Using Social Network Analysis to Map Chicago’s Black Artist-Educator Networks

• In Event: Remembering a Way Forward by Reclaiming the Past

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the use of social networking analysis (SNA) within the context of mapping complex histories of Chicago’s dense network of artists and educators in the historic Bronzeville neighborhood (1900-1975). Through analysis of this research data set, SNA provides possibilities to map multifaceted and often overlapping data that may otherwise be hard to understand through the written word alone. When paired with traditional qualitative analysis and supported by Black feminist theory, SNA becomes a radical option for visualizing histories of education that existed for artists often outside the boundaries of the traditional classroom.

Author

• Debra Anne Hardy, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee