agents and government officials over the 80-year period and how/why these relationships shifted. Given the (very) long-run perspective, it is possible to analyse critical stages in the life of a network which may include its complete deconstruction and reconstruction or reinvention. This paper will also demonstrate the richness obtained from utilising historical correspondence collections and the additional perspectives on transnational networks that can be obtained from analysing networks over longer periods. It will also throw up questions regarding the best approach for capturing change over time in a network and where the research may progress from this point.