SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS

FOR COLLABORATION IN NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

I. What are social networks and why are they important to collaboration and natural resource management?

“Successful cases of collaboration also make use of the networks of social relationships that always exist in communities.  People know and trust others, and power is structured in communities by local politics, wealth, and traditions.  Tapping into those preexisting social networks enables project leaders to create effective communication links, mobilize support, and achieve legitimacy that they could never achieve on their own.”  Wondolleck and Yaffee (2000:185)

Humans are social beings, and the relationships between people are important.  People gather with others, exchange information and things, and seek the advice and counsel of other people.  Relationships differ from persons to person, and, looked at together for a community or other group of people, form social networks.  Social networks are shaped by class, gender, race and ethnicity, and power, but are unique in every place.  Natural resource management today requires understanding the people and communities that surround a national forest or are involved in a management issues, and social networks are an important dimensions of this.  Furthermore, natural resource management is increasingly turning to collaborative approaches, which require that managers seek the involvement of relevant stakeholders and interest groups in planning and management processes.  Social network analysis focuses on the relationships among people, helping us understand how groups of people and communities are structured and actually function.

Social networks can be looked at as linkages and relationships among individuals (Trotter 1999).  Choosing individuals as the nodes of the network is useful for revealing informal groups in a community or set of communities, or in revealing the pattern of social relationships through which information flows and things happen.  Social network analysis has been used to understand a variety of social processes, including how diseases spread, how people find jobs, how technology is adopted (or the diffusion of innovations), how information is spread, and how group decisions are made.  It can also be used to identify the boundaries and participants of various social groups, and the bridges that may exist between them.  Social network analysis reveals social structures that are not visible by looking only at people as individual actors (Knoke and Kuklinsky 1982).

Social networks can also be looked at as relationships among organizations, with organizations forming the nodes of the network (WRI 1991).  Organization focused research and analysis looks at relationships among and within formal groups in a community, such as communication, common members, power, and connections within and external to a community.  Organizations may include, but are not limited to, religious groups, environmental groups, landowner cooperatives, unions, local government committees, agencies, and nongovernmental organizations.  While organizations are made up of individuals, in some cases managers and planners choose to work with organized groups who represent individuals and have a clear interest in the management issue at hand.  Working with organized groups may be more manageable and streamline the process by ensuring that the most interested parties are involved.  However, care must be taken not to exclude interest groups or important stakeholders who are not formally organized.

II. What is social network analysis and how do you do it?

Social network analysis is a process of learning about and understanding the function of the networks of social relationships in a community or other area of interest.  The methods that could be employed include the social science methods of ethnography, participant observation, key informant interviews, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and content analysis of the media (newspapers, radio, TV) and other written materials (reports, flyers, brochures, etc.).  Data collection and analysis can have a wide range of rigor.  The field of sociology, in particular, has well-developed quantitative techniques for social network analysis, but these will generally be of greater interest to academic researchers than they are to practitioners and applied researchers.

For many applied situations, a relatively simple approach will be sufficient if care is taken to get diverse perspectives and the researcher is alert for conflicts, contradictions, and inconsistencies that indicate as yet unexplored complexity.  In some cases, a planner or district employee may be able to get the needed information by talking with a few key informants who know the community well.  In other cases, where decisions are very important or there is a need for more in-depth and certain information, a small research project might be advisable.  A full social network analysis should involve a trained social scientist at some level in planning and, often,  implementation.  Faculty at local community colleges and universities can often provide assistance or guidance, and sometimes student help (for example as a class project or independent study), either for free or as contractors (depending on the level of assistance you need).  The bottom line is that it is important to take care in structuring a social network analysis so that it is appropriate for your purposes in both focus and rigor.

Sampling is often by the “snowball” method, which starts by identifying a few key people, and, after interviewing them, asking them if there is anyone else with whom you should talk.  To ensure that the process moves beyond one social group or network, it is usually good to ask people to suggest some additional interviewees who might have differing views, and to start your process in several places across race, ethnicity, class, and gender lines, and also spatially.  Individuals are asked about the existence and nature of their social relationships, focusing on relationship relevant to the objectives of the study, and this data is used to develop descriptions of social networks.  Social network data can also be collected by questionnaires, through observation, and from archival and other written materials (Wasserman and Faust 1994, pp 45-54).  It is often helpful to diagram the various individuals and groups, their importance, and their relationships.  Examples are the social relations diagrams for studies where the individual is the unit of analysis (Trotter 1999, pp 35-36) or the institutional Venn diagram methods used in participatory rural appraisal to diagram formal organizations (WRI 1991).

