Chapter 7
Marriage, Rank, and Seasonal Migration:
Fractality in Social Structure
Every society expresses and deals with competing principles. As in
many other societies, potentially competing principles in nomad society
present themselves most clearly in practice, namely, in concrete instances involving real kinship relations, marriage, and politics. Consequently,
we need to turn to actual cases and practices to see most clearly principles that are in place and how competing claims, including rank and
leadership, are negotiated or resolved.
For the nomad clan the principles of rank and equality are often in
conflict. Siblings and generations, for example, are ranked by seniority
among the Aydınlı. Families and spouses are in many specific situations
considered equals. These principles may also conflict: What if, for example, one marries someone (normally a tie of generational equality)
who is of a different genealogical or chronological generation? Resolutions of conflicting organizational positions and principles can work effortlessly (like same-generation marriage rules) or can produce slight or
notable ruptures of orderly relations. Factions and factionalism are a
product of the latter kind. They can be viewed in nomad society as a
breakdown in normal conflict resolution. From another perspective,
however, factionalism, like competition, invokes the emergence of a set
of rules or guides for disputants that provide flexible forms of conflict
resolution. Indeed, it is the flexibility in the levels and manipulable
boundary conditions that often result in the formation of factions and
raise questions of where potential mediators are located within them, and
that offer means of understanding their success as institutional practice.
This chapter, then, has something of the quality of a detective story.
Of necessity, it was constructed through analysis of the network data,
which called for clarification of ethnographic questions from Johansen at
various points, and then formulation of hypotheses that led to further
analyses. Finally, out of the network analyses came some definitive so-
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cial patterns that the ethnographer might not have seen or thought, a priori, to include in a general ethnography. Here network analysis enriches
the task of ethnographic study. Each of these more elaborate findings
from different stages of analysis related to the problems under study
were passed back to the ethnographer for commentary and integration
with her knowledge of the case study.
Equality and Rank
Competition for Social Rank and Feuding
In principle all nomad families are equal. Nomads, however, can become
rich within one generation if they have good luck with their herds,
slaughter rarely as was the common practice, and obtain some additional
income by cattle trading, transportation with their camels or, in the last
decades, tractor driving. They may become influential at the same time
by having many sons and marriage links, which help them to form a numerous and powerful block within the clan. This type of strategy for
herd increase or exceptional economic efforts produces an unstable balance in the standing of individuals and as between families. It is a reason
for the never-ending competition of the patriarchs and their lineages, already discussed.1 In this connection it could be also shown how the
modern propagation of birth control and monogamic marriage may be
rendered less meaningful in societies like the nomads, where family size
and ties also have considerable importance at this level.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, the most important factor contributing to social rank is the backing by a large group of related families. Early in her fieldwork Johansen was aware of the central role of
kinship in clan politics. She noticed the patriarchs’ permanently competing for a high position for their families in the social ranking whenever
members of different joint families met, watched by and silently backed
by the younger males. The boys and young men imitated the selfpraising and ambitious talks of their fathers when coming together in
their special circles. The women accepted this practice of their men’s
rhetorical capacities and occasionally showed their pride in being members of a high-ranking family whom they represented by keeping their
tents orderly, serving guests with the best a family could afford, and
showing full obedience to their men as long as members of other joint
families were present.
During Johansen’s first two stays shootings and ensuing blood-
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223
revenge sequences sometimes occurred. She observed four feuds up to
1964; in 1970, feuding had not altogether ceased, but there were no
feuds by 1982. Traditionally, the more distant the relation between the
parties, the more the feuding increased in severity and the larger the
group mobilized. She never saw any feuding within extended families or
lineages. Between the families of different lineages there were rare cases
of feuding, especially in matters of abductions or elopements of girls. In
the case of such feuding only the younger male relatives most closely
related to the two extended families in conflict were involved. Feuds between two clans or a clan and a village were important up to about 1980
(cf. Johansen 1995). The entire group of unmarried young men sometimes carried out feuds with other clans or their lineages.
Although feuds within the clan involved only the closest male relatives, it was of advantage in this situation to have at one’s disposal a
number of venerable elder men with unusually extensive relations to
other joint families and a large group of proud young people. Nobody
would show aggressiveness with any seriousness against the members of
such joint families and their closest allies. To settle disputes within this
group by mediation was correct behavior. In contrast, compliance in cases of offenses from nonrelatives was looked at as cowardice on the part
of young men, and a shame for the family. This is the same general context in which newcomers to the clan such as #8 and #9 had been eager to
organize intermarriages as soon as possible.
Barth’s Model of Nomad Dynamics
Barth (1953:72) explains the dynamics of southern Kurdish tribal social
structure, akin to that of the Aydınlı nomads, as a result of the lack of
coercive means for leadership in an egalitarian nomadic society, as diagrammed in Figure 7.1. Leaders of small tight kinship groups such as
lineage segments are present, but they derive their leadership from informal support. The tight kinship groups remain small through fission
due to the limited and dispersed resources of nomadism, similar to our
argument in Chapter 4. These groups are tightly linked through a preference for close marriage within the agnatic group, such as with a FBD
lineage-mate. With no coercive means of leadership, feud is the main
expression of power. Feuding reinforces the preference for FBD marriage, which cycles back in a positive feedback loop to reinforce lineage
solidarity. Figure 7.1 expands on Barth’s diagram, including selected
additional elements. His model also stresses that the combination of
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224
power relations subject to manipulation, combined with political units
defined by agnatic links, reinforce the political emphasis on FBD marriage from more than a preference to a highly frequent form of marriage.
Figure 7.1: Barth’s Nomad Dynamics (family and lineage level)
Agnatic links define
political units
Patrilocal residence
Male husbandry of
small animals, camels
Close,
tight kin
group
Fission
Leader has/needs
no coercive means
Small
Feud the main expression of power
Pfd. marriages are
FBD politically,
close agnates
Broader integration is weak
Competitive power
relations subject to
manipulation
Broader integration
through marriages
Non-agnate marriages link broadly
Negotiations and Choice at Marriage
Bride Payments and the FBD
The lineage, clan, and tribal level dynamics in the type of pastoral nomadism that the Aydınlı and Kurds (Barth 1953) have in common is applicable to understanding FBD marriage among the Aydınlı and is consistent with our hypotheses in Chapter 4. When Johansen began her
work with the nomads on their genealogies she already knew that the
right to marry the FBD marriage was widely distributed among the Islamic peoples of the Middle East, and she was not surprised to find this
right and preference in southeastern Anatolia too. Indeed cousin marriages were quite common, but it did not always have to be first cousins
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
225
and cousins from the side of the young man’s father. Some facts that
emerge from the ethnography of Aydınlı nomads bear on theoretical arguments regarding FBD marriage.
The initiative of Aydınlı marriage negotiations was always taken by
the family of the groom—officially his father and his father’s brothers—
though there usually had been unofficial contacts between the women of
both families long before, especially in the cases of cousin-marriages.
These were looked upon favorably, but the choice of a bride was subject
to many coincidences, for example, who were the neighboring families
in the recent summer and winter camps, and the feelings of the groom, of
course.
The negotiations dealt first of all with the kalın, the price the groom’s
family had to pay (bride payments), and the ceyiz, the dowry of the
bride.2 These negotiations stretched over weeks with ample bargaining
for the price even if the two families agreed to the marriage in principle
because it was a shame for the girl, and for her family, to be handed over
without hesitation. In the case of exchange of two girls the procedure
was easier because there was no bargaining about the price, although the
girls were still equipped with dowries by their own families.
Weddings were celebrated with great expenditures. The entire lineages of the bride and the groom and all neighbors were invited. Mostly
the groom’s family paid the enormous costs of such a three-daywedding. Its splendor and the high rank of the guests showed the prestige of the family and together with the bride payments and wedding presents often has a value equivalent to two to four years of family income.
Bride payments themselves, for example, if delivered in animals, might
easily come to twenty goats, which when they multiply to 120 can provide a living, so that twenty can provide a significant portion of one’s
income.
The great efforts and expenditure connected with a marriage were
one of the reasons that couples had to keep together after marriage. They
were under stress to do so from the sides of both families, who had the
will and means to enforce compliance to retain their respective bride
payments and dowry. The family of the bride was also interested in the
marriages lasting because the kalın was often already spent for the marriage of a brother of the bride and could not easily be restored if the
young woman ran away from her new family without a very serious reason. Thus divorces were relatively rare in the earlier generations although Islam allows men to divorce their wives. After 1982, when bride
payments fell more and more out of fashion, the number of divorces rose
accordingly. Only a girl’s first wedding was celebrated in its most ex-
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pensive form.
If a divorced wife or a widow married again, only the next relatives
and/or neighbors were invited. An animal was sacrificed and eaten and a
sura from the Qur’an recited and the woman thereafter secured her bed
at the side of her new spouse. If the widow or divorcée came from another lineage there had to be paid only a considerably reduced kalın for a
young woman and she received only small presents. The groom himself,
not his father, had to pay the bride payments for a second marriage. Because this was money he had earned personally, a man had more independent choice in this case, and he could be more influenced by personal
love, not by family or lineage decisions. Thus second wives came more
often from outside the clan.
In the case of elopement the wedding and bride payment was also
made in reduced form.3 Females can have only one spouse and their marriages are always arranged with the only exception that of elopements. If
a young man and his friends organized his first marriage in the form of
elopement (with the cooperation of the girl, of course), his father had to
pay the kalın even when he had originally spoken that he did not consent. The father as a Muslim was looked at as being responsible that his
son was sexually satisfied, married at the proper age, and not drawn to
sexual intercourse outside marriage, considered sinful. Moreover, members of a family stand together and thus the father might grumble about
an elopement without his consent but publicly keep solidarity with his
son. Normally sons did not talk with their fathers about their love, but
the fathers obviously anticipated elopements, which usually followed an
official request for the girl that got a negative answer.
If a widow marries the younger brother of her late husband, no kalın
is paid. If she marries a non relative of her late husband or remarries after divorce, or in a case of elopement, a considerably reduced kalın is
paid. The amount depends on the negotiations of the father of the woman
and in the case of a widow also with the first father-in-law. Although
there are many special circumstances and negotiations, kalın payments
may be ranked accordingly:4
(++) bride payment is high for a first or virgin wife, the father pays.
(+) bride payment is medium for elopement, paid by the father, and
for a second wife, paid by the groom.
(-) bride payment is lower for a widow or divorcée, the groom pays.
(0) no bride payment for a widow if she marries the (usually younger)
brother of her late husband.
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227
The quantities and obligations for payment of the bride payments for a
woman, noting that for a second wife the man is considerably older, are
roughly ordered according to how the strength and cohesiveness of ties
between the groups is enhanced, including potential enhancement by the
fertility of the bride. The last item in the list does not create a new tie
(the husband has died) and fits the ordering. The pictorial representation
in Figure 7.2 is also meant to convey that relationships of different tiestrength might also give rise to different levels of cohesion in groups
linked by marriage. At the center, the bride payments for first and virgin
wives are highest, and they are paid by the father. The bride payments
for elopements are substantial but lower and paid by the father. Those
for widows or divorcées in some circumstances are much lower and paid
by the groom if they are his second wife. The moral economy of tiestrength is consistent with Barth’s model of how FBD marriages increase solidarity within the lineage.
Although Johansen did not do a quantitative study of the amounts of
bride payments, we may note from Bates’s study (1973:62) that the
amount of bride payment for FBD marriages in a neighboring Yörük
clan are more often in the upper than the lower quartiles as compared
with other cousin marriages (p=.02). This may well be the case among
the Aydınlı. It may also be the case that because extended families can
fission so quickly (given the small size of the household production unit)
the reinforcement of solidarity even among the closest of agnatic kin is
important, as with FBD marriage.
