Using Optimal Matching Analysis in Sociology: Cost Setting and Sociology of Time

Abstract

This chapter is a reflection on the conditions required to use Optimal Matching (OM) in sociology. The success of OM in biology is not related to any supposed similarity of the method with biological processes, but comes from setting costs in accordance with biological theory. As sequences in sociology are made of events and time, the determination of costs should be guided by sociological theories of time. After a discussion of the sociological meaning and consequences of costs, this chapter comes back to the Dynamic Hamming Distance and the body of social theories of time (Durkheim, Elias, Bourdieu) from which it is derived as an example of how sociological theory can inform cost setting when using Optimal Matching in sociology.