Analysis of Social Networks as a Methodological Resource for the Study of Territorial Sustainability

Abstract

From a political ecology perspective, sustainability is understood as a process of social construction that requires social empowerment. In turn, Social Network Analysis offers parameters to understand social phenomena where the morphology of the links between actors is essential. Accordingly, the purpose of the work is to investigate how network analysis parameters allow describing territorial sustainability processes. As a case study, a group of textile artisans from a rural community in Mexico is considered. A methodological proposal of Social Network Analysis indicators associated with three categories of territorial sustainability analytics is used. The results show how indicators of density, average degree, average geodesic distance, diameter, cliques and centrality (degree, intermediation and closeness) allow us to examine the capacity for dialogue of knowledge between artisans and their possibility of generating innovations for sustainability. In addition, they make it possible to describe and understand the processes of articulation, organization, collective management of resources and empowerment of the group of artisans for sustainability.