Figure 7.2: Tie-Strength Spheres Reflected in Bride Payments
Key:
-
+
++
as above, see text
Because the mothers-in-law have to be together with the young women
after marriage, while men were off pasturing, managing the herds or fulfilling other tasks in daytime (and in the hottest period even at night),
they had a lively interest in arranging matches and they were the ones
who made the proposals about the choice of a bride to their husbands
and explored the feelings of their sons. Women were often inclined to
take a girl of their family of descent into account. If there existed good
experiences with one young woman and a firm relationship to her family
of orientation, her mother-in-law and her mother were inclined to pro-
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pose the marriage of another daughter to the younger brother of the
young husband, and the sisters would always welcome the common
household. In such marriages the brothers were called by the term bacanak (sister-related, bacı=sister), a Turkish term for sons-in-law to the
same father-in-law (see Stirling 1965:173).
Exchange marriages were of special importance and were frequent
within and between lineages. The larger context of exchange of women
between different patri-extended families is important for understanding
the puzzle of the FBD marriages that occur within them. Also important
was the fact that exchange of daughters and nullification of payments
was another means of getting a good partner for one’s son, and could be
used if difficulties were met to defray the bride payments.
Marriage Exchange
To examine the link between lineages, inheritance, wealth, bride payment, and exchange it is useful to define the concept of wealth-assets as
it applies in an ethnographic context. To be analytically useful for the
study of exchange (Bell 2002:16-17), a wealth-asset must (a) possess a
capacity to grow in value, number, or size, (b) generate a flow of consumption benefits to those holding the rights to the wealth-asset, (c) be
scarce in the sense that marginal increases in its growth must have a positive valuation and not constitute a surplus for which there is motivation
for disposal, and (d) “be exploitable over an indefinite time horizon by a
multi-generation group, linked by inheritance rules, that holds rights to
its accumulation over that horizon” (Bell), or by functional equivalents
such as corporate shareholding. Nonmarket wealth is the basis for corporate lineage formation and wealth-assets typically circulate in different
spheres of exchange from those of nonwealth items (consumables). This
terminology can be used to address the question of whether transfers of
property at marriage from the husband’s to the wife’s group should be
termed bride wealth (which implies that what is transferred qualifies as
wealth) or bride price (which might be used to imply that what is transferred are not wealth-assets but money or consumption goods). In many
cases in which these kinds of transfers apply, however, the same item,
such as animals, may be scarce and qualify as a wealth-asset at one time
period but may be plentiful at another time period and qualify as a consumption good. Hence, we prefer to use the term bride payment, which
may or may not involve a transfer of wealth-assets at marriage.
Women, in a given situation during the transition period from maid-
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229
enhood to marriage, may or may not share the attributes of wealth-assets:
(a) fecundity may be valued as a source of children and growth of a lineage, (b) if the lineage holds rights to children certain benefits may follow
from their labor contributions (e.g., as shepherds) as a source of consumption goods to the lineage, (c) marginal increases in having more
children may have a positive valuation, and (d) the lineage as a multigeneration group may hold and transfer certain rights to its women (e.g.,
the transfer of a wife of a deceased lineage member to a brother) and
children (e.g., provision for inheritance by children and their continued
affiliation with the lineage even after the death of parents). Not all but
some of the circulation of wives in marriage, then, may involve women
as wealth-assets to a lineage. This does not entail diminishing wives’ status because women are themselves lineage members in this situation;
they accrue rights such as inheritance of lineage property, as in most Islamic societies; they may bring property to their marriage in the form of
dowry; and they may be heavily involved themselves in arranging the
marriages of other women.
Given that a woman may constitute (and constitute herself, that is, as
a positive attribute rather than a state to which she is subjected) as a
wealth-asset, certain marriages may come to involve the exchange of
wealth-assets. This may take two forms, as we have seen: (case 1) the
transfer of a bride from A to B and counter transfer of a bride payment
from B to A, where A and B are family or lineage subunits; and (case 2)
the exchange of brides as between two lineages, two extended families,
or two families within the same extended family, which in all cases involve the annulment of any need for bride payment. As for case 1, the
existence of bride payments for FBD argues for exchange in these marriages as well, contra the arguments of Bourdieu (1972) reviewed in
Chapter 4.
Case 2 involves the highest sphere of exchange involving marriage
transfers, the exchange of two brides between families, in which marriage payments are nullified. Reexamining Figure 7.2, we might code the
exchange of virgin brides in this case within the diagram as (+++). Further, as each bride brings her dowry to the marriage, they enhance the
status of each bride, constituting herself as a wealth-asset through her
fecundity. She is also an independent holder and source of consumption
goods for her new nuclear family through her labor and her property, including dowry.
Marriage Choice and the Extended Family
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Chapter 7
We do not agree with Cole (1984:182), who observed a favoring of
cousins similar to that of the Aydınlı for matches of the Al-Murrah Bedouins and gave an ordered list of marriage preferences among which a
family chooses a bride for a young man. Johansen‘s experience was that
the choice was much more occasional and that such a list is again a result of the inclination of anthropologists to make streamlined models of
the behavior of the group members under study, ones that make for acknowledgment by their colleagues but fall short of the factually evident
intentions of the people involved. How, for example, did Cole determine
his list of the preference order in types of marriage partners? Was he
simply looking at the frequency of observed behavior, and inferring that
the most frequent marriages observed are also the most preferred? Can
we not get closer to the thoughts and actions of the Aydınlı than by such
an oversimplified assumption? Part of the advantage of the methods presented here is to overcome these kinds of shortcomings, once so common in anthropology, and that have also dissuaded many contemporary
researchers of the value of kinship studies altogether.
What the nomads themselves told Johansen about preferential cousin
marriages sounded much less formal and more common sensical than
most anthropologists’ writings on the Middle East. They told her that
one must try to get a bride for one’s son from a family near to one’s own
family. It should be a girl whom one has observed for a long time, which
provides the opportunity to know her character, to know that she will become a skilled, diligent and obedient new member of the family. Moreover, cousins already know the members of their new families and their
habits, which may help them to accommodate easily to special family
traditions.
This view is understandable when taking into consideration that there
existed the rule of patrilocal residence and that extended families lived
together in a tent of 50-80 square meters. The women worked together
the whole day. There was no escape from this close togetherness, and
disputes might have easily happened if the women were not already
comfortable with each other. As another means to avoid quarrels with
the newcomer in a time of accommodation, the custom existed that a
young wife did not speak to anybody with the sole exception of the other
daughters-in-law and the daughters, who shared her hard fate, respectively, or soon would do so in another family, and their husbands, who
had to purchase her speaking by a valuable present—golden jewelry or a
peace of cattle—on the wedding night. The men and the mother-in-law
never heard her voice if they did not buy her speaking, each of them, by
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231
a valuable present of the same kind as the husband’s, which usually happened soon after the birth of her first son. After having given birth to
children, especially sons, however, they not only broke the silence and
talked with their new relatives but also became more and more integrated and tended to abandon their ties to their lineage, clan, or tribe of
origin, if different.
Women thus came as strangers into their new families at marriage,
unless they were already of the same lineage. Women from outside were
over time, however, increasingly looked at as female members of the
clan. The important men in the course of a woman’s life, who fought for
the rights of the women during quarrels, shifted from father, to brothers,
and finally to their sons. In contrast to Bates’s (1973:69) study of a
neighboring Yörük clan, Johansen witnessed that it was her husband
who punished his young wife for adultery, not her brother, but he obtained the consent of her brother. A woman’s affiliation was a sort of
sliding into membership with normal marriage, not a question of a lifelong either/or, as many male ethnographers have experienced and as theoretical works on the Middle East often assume, for example, Keyser
(1974:307) and Holy (1989: 122ff.), although that exclusiveness might
hold for different lineage memberships within the clan. Over time a wife
is incorporated more and more into the husband’s family. Family and
clan identities often override those of lineage.
Beginning with the 1970s the habit of the young women’s silence
vanished. Elopements came to be more common. Cousins were rarely if
ever forced to elope as the FBD right spilled over to a presumptive right
to cousins generally; elopement became necessary for a young couple in
love when the parents of the girl were not willing to agree to the marriage, expressing their disagreement often by the demand of unpayably
high bride payments. Elopements were more often between nonrelated
couples, even between nomads and farmers, who may first have met in
the school (cf. Bates, who did fieldwork with a more sedentary group,
1973:73,86; 1974). Females can have only one spouse (unless their husband dies) and their marriages are always arranged with the exception of
elopements only.
Meeting a Potential Spouse in the Circle of Families,
Enlarged through Close Ties of Reciprocal Exchange
Closeness of Ties
Aydınlı statements about marriage choice, such as “one must try to get a
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bride for one’s son from a family near to one’s own family,” bear further
examination. Ethnographers often report that potential brides are encountered on the basis of close ties, such as those acquired through visiting patterns. Obviously not everyone can marry a close relative, a lineage mate, or a FB son or daughter. Further, as we showed in Chapter 4,
even if every man were to manage to marry a FBD marriage, the repetition of such marriages generates diverse connections between spouses
that are not all of the same kind (Figure 4.6). Bates (1973:61,63) emphasizes this point for the neighboring Yörük clan.5 Two FBD marriages
among the children of sororal marriages with brothers, for example, generates MZD marriage, but the relationship between spouses takes a compound form. Compounds also happen when two FBD marriages are arranged for the sons of two brothers. This generates sister exchange. A
compound marriage is one in which one marriage is generative of the
other by the diversity generating properties illustrated in Figure 4.6. We
can ask, for example: How many FBD marriages are also sister exchanges? How many sister exchanges are within the same lineage? How many
MZD marriages are within the context of FBD marriages of their parents? How many MZD marriages are within the same lineage? Compound marriage patterns of these different types are also ones that the
Aydınlı consider “comfortable” in terms of marrying close kin or reinforcing kinship and marriage ties in multiple ways.
Closeness, in sum, must be considered a relative term, a kind of
weighted preference rather than a specific marriage rule. This opens several lines of inquiry: How is closeness extended through network linkages and through visiting patterns? These two aspects of interaction patterns may be mutually reinforcing or to some extent cross-cutting, one
extending the other.
How Are Close Marriages Attained?
One very general idea as to how “closeness” of association is attained is
the network neighborhood model: in a network with this characteristic
(1) close ties are formed through reciprocity, (2) chains of reciprocal ties
are formed, and (3) some chains are extended through weak transitivity,
others form clusters or transitive triples of close ties, and others lacking
transitivity link the clusters.6 For example, lineage A gives a bride to B
and B reciprocates a bride to A: the close tie between lineages establishes the first element of the model. The second comes about when a chain
of close ties is formed, for example, A to B and B to C (both reciprocat-
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233
ed). Weak transitivity requires only a significantly increased probability
that lineages A and C, compared to an average pair of lineages, will form
a tie, whether or not it is reciprocated. Strong transitivity may also occur,
in which A and C form a reciprocated tie. In societies where the network
model applies to marriages, as Lévi-Strauss might have expressed the
transitivity principle, affines of affines tend to become affines.
Hypothesis 7.1: Aydınlı marriages are characterized by the network neighborhood model.
This hypothesis also entails that the Aydınlı are one of those societies
for which the local clustering density of marriages between lineages is
greater when the links between groups involve reciprocated exchanges
of brides.7 That is, if the ties of A with B and C are reciprocated (B to A,
C to A), then B and C are more likely to have a marital alliance. Recall
from the small world model that local clustering density is measured by
the extent to which each pair of marital allies of a family or lineage, such
as ego’s lineage with those of alter 1 and alter 2, are themselves allies. In
the network neighborhood model local clustering density should correlate with the weak transitivity of reciprocated ties: where there exists an
A-B-C chain of reciprocated ties, A and C are more likely to intermarry,
either asymmetrically or reciprocally.
Hypothesis 7.1 is not true of all societies, and differences across societies in the network structure of marriage alliances are of considerable
interest and importance for differences in the organization of cooperative
and competitive ties. In societies with dual matrimonial organization, for
example, an affine of an affine is concatenated with ego into one of the
opposing and intermarrying groups, so that marriage links between
groups cannot be transitive.
The first thing we look for in models of network neighborhood is the
means by which marriage itself, like friendship or acquaintanceship,
might come to define a close relation between families. Family relations,
especially affinal ones, may be quite brittle, with potential disputes over
formal requirements, such as the repayment of the bride payments if the
wife deserts the husband, or if tensions occur between the bride and
groom or between their families, which is usually the case with elopements. We have also seen, however, that exchange marriages, in which
two families each provide brides for the other, involve less formality in
the sense that the requirements for bride payment are bypassed because
it is regarded that the exchange is equal. Certainly, this doubling of marriage ties, which is also much favored among Aydınlı nomads, would
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seem likely to entail that each family is aware of and friendly with the
other, more likely to visit back and forth, and hence more likely to form
close ties.
The second possibility that we look for in a model of network neighborhood is whether and to what extent, when close ties exist (like symmetric marriage exchange between families), they are more likely to be
transitive, as with a friend of a friend becoming a friend: members of the
circle of a family’s “close ties” are also more likely to become familiar
with one another, to encounter each other in the context of their common
ally, and eventually to get to know one another, perhaps visit each other
independently, and to foster the conditions (or purposefully arrange) for
their children to marry.
In a society such as the Aydınlı, in which young women are closely
circumscribed by their kin, the weak transitivity of close (reciprocated)
ties through marriage is a much needed route to enlarging the pool of potential spouses within the group, without counting on random encounters.
Analysis 7: Local Clustering and Curvature in
Network Neighborhoods
The network neighborhood hypothesis (7.1) is consistent with the progress anthropologists have made in understanding the evolution of reciprocity in human sociality (Boyd and Richerson 1988, Boyd, Gintis,
Bowles, and Richerson 2003). Contemporary views on the importance of
social reciprocity are consistent with the hypotheses we put forward
here. Our concern with the network structure of reciprocity leads us to
two further measures of network structure that have to do directly with
the transition and reciprocity of social ties.
The clustering coefficient (local clustering) for a network (e.g., Watts
and Strogatz 1998) measures the extent to which, for each node in a
network, others tied to it are themselves connected. Granovetter’s (1973)
famous “strength of weak tie” hypothesis distinguishes between strong
(frequent, close) and weak (occasional, distant) and argues that local
clustering and hence transitivity among those connected to ego tends to
be high for strong ties, while weak ties add span to a network and are
typically less transitive.8 These tendencies are complemented by the
network neighborhood model above that emphasizes situations in which
chains of strong ties need not be strictly transitive and can bridge local
clusters.
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235
Reciprocal marriage exchange is our indicator of strong ties between
families or lineages, and we hypothesize that nonreciprocated marriage
alliances, although balanced by bride payment, are weaker ties that reciprocal ones. Ties of reciprocal marriages between Aydınlı groups
should be higher in closeness and trust as compared to one-directional
marriage links offset by exchange of bride payments (not to be confused
with the ++, + and – distinctions in Figure 7.2).9
Curvature is a measure for each node in a network of the extent to
which others tied to it reciprocally—or strongly—are themselves connected. It is a strong-tie clustering coefficient that measures local clustering and transitivity for strong ties among those so connected to ego.
Curvature captures an important feature of a social network: reciprocity
is a crucial indicator of mutual recognition, of the presence of agency in
building alliances, and hence of the closeness of ties. For this reason the
clustering of reciprocal ties is far more likely to capture the phenomena
that lead to the formation of cliques or larger clusters of ties.
Curvature builds on Granovetter’s hypothesis that strong interactive
ties—ones that are both frequent and reciprocally reinforced—are likely
to be transitive and to form cliques or clusters. Eckmann and Moses
(2002) use the curvature measure (density of ties among those linked by
reciprocity to each node in a network) to define the local curvature of
the network at each node, and to study network topology: How are local
curvatures clustered in larger neighborhoods within the network? If curvature is a better measure for detecting the emergence of larger clusters
in a network then the distribution of nodes that are linked and that have
high curvature will give a better sense of the continuous topology of the
network. We employ the measure of curvature to study the topology of
Aydınlı nomad marriage networks.
Figure 7.3 gives a visual test of Hypothesis 7.1 about the cooccurrence of symmetric exchanges at the dyadic level and the concomitant higher density of marriage ties predicted in the network neighborhood of each Aydınlı family. For marriages between maximal lineages
with five or more members (scaled according to presence/absence of
marriages) the figure shows solid lines for reciprocal bride exchanges
and dotted arrows for one-way giving of brides. Where marriages mutually reciprocate between lineages, the arrows do not reciprocate. Three
locally transitive network neighborhoods of strong ties are evident but
there are also nontransitive chains of strong ties. Mustan’s lineage (#2)
is the point of overlap between all three of these neighborhood clusters.
The node labels of Figure 7.3 show the ID number of the highest ancestor of each lineage followed by the lineage number and then the size
Chapter 7
236
indicator for the lineage, for example, 409#8:20 for lineage #8, with
twenty married males. The structure of intermarriages in the figure can
thus be checked against those in Figures 2.2 through 2.5. The genealogy
in Figure 2.2, for example, shows reciprocal marriages between lineages
#4 and #6. Two segments of lineage #1 were included and #10 omitted
inadvertently but these particular errors make little difference to the analysis.
Figure 7.3: Reciprocal and Directed Bride-Giving between Lineages
14 #9:5
H
409
409
Deveci Ali
Oksüz Yusuf
(emigrated in early times)
98 #1:9
19
1927
Fa of Yusuf (1926)
and Ismaıl (1381)
Koca 1228
122
Mustafa
Mehmet
Koca bey
224
1437
193
0
Fa of
Yusuf (436)
and
Abbas (Mustan’s lineage)
507
1149
Ismaıl (98)
Kırbaşı
Fa of Ecevitli
Network Neighborhoods with Curvature
The sizes of nodes in Figure 7.3 reflect the clustering coefficient (for
strong and weak ties) for each node. For a given lineage, it is calculated
as the proportion of pairs of marriage allies of that lineage (to which
brides have been given) that are themselves marriage allies. The measure
is zero for nodes that lack two outgoing arrows or edges (the white circles: lineages #8 and #9), and indeed these are the two most marginal
lineages, #8 being the descendants of the immigrant shepherd who affiliated with #5, like the descendants of #9 who affiliated with the more important lineage #1. For nodes with two or more outgoing arrows or edg-
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
237
es, the measure takes values between one (the black nodes) and zero.
Node 858#3, for example, is a black node and has a neighborhood density of one because it has four marriage allies and all are allies of one another. Lineages #1, #2, #5, and #7 are all allied in a cluster of reciprocal
exchanges of brides, but they also have weak alliances with other lineages, getting or giving wives but not reciprocating the exchange of wives
with them, and their indices of local clustering density are intermediate
because many of these weaker allies are not in turn allies of each other.
Intermediate density is a characteristic of central nodes that have broad
span but lower local clustering density in their network neighborhoods
because their ties are spread so widely. Note, however, that in the core of
the network linked by reciprocal marriage alliances, every one of the major lineages is only one or two steps away from the others in terms of
strong and locally dense linkages. Figure 7.3, however, is still incomplete as a test of hypothesis 7.1 because it renders only whether there are
marriages or exchanges but not how many.
The hypothesis of network neighborhoods (7.1) is confirmed in the
visual pattern of Figure 7.3 given that there are a considerable number of
strong-tie chains (A to B to C) that are not transitive at the strong-tie
level and that these chains are often transitive at the level of weak ties.
Other factors are also relevant to differences in local clustering density at
the level of individual lineages. To have high local clustering a lineage
needs to be isolated, separate, or embedded in some way. This is true at
one end of the continuum for lineage #3, dependent on close allies because of its small size and lacking the wealth or leadership status to reach
out broadly in its marriage patterns. It is true at the other end of the continuum for the more remote sheepherding lineages (#6 and formerly #4).
Among the remaining lineages, those in leadership positions or their
strong allies tend to have the medium local (network neighborhood) clustering density that is typical of broad span in a network. Very marginal
lineages heavily engaged in emigration (#7), having exited through migration (#9), or immigration, having arrived from a village origin with
very weak ties to their major sponsors (#8), might be expected to have
very low or minimum local clustering density as their marriage ties are
likely to be haphazardly spread around the network.
A summary of these characteristics is given in Table 7.1, which
shows for each numbered lineage the clustering and curvature indices
(the former in qualitative terms, the latter as a coefficient that varies
from 0 to 100). The associated network patterns and attributes such as
alliance and leadership patterns will be discussed later. Lineage #10 was
inadvertently omitted in the figures and table although they intermarried
Chapter 7
238
with lineages #2 and #7.
Table 7.1 Local Clustering Density and Lineage Attributes
Lineage
#5
#4
#6
#9
#1
#1
#7
#8
#2
#3
Clustering
and Curvature
Medium
87
Maximum 100
Maximum 100
Medium**
0
Medium
100
Minimum
0
Medium
100
Minimum*
0
Medium
60
Maximum 100
Network Pattern
(So.=Southern)
Tribal wives
Tribal wives
Traditional
Traditional
Educated (So.)
Emigrate (So.)
Emigrate (So.)
Emigrate (So.)
Mediators
Emigrate (So.)
Attributes
wealthy/influential early on
wealthy-sheep/separate/influential
marginal/became sheepherders
political allies of influential #1
get wealthy allied to #2/influential
marginal/exited through migration
marginal/many emigrated earlier
marginal
most central/relinking/influential
very small/dependent
*Affiliated with lineage #5 at a time when it had decreased in wealth
** Affiliated with lineage #1 at a time when it was large and important
The Lowland-Highland Continuum
In many rural societies, there is a continuum from more remote subgroups to those more connected into the larger national networks in
which connections and differences between subgroups vary along the
continuum. This suggests a topological hypothesis about the overall
shape of the marriage alliance networks. An analysis and scaling of
proximities between lineages based on the statistical tendencies toward
intermarriage would reveal more about the topology of the network. The
following hypothesis suggests the form this topology should take given
that the Aydınlı tend to migrate north to summer pastures and back to
southern lowlands in multiple routes far off the highway.
Hypothesis 7.2: The topology of Aydınlı nomad marriage networks tends to have one major dimension of variation, along a
lowland-highland continuum.
Figure 7.4 uses a different version of the data used to draw Figure 7.3,
which used a Pajek automatic drawing with the option to minimize line
length but without differentiating strength of lines. Here, instead the
strength or weakness of ties is measured, by their departure from the frequencies of intermarriages expected by statistical independence. Those
lines representing frequencies greater than expected by chance are
shown by the heavier lines, with thickness proportional to the statistical
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
239
significance of the excess over expected frequency.10 These tend to form
a bowl-shaped scaling of nodes. The more-frequent-than-chance reciprocal links along the perimeter of the bowl tend to form chains that are
transitive not over longer distances but within more compact linearly organized neighborhoods. Those links that occur less commonly than expected by chance, given the total distribution of marriages, are rendered
as the lighter lines. The automated drawing option used to scale the figure uses weights on the edges, with the lighter dotted edges that represent negative weights spreading nodes apart and connecting the more
distantly related nodes along the bowl-shaped structure. The outer perimeter of the bowl thus represents a one-dimensional topology of the
marriage network, consistent with Hypothesis 7.2.
Figure 7.4: Reciprocal and Directed Bride-Giving, Lineages Scaled
2248#5:96
1149
1930
507
:68
#9:
95
409
#8:20
5
1437
1228
98 #1:
19
1927
The linearity of the marriage distances between lineages in the scaled
Figure 7.4, along the semicircular outer rim of the scaling that reflects
marriage ties that occur more frequently than expected by chance, is
consistent with Hypothesis 7.2 of a scaling continuum on endogamous
marriages that reflects an ordering of the lineages from highland to lowland following the network patterns listed in Table 7.1. The lineages in
that table are ordered identically to Figure 7.4: from #5 and #4 on the
right of the semicircle, the lineages more frequently married to tribal
wives (highland oriented), to the series #1-7-8-2-3 moving from center to
far left of the semicircle, which are the lineages that more frequently emigrate to the southerly villages (listed as “So.” in Table 7.1) and are thus
more lowland oriented.
The study of exogamous marriages was not part of Johansen’s re-
240
Chapter 7
search plan. In her collection of census and genealogical data, however,
she systematically distinguished nomads from villagers and townspeople
and in cases in which nomads married outsiders she always wrote down
the names of the tribes, villages, or towns that her informants mentioned.
The places mentioned were not exact locations, such as hamlets or outskirts of a given village, but the names of villages nearby where a spouse
had come from. This was a common pattern for locational identifiers because many of the people whom the nomads married came from the families of former nomads who had settled near villages or towns but not in
the town or village center. Although not all informants listed where people were from or where they emigrated, the data that she did collect allow the testing, even if imperfectly, of the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 7.3: The scaling continuum of Aydınlı lineages in
terms of endogamous marriage alliances (as in Figure 7.4) is also
reflected in differential rates of marriage to external groups ordered from highland to lowland, with exogamous marriage to
those living near more remote villages or from other tribes at one
pole and exogamous marriage to those living near more central villages, towns, and cities at the other.
If this hypothesis holds, we have three sources of congruent support for a
highland-lowland orientation continuum among the lineages: (a) from
Table 7.1, rates of emigration to the southerly lowlands versus marriage
with highland tribal members, (b) the scaling pattern of Figure 7.4 that
reflects rates of intermarriage between lineage members that are greater
than expected by chance, and (c) spatial patterns of the distribution of
spouses for exogamous marriages.
Table 7.2 tests hypothesis 7.3 by tabulating lineage and geographic
origin of the spouse for exogamous marriages. It correlates the scaling of
interlineage marriages with the geographic origin of spouses from outside. Although systematic data collection on exogamous marriages was
not part of Johansen’s research plan, forty-eight persons considered by
informants to be villagers or townspeople residing outside the clan were
not identified by naming a nearby village or town as place of origin. Johansen did not ask for locational data unless it was offered. Table 7.2
gives geographical location data for thirty-four persons for whom information was volunteered that White was able to use to identify geographical location.11 In toto, Johansen wrote down locational identifiers for
fifty-four spouses but not for another forty-eight, so these data are about
53% complete. We consider that a sufficient sample for analysis. Although there might be some bias in the names written down, there is suf-
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
241
ficient data for testing Hypothesis 7.3.
Table 7.2: Exogamous Marriages in More Recent Times Ordered
from Distant Lowlands (K) to Proximal Highlands (V) and other
Tribes (W) Correlated with Scaling Order of Lineage According to
Endogamous Marriages
Spouse
Ego’s
From:
Lineage
KL Kurdish, Distant
M Kırıkhan
N Adana (Misis)
O Osmaniye Town +
P Imamoğlu Köy
Q Kara Tepe Köy
R Kadirli Town ++
S Kozan Town
T Saimbeyli Town
U Tufanbeyli Köy
V by summer camp
W Other Tribes
#3 #2
Ecevitli
3
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
2
1
4*
3
1
1
22
#7
#1
#6
#4
1
#5
#10
9
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
2
1
1
4
4
1
9
+ Kırmacılı Köy
++ Eyüp Köy
* Eski Mantaş Köy (3), Orta Köy (1)
There is a moderate correlation (tau-b=.27, gamma=.38) that is statistically significant at 1 in a thousand (p=.0006) by chance alone between
the order of lineages from the scaling in Figure 7.4 (endogamous marriages rates), given in the column labels of Table 7.2, and the geographical ordering of places of origin of spouses in exogamous marriages in
the rows of Table 7.2. Examining the frequencies in the cells of the table, we can see that the correlation is not linear but rather a constraint
relationship: The more remotely oriented lineages (#4, #5, and #9) have
only remote ties while the less remotely oriented lineages have exogamous marriages with a fuller range of outside villages or towns or hamlets on the peripheries of cities. Marriages with families living near
towns or cities are mostly with families of former nomads who have settled in villages or on the urban peripheries, such as Misis as a village 30
km east of Adana, or Eyüp Köy (=village) as an outlier of Kadirli town.
The ordering of places runs from distant (Kurdish, Kırıkhan) or lowlands
(Adana, Osmaniye, Imamoğlu) to the northern highlands paralleling the
242
Chapter 7
routes to the winter pastures. It ends with marriages with other mountain
nomad tribes.
Table 7.3 repeats the cross-tabulation of Table 7.2 for each historical
generation for which we have data on place-names. In the earliest generation (d) we have only marriages with other tribes, except for one marriage into the Kadirli area. In generations e, f, and gh (combining g with
the one case in h) the exogamy-endogamy continua correlations are fairly uniform although with a slightly higher gamma in generation e (taub=.23, .19, .23, gamma=.45, .24, .33; these fail to reach significance because of the smaller sample size). The pattern in Table 7.2, then, is fairly
constant across generations.
Lineage #3 is the major exception to the constraint and correlation
patterns in Tables 7.2 and 7.3, but many of its members resettled as villagers rather than intermarrying with them. If this lineage is dropped, the
correlations drop slightly (tau-b=.21 and gamma=.33). Lineage #2 (Mustan’s), not surprisingly, has the highest number of exogamous marriages,
over half of which are with other tribes, either women marrying in or
men marrying out. They have a disproportionate number of marriages
with other tribes. If both these lineages are dropped the correlation rises
(tau-b=.46 and gamma=.68) and even with many fewer cases the significance of the correlation rises (p=.00004) because the correlation takes
on a more linear relationship.
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
243
Table 7.3: Endogamy-Exogamy Continuum Correlations by
Historical Generations
Count
Exogamous
Marriages
d
V3
LINSPO
Lineage of
Clan Member
1
#3
R
W
Total
e
V3
M
S
T
W
V3
K
L
N
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Total
g
h
V3
Total
O
Q
R
S
W
4
#7
6
#1
7
#6
9
#5
1
8
#4
1
2
2
1
2
1
10
#10
3
Total
1
9
1
3
3
10
1
Total
f
2
#2
1
6
1
1
2
2
4
1
1
1
2
15
8
4
2
4
1
19
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
3
3
1
1
2
1
1
5
2
1
1
16
5
1
4
3
34
1
3
1
1
2
7
11
1
3
22
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
9
3
16
2
1
1
1
1
1
4
5
1
3
11
2
1
2
2
Key: Symbols K through W are the place names defined in Table 7.2, running from the
most from distant lowlands (K) to proximal highlands (V) and other tribes (W)
Figure 7.5 uses the data of Table 7.2 to address hypothesis 7.3 in a visual
schematic that shows the geographic locations of out-marriages where
members of the lineages have intermarried or settled, as in Table 7.2.
Those locations show how the external orientations of the lineages differ
in the spatial distribution of exogamous marriages. Because the scaling
of lineages from endogamous marriage patterns in Figure 7.4 shows a
one-dimensional continuum that corresponds to a remoteness-integration
continuum, the idea in Figure 7.5 is again to see whether there is a corre-
244
Chapter 7
sponding geographic difference in the pattern of exogamous marriages.
We are looking for a correspondence or correlation between the topology of interlineage marriages within the clan and the geographic topology
of exogamous marriages according to the tribal or village origin of the
spouse.
The map in Figure 7.5 is completely schematic rather than geographic
in the placement of lineages. The placement of the lineages on the map
is not based on geographic location but on the scaling order shown in
Figure 7.4. The north-south alignment of lineages on the left of Figure
7.5 merely replicates the semicircular scaling in Figure 7.4 in order to
show visually the evidence supporting Hypothesis 7.3. Recall that lineage #3 at the lower end of this continuum is one with many emigrants
who settle near towns. At the upper end are the more tribally oriented
sheepherders (#6, #4) along with lineage #5, which provided the early
leadership of the clan and which continues to be wealthy in herds.
Actual migration routes are not shown on the map. The lines show
some of today’s larger paved roads and highways and simply provide a
geographic orientation within which to do a rough test of hypothesis 7.3.
The road from Adana northeast to Saimbeyli parallels multiple routes
along which the Aydınlı migrate between their summer pastures in the
north and their winter lowland areas around Adana and Osmaniye, the cities closer to the coast. The summer pastures of Beypinar and hamlet of
Arnaçkavak are shown just above Saimbeyli, while some of the many
winter pastures (actually vast areas scattered between villages) are shown
by the gray circles in the Çukurova in the south, the farthest east being
that of lineage #6. Lineages changed their winter pastures often, depending on where they were cheapest, so the winter pastures shown on the
map are merely illustrative. The villages that Aydınlı have married and/or
settled into are marked in black.
Villages and cities are placed geographically in Figure 7.5, while the
placement of lineages shows schematically which ones are the more northerly mountainous populations, including numerous nomad tribal groups
(also not placed geographically). The alignment of lineages is done to
match the order of the multidimensional scaling in the automatic drawing
of Figure 7.4, which scales lineages by the closeness of their ties. The fit is
very close between the two orderings, and reflects a polarity between nomads intermarried with villagers and those who orient to the more remote
mountain populations of other nomads.
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
Figure 7.5: Lineage Alignment and
Ties along the Highway (Migration
Routes are also north-south).
245
Lineage #5, the highest
ranking of the lineages in
the early migration from
Lineages boxes #1-#9 are not geographic
Aydın, and having the
#5
leadership to the clan in
Sheep
#4
Other Tribes
the last half of the nineherders
teenth century, would ap#6
pear from Figures 7.4 to
#9
match a pattern expected
of a lineage oriented to a
Summer Pastures
#1
more traditional goat herding and mountainous way
of life. That is, they are at H#7W#9
H#7
the “conservative” pole of
the tribal-urban
or re#2A
moteness-integration continuum in their endogamous
marriages
with
#3
lineages at the remote end
of the continuum and be- H#8W#2
cause all their exogamous
marriages are with other
tribes.
Almost at the other exGulf of
treme from #5, lineage #2
Iskenderun
of Mustan and his brother
Key:
H&W Migration
as matchmakers projects a
Wife assimilated
very different pattern of
Settled in wife’s town
adaptation, one of mediaSettled
in husband’s town
tion between villages and
Husband
assimilated
towns, the clan and other
Pastures:
summer winter
tribes, just as they played a
100 km
central role in mediation
and integration of the line- Supplementary Key: Turkish place names lack diacriticals
H&W migration indicates that both spouses emigrated
ages within the clan.
H#7, W#9 are indicators for a husband of #7 and Wife of
Lineage #9, in the upper middle of Figure 7.4, #9represents a third extreme: complete exit from nomadism through emigration. Nomad life
clearly has a number of very different and viable poles of adaptation.
The pattern of external ties reproduces the semicircle of marriage
proximities in Figure 7.4 and makes clear that lineages #2-3-7-1 are
linked to sites near larger villages, while #9-6-4-5 include two
246
Chapter 7
sheepherding lineages that range higher in the mountains (#4 traditionally; #6 more recently) and they are more closely intermarried with other
nomad tribes.
Local Clustering Density and Continuum Scaling
Figures 7.3 and 7.4, based on the same data (interlineage marriages) look
very different, as indeed they are. The latter scales lineages according to
departures from statistical independence in the observed frequencies of
marriage. It identified a highland-lowland continuum, confirmed by the
pattern of exogamous marriages, and it reflects social proximities between lineages along the continuum. Figure 7.3 was based on raw marriage frequencies and simply looked at reciprocated ties and local clustering among 3-4 lineages at a time, that is, a complete network of
reciprocal marriage exchanges. There is no correlation between the highland-lowland ordering and the clustering or curvature coefficients.