The book, Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications contains a wealth of information and methods.  Some of this is more quantitative than many applied researchers will need, but the early chapters provide an excellent introduction to many key concepts and techniques.  Friends, Relatives, and Relevant Others: Conducting Ethnographic Network Studies (Trotter 1999) is an excellent source on more qualitative approaches. There are several methods books for qualitative research that may be helpful in the data collection process, such as the Ethnographer’s Toolkit (Schensul and LeCompte 1999), the Handbook of Qualitative Research (Denzin and Lincoln 2000) or the Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology (Bernard 1998).  Simple descriptions of some methods can also be found at the NRCS Social Sciences Institute web site, under publications.

III.  What are some of things I might want to look at in my social network analysis?

1. Who are the relevant groups and individuals involved in or affected by a natural resource management issue?
• What are the social groups and networks that are involved in specific natural resource use and management issues? 
• What are the communities of place and interest? 
• Can boundaries be drawn around the communities, or can they be characterized as being of certain types (e.g. loggers, ranchers, urban residents, environmentalists, etc.?
• Are there identifiable community groups, or subgroups within a community?  These may be interest groups, but may also be aligned along the major social divisions of race, ethnicity, class, and gender; as well as related to values and interests.
2. What are the relationships between groups and individuals?
• What are the cross boundary relationships between communities and to broader communities or interest groups (urban areas, national or regional communities of interest, etc.)?
• What are the relationships between groups in the community?  For example, collaboration, trust, distrust, conflict, history, etc.  How common is boundary spanning (e.g. interactions between groups, or individuals being members of two or more groups) and how does this occur?
• How do various social groups/networks related to public land management agencies, local government, interest groups or organizations, etc.?
• Who and what groups have power in the community, and what is the source of their power?
3. Who are community leaders? 
• Who has formal and informal authority in the community?  Pay attention to various groups in the community (see 2, above)
• How do these leaders influences and mobilize other people?
4. How do people exchange information?
• Where do people get their information?  Examples may include:  Churches, environmental organizations, unions, producer and landowner organizations, schools, newspapers, radio, informal groups. How does information flow through the community?  What kinds of information , or information sources, do they consider to be valid and employ (e.g. science, position statements from organized interest groups, information from family or other community members)?
• How do various social groups or networks interact with the media?  What media sources do they use (local, regional or national newspapers, call-in radio, etc.)
• What forums or contexts do various groups use to discuss issues?  Where are they most likely to express their concerns, beliefs, and opinions (e.g. public hearings, individual discussion, at informal meeting places, in focus groups, in Internet chat rooms, etc.)?  Do these social groups, or significant numbers of their members, convene or get together, and under what circumstances?
5. Do networks change?
• a. Are social networks seasonal, or do they change in other regular ways throughout the year?
• b. Do networks vary around various management issues or change as issues evolve?
6. What else should I keep in mind?
• Social relationships and networks are context specific (Knoke and Kuklinsky 1982).  Thus the management issue at hand must be used to both guide and bound the analysis.  At the same time, care should be taken not to draw the boundaries too tightly, since natural resource management issues often intersect with other social, economic, and political issues.  Start by defining your objectives for network analysis.
• Remember that social networks go on forever, but research can’t.  It is important to tailor your research effort to your objectives in order to gain enough information, ensure the desired level of detail and validity, and to know when to stop. 
• Remember that all human have biases of some sort, based on their perceptions, experiences, and social location, and also people may not be entirely truthful or straightforward in all cases. Triangulation, i.e. the use of multiple methods and sources to cross-check data and improve the validity of results, should be used.

IV.  Examples of Social Network Analysis

Case studies explaining two situations where social network analysis has been employed as a primary research strategy are described below.  The first is a hypothetical case study that utilizes individual social network analysis to maximize the degree to which community residents participate in the decision-making process.  The second case study is an actual example of the use of social network analysis of organizations as a means to understand values and actions among key stakeholders within a community setting.  In each case, social network analysis is employed as a means to improve the collaborative process.

Example 1.  Maximizing Community Participation

Natural resource managers seeking community input on key decisions, often find that year after year, the same players show up to the public meetings and submit written comments on resource issues.  Many times attendees are representatives of stakeholder groups with a keen interest in the future of the resource.  Social network analysis can be an effective research tool to understand and map both the formal and informal social groups within a community.  By determining social group boundaries, resource managers may develop better ways to disseminate information and encourage participation in planning processes from diverse social groups.  The following is a hypothetical example demonstrating the use of social network analysis to illuminate social groups within a community.

