What Does “Meso Level” Mean? (Network) Theory and Applications for Life Course Studies

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Abstract

The aim of this presentation is to shed light on the notion of meso level to illustrate its relevance for life course studies. Looking at how people and groups are concretely tied, a network-based insight on meso level helps us to explain the intrinsic properties of social relationships (embeddedness, dual positioning and synchronization) and its function of mediation between micro-interactions and macro-structures. Our work enriches the “life course cube” toolbox with a blended “macro, meso, micro” model (so-called ANWS) that merges network theory and life course principles to explain the interdependencies among levels of social reality. Moreover, we discuss the fundamental issues and challenges to operationalize this unified conceptual framework contributing to the on-going integration between Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Life Course studies(LC). This work benefited from the support of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES – Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives, which is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number: 51NF40-160590).

Authors

• Mattia Vacchiano, Swiss National centre of Competence in Research LIVES

• Dario Spini, Swiss National centre of Competence in Research LIVES