If we renumber the lineages in Figure 7.3 according to the highlandlowland orientation, it would be apparent that the dense “local clusters”
with complete networks of reciprocated marriages do not represent highland-lowland clusters of lineages, but cross-cut and bringing together the
poles of the highland-lowland continuum. The clusters are 1-2-9, 2-7-8,
and 2-4-6-9.12 The cross-cut between low-frequency clusters of reciprocated marriage alliances and the higher than expected frequency of ties
among neighbors on the highland-lowland continuum gives some indication of how alliances patterns and spatially based interactions might
cross-cut to form the strong-tie small world of Aydınlı nomads discussed
in Chapter 5.
The Cascade of Lineage Segments and Their
Fractal Relationships
One of the problems in network and kinship analysis is how to study
networks with hierarchies or units that have complex overlapping or incomplete hierarchies. For a society with lineages, for example, maximal
lineages are hardly the only appropriate social units for study but only
units of convenience because they are the highest level nesting of constituent and more effective units. As we have noted, the minimal lineage
and residential unit is a 3-generation patriline, the effective lineage
where genealogical links are almost always definitely known and accurate is a 5-generation patriline, and the maximal lineage may be deeper,
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
247
embracing many effective sublineages. If local actors refer to kin with
common descent from easily remembered ancestors at fairly shallow
generational depths, these will be sliding lineages that shift over time
with new generations. These more effective units often split apart within
a maximal lineage. Conversely, as members of such units become more
distantly connected with the passage of generations, they may try to recreate internal cohesion through intermarriage. A common tendency noted in the Middle East (e.g., Peters 1991), above five generations, is to
attribute common ancestry to a patrilineage when in fact it is only that
various smaller lineages have so densely intermarried that they create a
fictitious common ancestry.
Hypothesis 7.4: A high degree of local clustering densities applies
not just to lineages (Hypothesis 7.1) but fractally, to overlapping
sublineages.
To test this hypothesis we extend our approach from network neighborhoods linking discrete kinship units such as maximal lineages, as we did
for Hypothesis 7.1, to overlapping subunits, we use Eckmann and Moses’s (2002) curvature method to study marriage networks among lineage segments.13 These segments overlap if they belong to the same maximal lineage, but they are distinct if they belong to different maximal
lineages.14 We apply Eckmann and Moses’s methods of analysis once
again here but this time to sublineages of depth five. This gives us a
means of seeing the “fractal” replication of units and subunits and how
sublineages are also knit together. Our analysis of maximal lineages has
already rehearsed the concepts and measures that we need in order to do
a more fractal analysis of how subunits are interrelated by reciprocal and
transitive ties.
Figure 7.6 shows, for marriages between sublineages five generations
in depth—a unit where ancestors are likely to be remembered—a scaled
distribution of reciprocal bride exchange as well as one-way giving of
brides. The former is shown by the solid lines and the latter by dotted
arrows. As before, the size and shading of nodes reflects the clustering
density (transitivity) of local neighborhoods: the large black node has a
density of one, the medium gray nodes have densities above .75, and the
white nodes (mostly in the upper part of the picture) have densities below .75. Consistent with Hypothesis 7.4, these are all very high.
Figure 7.6: Reciprocal and One-way Marriages among Sublineages:
248
Chapter 7
Lineage #3 gen 1
Lineage #2 gen 4
Lineage #2 gen 3
Lineage #3 gen 2
Lineage #5 gen 3
Lineage #2
(Mustan’s)
gen 1,2,3
#5g2 #5g1 #7g2 #1g2 #7g1
#1g1 #1g3 #1g2 #6g1 #4g3 g2 g4
g1
Legend: Sublineages and labeled by the generation of their highest ancestor within the
lineage, for example, #5g2 is a segment of lineage #5 with an ancestor in generation 2.
Height in the vertical axis shows “fractal” departure from the more general alignments of
marriages among lineages shown in Figure 7.4 that replicate for a majority of sublineages
at the bottom
Figure 7.6 is scaled in the same way as 7.4, using Pajek’s automatic
drawing (see Glossary) that treats the difference between expected and
actual marriage frequencies as a proximity weighting in the scaling.
Marriage alliances that occur less frequently than expected by chance
are shown as dotted lines and are weighted negatively, so they are expected to be longer and the solid lines shorter as a result of scaling.
Along the bottom axis are listed the lineages and generational ancestors
for each of the sublineages. For example, #5g2 is the son of #5g1 as sublineage head. Except for #5, which is at the opposite end of the scale, the
order of lineages is exactly the same as in Figure 7.4. But instead of being in a linear scaling order, sublineages of #3, #2 and #5—from diametrically opposite ends of the continuum—have migrated up and out of the
plane at the bottom because they have a wider span than the other sublineages, and for Mustan’s sublineages (#2, generations 1, 2, 3, circled in
the figure), the clan integrators, this is especially so. Many of these
“higher” lineages in this figure have lower local clustering density (i.e.,
shaded white) due to their greater span, which detracts from local clustering. Sublineages in #5 change position in the scaling because of their
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
249
links with #2 and because their few links with the “vacated” lineage, #7,
which were statistically insignificant when considered at the lineage level, are more significant when broken down into the temporal segments of
Figure 7.6. We see in fact that in generations 1 and 2, lineage #5 was allied with #7, but by generation 3 is more closely linked with lineages #4
and #1, at the opposite ends of the scale, but this is also after the period
in which the early arrivals of founding lineage are amalgamated into the
clan, that is, a time of structural change.
With the exceptions noted, the fact that nodes belonging to the same
maximal lineages tend to be proximate in this figure, which is scaled by
closeness of ties, is an indicator that sublineages that share a patrilineal
ancestor tend to both reinforce their cohesion through marriage alliances
among themselves and share patterns of alliances with other groups.
Figure 7.6, then, begins to show some of the dynamics of shifting alliances. Eckmann and Moses’s method, applied here to the study of the
segmentation over time of patrilineal groups into cascades of descending
sublineages, has a major payoff in visualizing the dynamics of shifting
alliances. What the vertical dimension represents in this figure is precisely the variability of shifting alliances over time, with lineages #2 and
#3 lifted off the plane of stable alliances below. Recall that #3 constituted a poor and small lineage allied in its marriages and fortunes with #2,
which started as a poor lineage but advanced in status and wealth due to
its abilities in making marriage alliances. Lineage #5 was originally the
highest in status and wealth, allied with the Cırıklı tribe and with lineages #2 and #7 in early times.
Structural Properties of the Sublineage Marriage Network
All of the curvature analyses thus far have shown that the network of
lineage and sublineage marital alliances has an overall topology, and that
topology is built out of local clustering and transitivity. This can be tested formally.
Hypothesis 7.5: A topology of clustering and transitivity in the
Aydınlı sublineage marriage alliance network will show up in a
triad census or reciprocal and nonreciprocal marriage alliances.
Hypothesis 7.6: The triad census of the Aydınlı sublineage marriage alliance network supports a topological model of a small
world (clustering, transitivity, and short chains).
A triad census is a statistical inventory of the different types of structural
250
Chapter 7
relationships among nodes in a network, taken three at a time, and classified by the patterns of directed and reciprocated arcs. The sixteen possible patterns of arcs are shown in Figure 7.7, each labeled by three numbers showing how many pairs of nodes have reciprocated, unreciprocated, and no arcs, and in some cases whether those arcs point down
(D), up (U), or across (C).
Figure 7.7: The Sixteen Possible Triads for a Triad Census
Results of the triad census are given in Table 7.4. Numbers of the sixteen types of triads are listed on the left, ordered by the topological models with which they are consistent named on the right. The standard output for triads testing shown here (Batagelj and Mrvar 2001) organizes
the triad types in blocks (here separated by spaces) corresponding to
successive models with additive features. The triad types marked “Forbidden” may actually occur and have interesting structural properties but
they fail to fit any of these models of balance, clusterability, or transitivity. In the three center columns are the numbers of observed triads (ni),
the number expected from the null hypothesis of statistical independence
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
251
(ei), and the ratio of (ni-ei)/ei. Enclosed with circles are five triads that
are significantly greater than expected by chance. The results show that
the data fit a model of clusterability and transitivity, with balance included as a type of clustering, plus a triad that is normally forbidden in
this model, the chain of two reciprocal links, A to B to C, with no transitivity, either strong (A C reciprocity) or weak (A C directed edge). The
fitted model includes clusterability and balance of reciprocal ties without
ranked or hierarchical clusters but also intransitive chains of reciprocal
ties. This is the pattern expected in a network where the strong or reciprocal ties conform to the definition of a small-world in which ties are
clustered by also connected so as to reduce the average distance between
nodes.
The high frequency of the last triad in Table 7.4, the intransitive
chain of reciprocal ties (a forbidden tried in the pure clustering model
but which occurs here more frequently than expected by chance) supports Hypothesis 7.6. Because a small world has clusterability and short
average distance, it cannot have perfect transitivity with more multiple
clusters because they would then be cliques with no links to other
cliques. Hence, the data fit the small world model, consistent with our
hypotheses from Chapter 5.15 They also support hypothesis 7.5 and back
up the findings on curvature.
Figure 7.6 has yet another interpretation, which is the temporally
“fractal” pattern of marriage networks through time. The stable part of
the scaled pattern is the largely stable “floor” at the bottom; changes
boiling up to higher and higher levels above this floor carry an interesting implication: if your allies change position, your position changes
with them even though you do not change allies. This is analogous to the
concept of structural equivalence in social networks, but it is here applied to social dynamics. The implication is that not everybody needs to
change in the network for the configuration to go through radical transformations; changes are self-amplifying structurally speaking, and so the
“upward” variance of potential change is not self-dampening. Here, we
see this only at the local level to be especially strong for lineages #2 and
#3. These are lineages that were poor, were early adopters of migration,
and became heavily intermarried into the villages; most members of #3,
who are highest in the vertical axis of Figure 7.6, had emigrated by 1900
and did not sign the 1933 land agreement (see Figure 7.5). Those in #2,
who were more diverse and structurally endogamous within the clan and
whose segments are distributed along the fractal-change vertical axis of
Figure 7.6, clove to the clan with little emigration.
Chapter 7
252
Table 7.4: Results of the Triad Census among Sublineages
Type Number of Expected Ratio
triads (ni)
(ei)
(ni-ei)/ei
Model
3 - 102
16 - 300
146
128
55.06
29.01
1.65
3.41
Balance (reciprocal ties)
Balance (reciprocal ties)
1 - 003
73
14.60
4.00
Clusterability (no ties)
4 - 021D
5 - 021U
9 - 030T
12 - 120D
13 - 120U
26
46
26
43
57
55.06
55.06
123.47
69.22
69.22
-0.53
-0.16
-0.79
-0.38
-0.18
Ranked Clusters
Ranked Clusters
Ranked Clusters
Ranked Clusters
Ranked Clusters
2 - 012
140
98.22
0.43
Transitivity (one tie)
14 - 120C 45
15 - 210 175
138.44
155.22
-0.67
0.13
Hierarchical Clusters
Hierarchical Clusters
6 - 021C 69
7 - 111D 103
8 - 111U 103
10 - 030C 15
11 - 201 135
110.12
123.47
123.47
41.16
69.22
-0.37
-0.17
-0.17
-0.64
0.95
Forbidden
Forbidden
Forbidden
Forbidden
Two-chain (reciprocal ties)
Chi-Square: 1012.1780***
A Small-World Network of Strong Ties: Local Clustering and
Short Distances among Reciprocating Sublineages
Granovetter (1973), in the most cited of all network studies, hypothesized that it is the weak ties that serve as the bridges between clusters in
social networks, with strong tending to close inward and form cliques.