The Problem

Janice Paley, District Ranger of the Euclid Ranger District was organizing a series of public meetings to encourage public input to the planning process that involved significant expansion of a ski area on National Forest land.  The expansion would increase the size of the ski area by 30 percent and would likely result in significant development in the nearby community of Thurston.  Like many western towns, Thurston has grown over the last 20 years from a small mining and ranching community of 200 residents to a small city of 4000.  Initial public hearings for the environmental impact study (EIS) on the ski area expansion brought in a similar set of players each time: developers, local business leaders, city officials, and environmental groups.  Hearing participants strongly favored the expansion, with the exception of environmental groups.  Yet, throughout the public input process, Paley’s staff reported encounters with Thurston residents reflecting vastly different views about the project than were being expressed in public meetings or in letters to the local newspaper.  She realized that she was not fully aware of the diversity of views in the community or of the variety of social groups that existed.  To maximize public input, she sought ways to establish information channels to reach diverse residents.

The Research Approach: Individual Social Network Analysis

Forest Service social scientist, Ellen Montoya, was asked to identify key social groups within Thurston, based on common interest, class, race, ethnicity, gender and geography.  Ellen employed an ethnographic approach and spent six weeks in Thurston engaged in individual social network analysis.  Her research approach involved the use of initial key informant interviews, with leaders of known organizations and institutions, including city officials, non-profit organizations, and civic groups.  She also interviewed business owners, religious leaders, teachers, social workers, and others with vast local knowledge.  The goal of these interviews was to become familiar with the formal organizations existing within the community, local history, geography, and social structure.  She also asked key informants to identify a wide range of residents who reflected the diversity of views found in the community.  Ellen employed a snowball sampling approach to expand her base of respondents and create a sample of participants for a second round of resident interviews.  Her survey instrument included demographic information about the respondent’s background, relation to the community, and their values, attitudes and uses of public lands.  She interviewed them about their involvement in community life and participation in formal and informal organizations.  She further asked respondents to identify residents in their core social group and to describe group characteristics, habits and relations.  Finally, she asked them to identify residents outside of their social group who shared different sets of values and views.

In addition to the interviews, Ellen also engaged in participant observation, attending local meetings and events and carefully noting the composition of participants.  Informal social encounters at gathering places, such as softball games and diners often led to formal interviews.  While respondent’s definitions of social groups varied, at the end of six weeks she was able to characterize a number of distinct groups in the community.  Using a computer-assisted qualitative analysis program, she mapped out 10 clusters of Thurston residents and pinpointed several overlaps in these clusters.  She assigned these clusters descriptive names and noted the social characteristics defining them, creating a ‘social map’ of Thurston. To test for reliability of this model, she held focus groups of Thurston residents to solicit their reactions to the ‘social map’ of the community.  After getting local input on the social map and making modifications and final adjustments, Ellen presented her model to the district ranger.

The Benefit

District Ranger Paley was able to utilize this social map to find ways to access Thurston residents who were not participating in the EIS process. She learned from Ellen, where these groups gathered, how they communicated, and what venues they felt most comfortable in.  She also learned something about their relative power and resources available to them.  This knowledge allowed Ranger Paley to develop an information and communication strategy that effectively encouraged public participation and, in doing so, broadened support for the efforts of the Ranger District.  The Euclid Ranger District developed a comprehensive outreach plan to encourage participation among various social groups and share information about the ski area expansion.  Ranger Paley then held a general public meeting and encouraged participation from a wide range of stakeholders and social groups to the planning process.  The social map produced by the social network analysis promoted greater collaboration between the Forest Service and the community in planning and decision-making.  These research tools allowed the District Ranger to increase public participation in for the ski area EIS, and to cultivate a pattern for widespread community involvement in future resource issues.

Example 2.  Understanding Stakeholders[1]

Managers of public lands often find themselves making resource decisions that directly affect adjacent communities.  Local involvement in planning processes is given high priority to ensure that agency decisions do not have adverse effects on the local economy, the environment, and community lifestyle.  In situations where community social groups represent vastly opposing interests, these management decisions can be difficult.  The following case study reflects an actual situation in which administrators in a National Forest sought improved knowledge about the social complexity of a community and the array of values and interests held by key community organizations.  Use of a social network analysis helped to recognize key stakeholders and identify both affiliations and affinities among community organizations.

The Problem

Nestled in Arizona’s 1.8 million-acre Coconino National Forest in a land of stunning red mesas and deep canyons lies Sedona.  Since 1950, Sedona has grown from a small community of homesteaders, ranchers, merchants, and loggers to a world-class tourist destination with a sizeable year-round population.  Over the 1980s and 1990s, Sedona attracted thousands of retirees, artists, outdoor enthusiasts, New Age practitioners, and tourism workers.  Throughout the 1990s, Forest Supervisor Fred Trevey sought ways to collaborate with Sedona residents in Forest-related planning.  He was particularly eager to gain deeper insight to the diversity of local values and how values shaped human actions and decisions. Because of rapid population growth and the proliferation of nearly 200 community organizations, it had become a management challenge for agency officials to establish linkages, given the plurality of agencies.

In 1994, Trevey asked a team of researchers at Northern Arizona University to conduct a study that would understand: (a) community values as expressed among existing organizations; (b) formal and informal social networks among organizations; and (c) organization responses to relevant National Forest issues.  Here, an organization was defined as a formal association of people sharing a sense of collective identity, common interests, activities, and common purpose.[2]  Groups involved in the study had official names, regular meeting times, officers, members, and by-laws to structure decision-making.  Examples of the types of community organizations in the study sample were: social clubs, business organizations, service organizations, environmental groups, political interest groups, housing associations, and religious societies.[3] The study would seek to unravel the increasing complexity of social organizations within Sedona by developing a social map of organizations for use as a guide to promote collaboration.

The Research Approach:  Social Network Analysis of Community Organizations

Two anthropologists at Northern Arizona University, Lee Cerveny and Walter Vannette conducted an ethnographically based social network analysis of Sedona organizations over a 4-month period.  The research incorporated a collaborative process and was conducted in three phases.  In Phase I, researchers developed a list of organizations using participant observation and archival research.  An advisory committee of Sedona residents isolated those 44 organizations most relevant to Forest Service concerns and which reflected diverse interests, values, and geographies. Phase II involved interviews with a sample of 28 organization leaders, who shared information about their organization’s history, mission, goals, and activities.[4]  They identified Forest-related issues most important to their organization and stated their group’s official position regarding each issue.  They also were asked to indicate partnerships and affiliations with other organizations.  Finally, they suggested specific ideas for collaboration with the Forest Service and stated their level of willingness to work with Forest Service officials.  In Phase III of the study, surveys and focus groups with Sedona residents further elucidated the relation between organizations and the community values they shared.  In addition, Phase III respondents prioritized those organizations that would work most effectively with the Forest Service in collaborative planning processes.

The Benefit

The report to Supervisor Trevey included several useful tools that would assist future collaborative efforts.  The social network analysis resulted in a social map that revealed linkages among organizations, and the relative strength of these ties.  The map depicted five organizations with the highest number of linkages, indicating that communication with these organizations would have widespread impact.  The map also demonstrated five distinct organization clusters consisting of groups that shared common values and interests.  It further noted pivotal organizations that provided linkages between clusters of somewhat disparate interests, (e.g., one organization served as the link between environmental and business organizations).  Pivotal organizations were seen as key for bridging interests of diverse groups.  In addition, an issue-based network analysis showed how various organizations affiliated around specific resource issues, suggesting stakeholders to be included in subsequent issue-specific planning efforts. 

Social network analysis helped Forest Service officials better understand the complexity of social organizations in Sedona and identify organizations best positioned to engage in collaboration with the Forest Service.  The report provided a blueprint for the development of an efficient communication and distribution strategy that would maximize Forest Service efforts to involve a wide range of community interests, increase the level of local involvement, and promote greater trust between Sedona organizations and the Forest Service. 

References and Resources:

John Schelhas, Southern Research Station, USDA Forest Service.  jschelhas@fs.fed.us

Lee Cerveny, Pacific Northwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service.  lcerveny@fs.fed.us

Acknowledgements:  The authors thank Joyce Casey, Fred Clark, Ellen Donoghue, Anne Hoover, Mark Hummel, and Cynthia Manning for comments on earlier drafts.

FINAL: 11/21/2002

[1] The reference for this example comes from Cerveny, L.K. and Vannette, W.M. (1994) A Cultural Context Study of the Red Rock Region:  Community Organizations and Environmental Perceptions.  Northern Arizona University.  Prepared for the USDA Forest Service, Coconino National Forest. March 1994.

[2] J. Peoples and G. Bailey 1988.  Humanity.  St Paul: West Publishing, pg. 45.

[3] The study did not include organizations such as government agencies, corporations, individual businesses, or other formal social groupings, but focused on civic, and voluntary organizations operating within the community setting.

[4] It was not possible to interview leaders of all 44 organizations due to time and budget constraints.