One of the open questions in network research is the relationship between small worlds and strong versus weak ties, such as reciprocated
marriage exchange between Aydınlı lineages (our “strong” ties) and the
unreciprocated marriages (“weak”). Yet, the data in Table 7.4, consistent
with Hypothesis 7.6, show strong ties as the “forbidden” bridges between cliques in the clustering model (and weak tie directed paths that
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
253
are not transitive are infrequent, for example). Still, Figure 7.4 and Figure 7.6 give the impression of a network integrated overall by the generalized exchange created by its weaker ties, which especially is a possibility because weak-tie integration would involve a one-directional flow of
brides as against bride payments.
Hypothesis 7.7: Strong ties (that is, reciprocated marriage alliances) act as the primary bridges reducing network distances in the
links between sublineages.
Figure 7.8 tests this hypothesis both visually and quantitatively by separating the strong- and weak-tie networks, scaled in a form equivalent to
Figure 7.3. At the bottom of the figure, the graph of distances between
nodes that the two separate networks create shows that pairs of lineages
linked by reciprocal marriages are twice as common (132 versus 63) as
the directed marriage alliances, and they link every pair of lineages by
no more than a two-step path. The weaker ties of generalized exchange
are redundant in that they span longer distances in the network, while the
reciprocal ties, although clustered around network neighborhoods, also
integrate the lineages and lineage segments in very short distances. Thus,
Hypothesis 7.7 is supported. The strong ties, which we have defined so
as to maximize the probability that they indicate relationships of trust
and close familiarity, constitute a “small world.” But they also facilitate
the weak-tie network that involves a one-directional flow of brides as
against bride payments, and that too constitutes an integrated network,
and one that is even more cohesive that the strong-tie network if we use
as the measure of cohesion the minimum number of nodes whose removal is needed to break each of these networks into large disconnected
segments.
In Figure 7.8, as before, the size of the nodes indicates local clustering density. The solid triangles tend to be within localized parts of the
network, so that strong ties are consistent with restricted exchange. But,
as noted, strong ties also concatenate to produce low distances between
different sublineages. Each sublineage is again numbered by its highest
ancestor and the number of its men. Nodes 432:15 and 433:17, for example, are overlapping sublineages of size 15 and 17 that, along with
436:13 and 438:26, share membership at a deeper level in a common lineage (#4). The nodes also cluster by lineage.
Figure 7.8: Reciprocal and Directed Bride-Giving among Sublineages
140
120
100
80
Chapter 7
254
Hypothesis 7.8: It is the strong and not the weak ties that create
local clustering densities.
Figure 7.9 contrasts weak and strong ties to test this hypothesis. Referent
sublineages having two other sublineages as marriage allies are classified as before by whether their links to the allies involve zero, one, or
two symmetric marriage exchanges (the horizontal axis), and the bars
show the extent to which local densities obtain, that is, whether the two
allies are themselves linked by a marriage alliance (the leftmost bar
graph) or by symmetric marriage alliance (the rightmost bar graph). In
each case the number of three-lineage configurations in the x-axis remains the same, as shown by the line graph.
Figure 7.9: Marriage Alliances of a Referent Lineage with Two Other
Lineages and the Local Clustering Density (transitivity) of Triples
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
1600
1400
Strong tie
1200
1000
800
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
600
400
200
0
0
1
2
Reciprocities for Two Marital Allies
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
600
400
200
0
0
Any Tie
Triples
1
Reciprocities for Two Marital Allies
2
Reciprocal
Tie
Triples
Because the leftmost bar graph in Figure 7.9 shows how many ally pairs
have a weak tie (directional marriage alliance) and the rightmost graph
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
255
shows the same data for ally pairs with strong ties (reciprocal marriage
alliance), we can see that when the ally pairs are both themselves reciprocal alliances, there is a major jump to a high level of local clustering
density (i.e., transitivity), and over 80% of that density is also obtained
by a reciprocal alliance.
The data in Figure 7.9, then, strongly support Hypothesis 7.8 and
Granovetter’s hypothesis that the strong ties do the clustering in this social network. Weak ties do not have one of the crucial properties of
small worlds because they do not form clusters. It is the strong ties that
constitute a “small world problem” for the nomads, notably, that close
relations (trust, reciprocal exchange) are highly clustered, but they provide a “small world solution” because they are sufficiently intransitive
not to create mutually exclusive clusters and through their intransitivities, spanning different groups, to reduce the average strong-tie distances
in the network.16
Hypothesis 7.9: The weak-tie network of directed marriage exchanges, which constitute exchanges in the flow of bride payments
in which exchange for brides, is facilitated by the existence of
strong-tie connectivities throughout the network, and, more specifically, tends to have a fractal self-similarity not with the local clustering but with the more global cohesion created by strong ties in
the network.
This hypothesis is a bit abstract, but it conveys the idea that the weak
ties do not mimic strong ties in their clustering, but rather in their cohesiveness, as defined elsewhere. Note that lineages with many ties will
necessarily have lower local clustering but contribute to overall cohesion. Figure 7.10 shows a relatively constant correlation between local
clustering density for a given lineage and the number of marital alliance
partners for that lineage. As the number of partners goes up, the local
clustering density goes down. A self-scaling or fractal quality of the
segmentary kinship networks is that the slopes of these two correlated
distributions are the same, although reciprocal bride exchanges have a
higher local clustering density. Hypothesis 7.9 is supported in that nodes
with many links contribute to global cohesion both in terms of weak and
strong tie networks, and the measure of local density for weak ties behaves like that of strong ties. This supports the idea that the weaker
marital alliances are in some sense an “extension” of ties through the
stronger relations of closeness and trust implied by reciprocal linkages,
and they have important similarities as well as differences.
Chapter 7
256
Figure 7.10: Bride Exchanges between Lineages and Transitivity of
Triples, Correlated with Number of Alliances with Other Lineages
0.9
Local Density, no
bride exchange
0.8
0.7
Local Density, bride
exchange
1
0.6
Linear (Local
Density, bride
exchange)
Linear (Local
Density, no bride
exchange)
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Number of Alliances with other Lineages
The social networks of kinship and marriage, then, tend to define the avenues by which people connect and extend their circles of familiarity
leading to new marriages. More detailed modeling of how such social
worlds are constructed might take the succession of generations into account, and show how at any one point in time, the existing “network
neighborhoods” for each family, extended to include potential spouses
one or two steps away through chains of close family connections, would
set the context for the choice of a specific spouse. More detailed ethnographic vignettes in this context might substantiate the crucial role of
webs of female kin in facilitating marriage choices. Having located potential brides or grooms within these family circles, however, the next
problem for network analysis is how the relative generations of potential
spouses figure in to actual marriage choices. We explore that issue first
before getting back to issues raised by mapping of social structure from
marriage frequencies, their structure, and their implications for group dynamics.
Equality in Generation between Husband and Wife
Having mapped out the network neighborhoods that create the social
space in which young women can become well known to a family and be
taken as wives by Aydınlı men or by the arrangements made by mediating female kin, we now explore the appropriateness of a particular
spouse, whether man or woman. The fact that marriages between partners of different generations hardly ever happened had to do with the
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
257
meaning of sexuality. Although Islam does not declare sexuality as sinful so long as it happens between spouses, among the Aydınlı it is
looked at as something unclean and shameful. This ambivalence contains
pride about one’s fertility on one side and extreme bashfulness on the
other side. After Johansen had already been his “elder sister” for many
years, for instance, the younger son of her family gave her a detailed report of his wedding with his wife, with whom he had been passionately
in love. Recounting the point at which he had to display modesty and
was pushed by his younger male relatives into the tent where the veiled,
maiden bride waited, he abruptly broke off by saying “Orada ne bok
yedim - biliyorsun” (=What a shit I have eaten there—you know). Problems of sexuality are not discussed, except as jokes between people of
the same sex and same generation. This goes so far that young women
visiting their parents’ homes showed their new babies to their mothers
and sisters but were ashamed to show them to their fathers because they
were testimonies of their having had sexual intercourse. Young men too
are ashamed to tell their fathers that they are in love with a girl to have
their fathers negotiate to get her as a bride. They turn to their mothers or
mother’s sisters, who talk to the men of their generation. Kressel
(1986:177) observed similar behavior among the Bedouins.
Same-generation marriage prescriptions, however, are also a resolution to the potential conflict of principles that would arise in a first marriage between off-generation or markedly age-discrepant bride and
groom. Husband and wife are taken as having generational equality in
first marriages within the clan, which is a marker of the equality between
their respective families. The Aydınlı are not a society in which wifegiving versus wife-taking confers differential status of the two families.
This stands in marked contrast to another very different hypothesis about
FBD marriage in the Middle East (e.g., Kressel 1986), namely, that the
giving of women to another lineage typically lowers the lineage’s rank
relative to the other lineage and that in this context parallel cousin marriage provided a means for maintaining status:
Its acknowledged utility is the enhancement of social esteem. The custom is
anchored in the notion that the sexes are unequal in intercourse; the male is
cast in the role of conqueror or humiliator, while the female is the passive receiver. Because the parties to intercourse represent their groups of origin,
daughters of lower-status kin groups are matched with sons of superior ones
(hypergamy) or, ideally, to equal ones (isogamy). Grooms who are paternal
cousins are the most equal. Therefore, they are the most likely choice for evasion of humiliation, insinuated by giving the daughter in marriage to a nonagnate. (Kressel 1986:178)
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Chapter 7
The status equality of intraclan marriage among Aydınlı nomads is
not the result of FBD marriage but present before the fact of marriage.
One aspect of status equality between wife-takers and wife-givers is the
age equality between spouses. The following hypothesis looks deceptively simple, but it masks a number of interesting questions.
Hypothesis 7.10: Marriages, consistent with the Qur’an, are mostly of the same generation in the kinship network.
Ambiguities of Individual and Marriage “Generation”
In assessing generation, there is a problem. If two individuals are multiply related with different generational levels between them and not just
one but several senior relatives, which of their relative generational level
assessments do we use to test hypothesis 7.10?
Individuals per se do not occupy an unambiguous generational position in a kinship network. Consider, for example, children of a couple
who are not of the same generation, for example, where a man marries
the daughter of his cousin. The man and wife are of different generations, but what of the children? With multiple marriages the problem
may worsen. If a man’s first wife is his FBD, for example, his second
wife his FBSD, and his third wife his FBSSD: To what generation do his
children belong? They are all “next” relative to him, generation below,
but the second batch is two below through the mother, and the third three
below. Even if we assign the “deepest” generation, we still have siblings
(the children) who are not of the same generation. To summarize, it is
always possible to compute generations by the “deepest” generation rule,
such that one is always of lower generation than either parent and, by
this criterion, a husband and wife may belong to the same or different
generations.
None of this is a problem if birth dates are available, in which case
we can evaluate Hypothesis 7.10 using the relative ages of husband and
wife rather than generations. In the present case, as with many ethnographic studies, birth dates are not recorded. Johansen could only estimate approximate generational cohorts [a through i]. By taking these cohorts to be thirty years apart, there is a good separation between
“generations” but sometimes parents and children will belong to the
same generational cohort. Hence, there are two different principles at
work, one of distinct cohorts and the other of distinct generations for
parents and children. This is the ambiguity of assessing individual-level
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
259
“generation” in the absence of data on birth dates.
We may also think of marriages as having generations, and of a person’s marriages as being of possibly different generations. In the example above, this resolves the ambiguity: the first marriage is samegeneration, the second off by one, and the third off by two. Generations
of marriages can be reliably and consistently assigned for kinship networks simply given the proviso that one’s parent’s marriage must be of
higher generation than one’s own, inclusive of multiple marriages. This
can be done consistently over an entire network, of any size, and lends a
consistent interpretability to the concept of generation, especially because we can fit each marriage into the overall ordering of marital generations so as to be as close as possible to one’s parents.
The algorithm for determining generational depth in a p-graph does
exactly this. First, we find the longest ancestor-descendant chain in the
whole network. That is the maximum number of generations that we
need for all the descendants of that ancestor and ancestors of that descendant, each of whom can be placed uniquely in a generation. Any one
of these descendants may have a lesser chain to another ancestor, and
any one of these ancestors may have a lesser-length chain to another descendant. When these are added in, generations may be unambiguously
assigned. When relinking appears, the marriage generations always fit
within the constraints of previously assigned generations. There are no
inconsistencies in assigning generations this way in that there is a minimum number of generations needed that depends on the structure of ascendant/descendant chains. With low structural endogamy or nearly exclusive same-generation marriages, the generations needed will
correspond closely to parent/child birth intervals. But if there is considerable structural endogamy and many off-generation marriages, more
marriage generations will be needed than in strict biological generations,
in order to accommodate fractional differences, for example, between
the average of men’s intergenerational birth times and those of women.
In either case, while the assignment of generations is not strictly unique,
it is always possible to do a consistent assignment of generations for any
minimal number of marriage generations needed. For large populations,
this assignment algorithm is sufficiently complex in many cases that it is
not easily done by hand. That is the purpose of having computer programs in the Pajek and Pgraph packages that do work of assigning generations. The computer algorithm assignment, once done, can always be
compared with actual birth and marriage dates, or with what is known
about individual births and marriages in terms of general historical periods or cohorts. And, of course, it always best to do such a comparison,
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Chapter 7
as a cross-check for errors in either recorded or remembered dates for
errors in the assignment of parents.
Individual and Marriage Generation Looked at as Mutually
Informative
Given the problems of ambiguity in assessing generations, one of the
first things we did (Chapter 2) was to compute generations of marriages
by computer. All but one of the marriages were positioned by computer
in generations that were directly under a parent and over a child. We
then compare these generations to those that Johansen had assigned to
individuals. We looked at gross discrepancies to ascertain that we had
not miscoded any of the data. All of that was completed before the analysis that we now present.
The two systems of coding generation are mutually informative,
which allows us to compensate for the lack of birth dates by mutual calibration of the time periods which they indicate. Generational depth as
determined by the marriage algorithm correlate with the historical generations (Tables 6.1 and 7.3) assigned by Johansen to individuals, but with
some differences in the phasing of the time periods that they indicate,
relative to one another. As shown in Table 6.1(1-2), for the computergenerated generations 3-6 (for marriages), the intergenerational age difference in chronological time correspond to 30- or 40-years similar to
the 30-year birth cohorts used by Johansen for individuals. After that,
because of the accumulation of skewed-generation marriages with genealogies of increasing depth, the time gap between computer-generated
generations shifts to roughly 15-year intervals, using Johansen’s historically dated cohorts as the clock. As we shall see below, these later periods also involve more irregularities in terms of different genealogical
generations of husband and wife, which will usually shorten the chronological time lag between computed generations.
Analysis 8: Same-Generation Marriage and the Qur’an
Because network analysis of genealogies, even without precise
birthdates, can be used to model the succession of generations and the
relative standing in terms of generations, it can also evaluate whether
marriages tend to be within generations or to involve “generational
jumps” such as marriages between uncles and nieces, or older men with
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
261
generationally younger women. Are Johansen’s ethnographic impressions that marriages are normally contracted among those of the same
generation (Hypothesis 7.10) confirmed, consistent with the Qur’an?
First, we examine the evidence from her coding of generations.
Table 7.5 tallies the relative generations of husbands and wives for
410 of the 413 marriages in the genealogies. Each marriage classified
has the husband’s generation listed at the left for each row, and the
wife’s generation [a-h] listed along the top for the columns. The numbers of same-generation marriages (in bold) are 76% of the total. A nextgeneration wife accounts for 12% of the marriages, and a previousgeneration wife accounts for 8% of the marriages, leaving 4% with
greater generational discrepancies. If we compare the rates of samegeneration marriages in the early generations [a-d] with those in the later
generations [e-h], the rates of same-generation marriages are almost
identical (74% versus 76%).
Table 7.5: Relative Generations of Individual Marriages Using Johansen’s Classification of Husbands and Wives
Generation of Generation of
(N=410 married couples)
the Husband the Wife
Freq of Marriages Notes
a b c d e f g h Total Same Generation
a 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
4
3 75% a-b 86%
b 0 9 1 0 0 0 0 0
10
9 90% Same: 76%
c 0 0 13 1 1 0 0 0
15 13 87% -2 13 3%
d 0 0 4 32 9 3 0 0
48 32 67% -1 49 12%
e 0 0 1 9 79 21 9 0 119 79 66% +1 32 8%
f 0 0 0 1 9 118 14 0 142 118 83% +2 5 1%
g 0 0 0 0 2 9 55 2
68 55 81% Off: 24%
h 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2
4
2 50%
Total
410 311 76%
The Problem with Counting Generations for Individuals
Another way to study consistency of generations in marriage is through
marital relinking, and especially through consanguineal marriages. Table
7.6 shows the relative generations of husband and wife observed in 178
consanguineal marriages. Each type of blood marriage (with common
ancestors up to six generations back) is classified by distance to the
common ancestor for the wife [1-6] and for the husband [1-6]. Genera-
262
Chapter 7
tion is reckoned by distance from a common ancestor as computed by
the Par-Calc Pgraph program. Here we see a much lower rate of samegeneration marriage, not 76% but 64%, which offers less support for the
hypothesis. We asked ourselves: Which of these two results is a better
test of the hypothesis, especially because Johansen’s classification of
generations might suffer from the defect of tending to treat husband’s
and wife’s generations the same. We regarded her classification only as
a provisional one. But is the computer reckoning of generations any better, with its tendency to foreshorten the later generations in chronological time?
In Table 7.6, we get a much better sense of how the generational
rules might actually work: The closer the relation, the less discrepancy in
generations. For marriage with first cousins compared to that with nieces
and aunts, for example, there are no exceptions, perfectly consistent with
the Qur’an. Exclusive of these cases (the smallest concentric box in the
table), the exception rate for second cousins versus children of first
cousins is 20%. When we go one more generation out, the exception rate
is 27%; further, it is 42%, and then 48%; there are additional offgeneration errors in marriages to women of earlier generations (1% with
aunt, a parent’s cousin, and so forth). Contrary to the ethnographers generalization in Hypothesis 7.10, this norm does not generalize beyond the
avoidance of marriage with nieces and aunts: the errors increase to a majority of cases with more distant relationships. Overall, marriages with
women in a lower generation account for 24% of the cases (116 marriage types), and the percentages of marriage types with a wife from the
parents generation is 12% (N=57). Even in the marriages with distant
relatives, however, there is no generational discrepancy of more than one
generation, such as we had in Table 7.5.
Examining these data more closely, it turns out that Hypothesis 7.10
holds only for intralineage marriages and, even then, not for lineage #2,
the lineage of Koca Mustan and his brother, the master-relinkers. Of the
173 off-generation marriages, 95.3% are marriages outside the lineage.
There are only eight intralineage off-generation marriages, and seven of
these are within lineage #2. They all involve women who are grandchildren, great-grandchildren, or (mostly) great-great-grandchildren of Koca
Mustan or his brother, and three of these involve exchange marriages or
sororal marriages with brothers. More than likely, the greater generational depths here are ignored in favor of same-age considerations. This
noted, then, for all but lineage #2, same-generation consanguineal marriages are avoided within lineages but not between lineages. Of the latter
there are 108 different kinds of off-generation marriages, and only a
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263
dozen or so having more than three occurrences (FZSD having the highest frequency of seven). But we must remember that many of these 108
kinds of off-generation marriages involve the same couple with multiple
kinds of collaterality. When we count the actual number of distinct couples involved, there are only thirty-nine extra-lineage off-generation
marriages and eight intralineage. This, however, is still a significant
number of exceptions (39/178=22%) to the hypothesis.
Table 7.6: Generational Depth in Blood Marriages
distance to common ancestor: (N=178 blood married-couples)
on
on the wife’s side
hu’s
1
2
3
4
5
6
Side Freq Freq Freq Freq Freq Freq
Total
Notes
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0 73
19
0
0
0
92 Same 302 64%
3
0
1* 78
45
0
0
124
- 1 116
4
0
0
24
85
39
0
148
+1
57
5
0
0
0
18
52
13
83
Off: 173 36%
6
0
0
0
0
14
14
28
Totals 0
74 121 148 105
27
475
* FFBD marriage (H1929-W341)
Table 7.6 and the computer calculation of generations, thus supplement the impressions of the ethnographer, both in general pattern in detail. As distance to a common ancestor increases for marriages between
blood kin, the off-generational discrepancy, or proportion of marriages
where husband and wife are not of the same generation, increases as
well. Further, off-generation marriage is consistently biased toward a
lower number of generations for men than for women, which is consistent with men marrying women who are somewhat younger than
themselves. The rules of the Qur’an are strictly adhered to only as stated
in the Qur’an, for marriages between very close relatives, and not generalized further. Close examination of the data also showed that generalization of the same-generation rules held only within lineages, and even
then, not for the lineage of Mustan where there is a great deal of internal
marital relinking.
Why is same-generation marriage important and why is the practice
of same-generation marriage instantiated in this way, consistent with intralineage generational ranks for all but one lineage? This is a question
we shall address later after further study of the relation between lineage
and marital cohesion (Hypothesis 6.1) and a closer examination of prin-
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Chapter 7
ciples of rank.
Hypothesis 7.11: Given the possibilities of disruptive feuding
within fraternal interest groups such as agnatic lineages with coresidential sublineage segments, and especially lineages with a
right to marry lineage mates, same-generation marriage is an important functional element that reduces the competition between
generations over wives.
This is a provisional and incomplete hypothesis, as we expect it to be
complemented by findings later on.
Rank, Seniority, and Lineage
In the opinion of the nomads, sexual relations between a man from the
elder generation and a woman more than about twelve years younger
than himself would spoil the order of seniority. Because sexuality was
looked at as something for jokes and shameful doings of equals, a man
lost his dignity when he took a wife from the younger generation, who
had to respect him by strict obedience and hand-kissing and who should
never joke with him. Because elder brothers had to be respected in a
similar way, although not so strictly, levirate marriages were usually arranged between the widow and the younger brother of her deceased husband.
The statement of the ethnographer that we have just read, however,
requires a qualification that we have learned from the computer analysis
of generations, namely, that this concern with generational levels is one
that is behaviorally operative within the lineage, which would have been
the context in which Johansen would have made these observations. She
was affiliated with lineage #4, one of the ordinary lineages (all but that
of Koca Mustan, lineage #2, for whom the exceptions are mostly 4-5
generations deep and more likely to accord with same age rather than
same generation) that observed such rules. A different set of rules, perhaps not so easily observed by an ethnographer, appears to have operated in sexual and marriage behaviors between lineages.
In Turkish culture generally (not just the nomads) there exist strict
seniority rules. There are quite different words for elder and younger
brothers and sisters. Especially between the generations there rules great
respect, expressed by the gesture of devoted hand-kissing. Principles of
respect are also set out in the Qur’an (sura 4,23-25): A man is forbidden
to marry women from one generation older or younger than his own,
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265
specifically his aunts, stepmothers or stepdaughters, his mother-in-law,
and the daughters of his brothers or sisters. In contrast, relatives of the
same generation, cousins, especially the FBD, are preferential marriage
partners among many Arabic groups.
The Distance between Norms and Behavior
The problems of evaluating the same-generation rule are an excellent
example of the difficulties in establishing “norms” from ethnographic
observations. These are difficulties posed in the task of the ethnographer
to which network analysis brings something to bear.
First, there is the problem of recording in a meaningful way what the
ethnographer observes. Observing “generations” is problematic, and assigning or counting generations is difficult even with complete genealogical data and careful analysis.
Second, there is the effect of variability. In many of the lineages in
the clan, marriages are between relatives of the same generation but in
Koca Mustan’s lineage (#2), off-generation marriages were frequent.
These off-generation marriages were not salient, however, because they
occurred only after the passage of 4-5 generations, and in such cases,
relative age at marriage may outweigh considerations of generation.
Third, as this example demonstrates, there is the influence of the context in which the ethnographer worked: in this case, residing with a particular lineage. Within that context, intra- and interlineage marriages
were between relatives of the same generation, as was the case for most
of the lineages. Had Johansen lived with members of lineage #2, however, in which off-generation marriages were tolerated, she might have reported a different pattern than the normative one. Network analysis is an
aid in such cases such as this in accurately distinguishing norms and exceptions.
Difference between Marriage Frequencies and Preferences
The disparity between the frequency of observed behaviors, such as
those pertaining to different types of marriage, and actual preferences—
other things (the constraints of context) being equal—has been one of
the great obstacles to the development of valid theories in the social sciences. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the intellectual division between the practitioners of alliance theory and its detractors. The practitioners are currently most numerous in France, where anthropologists
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had understood the strengths and weaknesses of Lévi-Strauss’s arguments, but more importantly, were convinced by the argument for the
priority of norms over behaviors. Most of the social and cultural anthropologists in other countries, especially English-speaking ones, after an
initial period of interest in structural models as representations of underlying forms of kinship (a critique of which was given in Chapter 4), did
not remain convinced.
Our data and methods allow us not only to test some of the relationships between frequencies of different marriage types and the contexts in
which they occur, and to explore changes through time, but also to infer
preferences and changes in preferences from the conjunction of these
two types of variables: contexts and actual choices. We are able to control for the different rates at which cousins become available for marriage as a function of demographic change. Without such controls, temporal comparisons may be problematic. Whether there are changes in
preferences or frequencies of FBD marriage over time is an issue of
some importance where we can compare the ethnographer’s impressions
with the computer analysis.
Analysis 9: Fractality in a Marriage System
Analysis 9 continues with fractality and issues of complexity in social
organization that are evaluated by examining the entire distribution of
different forms of marriage within a genealogical network. The reader
may want to skip to the summary of this chapter. A summary in the
complexity theory appears in White and Houseman (2002).
Fractality is a pattern in which different parts or series, at different
scales of magnification, are self-similar. In the pattern of competition between units in segmentary patrilineages there is a fractal process at
work: competition occurs at all levels, and it occurs most frequently at
the lower levels, scaling upward to larger units between which overt
conflicts are less frequent but likely to be more severe. That small conflicts might spill over into fights between the lineages to clans, localities,
tribes, and regions, for example, is partly due to the hierarchical ways
these units are nested. If we compare the frequencies of two types of
conflict that are constant multiples (e.g., double) in severity, the signature of a power-law pattern is that the two will also differ in that the frequency of the more severe type is always a constraint fraction of that of
the less severe. If this ratio is “scale-free” it makes no difference whether we begin with the smaller conflicts, those of the middle range, or the
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267
larger. Power-law scale invariance is one of the characteristics of fractal
growth and patterning produced by multiples: splitting of tendrils,
growth of leaves, rich getting richer, segmentary conflicts in which the
events of greater severity being the higher level conflicts that are more
rare the larger their scale, and so forth.17 This is not, of course, a theory
of all conflicts, but of those that occur within a segmentary structure.
The processes that underlie such fractal invariance stem from the fact
that a tiny event—a small conflict, a tiny seed germ of a tree—doesn’t
know how big it will get, but it has a potential for escalation in a continuous network of accidents and interactive opportunities.18 You don’t get
in one jump from A to B if they are not proximate, but if they are proximate, having gotten to A magnifies the probability of passing to B.
In Chapter 4, we showed how a shift of focus from lineages to production units, taking us out of the confining assumptions of many kinship theories, let us see how—as well as when and where—FBD or
“‘Arab” marriage operates in the context of the smaller patrilocal residential units that are also the production units in many of the societies
influenced by Islamized Arabs in which FBD marriage is encountered.
Competition and Fractality: Fractality Defined and Tested
The diversity of marriages associated with FBD marriage, we have argued, works with and against the fractal gradient of segmentation (“I
against my brother, my brother and I against my cousin, my cousin and I
. . .”). On the competitive side, as we have seen in the previous chapter,
there is selection at a distance against “those with whom one neglects to
intermarry,” the reverse side of which is that those groups that do intermarry are potentially increasing the cooperativity and exchange relations
on which they depend for survival. Several lineages in our genealogies
(Table 7.1 :#1, #7, #8) fail to intermarry within the clan at a certain
point, and tend outmigrate to villages. On the cooperative side, frequency of intermarriage scales with a topological distance in which cohesive
clusters are continually expanding through the transitivity of intermediated relations (an ally of an ally becoming known, then familiar, and
possibly then a new ally).
Our argument about marriages associated with FBD preferences is
that they constitute neither a single marriage rule nor a preference for a
particular type of marriage, but a gradient of preferences and aversions
across a great diversity of marriage types. That is, if we compute the frequencies of every type of consanguineal marriage, and plot these fre-
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Chapter 7
quencies in a graph, ordering them from the types with high frequencies
(such as FBD) to those to the lowest frequencies, we should see a gradient that has the characteristic fractal or scale-free distribution: neither
flat nor linear, nor exponential decay, but a power-law distribution that
is linear in a log-log graph of two variables, population frequency and
the associated number of types at that frequency. This distribution,
which we observe in Aydınlı nomad marriage data, expresses a scalefree organization of diversity of marriage types, consistent with questions in Chapter 4 about whether FBD marriage might be associated with
strategies for diversifying types of marriage practices. Aydınlı nomads,
then, practice a variety of types of marriages and the closer marriages,
on whatever scale of distance or closeness one chooses, are the more
frequent, following a constant gradient of dispersal.
Hypothesis 7.12: The diversity of types of consanguineal marriage
among Aydınlı nomads fits the small world model with navigability discussed in Chapter 5.
Figure 7.11 shows the distribution of the percentages of marriages with
cousins (Table 5.1: selective rate) at different genealogical distances. It
shows a preference gradient for closer cousins, consistent with the navigability aspect of Hypotheses 5.1 and 7.6. Using a measure of kinship
distances through a parent (P), child (C), or sibling (~), distances are
three for first cousins (P~C), five for second cousins (PP~CC), seven for
third cousins (PPP~CCC), and nine or more for fourth (PPPP~CCCC)
and more distant cousins. The probability of marrying a cousin, as indexed by the percentages of available cousins married, declines inversely to the distance to the power 1.6, a power-law relationship very close
to the optimum for navigability (Kleinberg 2000a) in a network lattice
constructed on a constricted plane. Because we already know that the
network is clustered and average distances are low, this supports hypothesis that the nomad clan network is a navigable small world, and
suggests that its dimensionality is somewhere between 1 and 2, which is
what we see in scaling images in Figures 7.3 through 7.6. Comparing the
fit of r2=.975 for a power-law distribution, shown by the solid line in
Figure 7.11, to that of r2=.912 for an exponential distribution (dotted
line), the power law is the better fit.
Figure 7.11: Cousin Marriage Probabilities Fit to a Small World
Navigability Power Law of 1/distanceα with a Scaling Coefficient of
α=1.6
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0.12
269
percent
married
0.1
0.08
Power
(percent
married)
Expon.
(percent
married)
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
3
5
7
9
Figure 7.12a breaks out the preference gradient for all types of consanguineal marriages, regardless of distance. Here the x axis is a fixed number of spouses, from 1 to 32, who are married according to one of the
234 types of blood kinship within the range of fifth cousins (7 generations to a common ancestor). The y axis is the number of types of marriage with exactly that number of related spouses. Thus, we can read off
this graph that there are 156 of the 234 types of marriage for which there
is only one documented marriage. This number drops to 36 of the 234
types for which there are two marriages. If the graph were exponential it
would keep dropping by a constant fraction, such as from 156 to 36 to 10
to ~2 to zero. Instead, the graph follows a power law, and drops from
156 to 36 to ~18 to ~10 to ~5 etcetera, if we follow the power law. Like
all power laws, this distribution has a long tail of a few items with much
higher frequencies than would occur if the type of marriage partner
were randomly chosen. The extreme outlier in this breakdown of frequencies by type is FBD marriage (32 in raw frequency), nearly twice
that of the next most frequent marriage type. The inverse power law of
the distribution has an exponent of 2, an inverse square power law. If y
is the number of types with frequency x between 1 and 32, then the power law equation is y=156/x2. The fit between this theoretical curve and
the data is r2=.83 with an estimated slope of 1.97. Power laws of this
sort, between marriage frequency of a marriage type and the number of
types with this frequency, are strongly suggestive of kinship networks
that operate as self-organizing systems. But in the present case, when we
examine the types of marriage with the highest frequencies (FBD, MBD,
FZD) they also seem to follow an order that reflects some kind of kinship distance reckoned from a perpective of patrilines.
Chapter 7
270
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
Number of Types
Figure 7.12a: Power Law Fractality of Marriage Frequencies
Frequency
0 + 156/x^2
Frequency
FFZSD FFBSD:10-11 FZD:14 MBD:18
FBD:32
Figure
20 7.12b repeats Figure 7.12a, this time taking the log of the x and y
axes for the plot, and fitting a straight line to the distribution.
0
0
5
10
15
20
25
Figure 7.12b: Power Law Fractality of Marriage Frequencies - Loglog plot for Figure 7.1a with fitted line, slope ~ 2
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271
Figure 7.13 shows the outcome of graphing the frequencies of all the 234
types of consanguineal marriages up to seventh cousins ordered by rank
(as in a Zipfian distribution, hence the step-like appearance of the graph)
with logged frequencies on the y axis and the logged number of observations for this type and frequency on the x axis. The distribution of raw
frequencies is linear in the log-log graph and thus a power-law or fractal
type of distribution, fitting our overall observation (and Hypothesis 7.9)
about a fractal marriage pattern.
Fractal marriage patterns function rather like Granovetter’s (1973)
strong and weak ties, which have complementary strengths at complementary distances. The stronger and more frequent ties (of many fewer
types) work at closer distances, in this case concentrically oriented toward close and patrilineal relatives, while the weaker ties of each type
are individually less frequent but work as an ensemble in a distributed
manner over longer distances. The fractal distribution of a strong/weak
tie pattern of this sort, unlike the way that marriage preferences or rules
are usually formulated, is continuously scaled rather than a simple dichotomy of types of marriage.
1000
Figure 7.13: The Fractality of Consanguineal Marriage Frequencies
1000
10
10
Percent
Raw
Freq.
100
100
Number of
Possible Spouses
Raw Freq
% Raw /
Possible
Possible
Spouses
Power (Raw
Freq)
Expon. (Possible
Spouses)
Log. (% Raw /
Possible)
Log. (Possible
Spouses)
1
1
11
Rank Order 1-234 by Frequency
10
100
1000
10
100
1000
Other types of distributions are also graphed in Figure 7.13. The upper
curve for frequencies of types of possible spouses (all those available in
a given category) shows an exponential decay or logarithmic distribution
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Chapter 7
(here FBD is the most frequently available type of relative, MBD the
next). The curve for percentage married of each type of those available
is also a logarithmic distribution (again FBD is the highest percentage,
MBD the next), unlike Figure 7.11, which was a direct test of Hypothesis 7.9 and the navigable small world Hypothesis 5.1. The logarithmic
shape is due to the fact that there are many fewer types of consanguines
at each kinship distance as we move closer to ego (four types of first
cousins) but also, in a limited network, as we move to very distant relations that thin out if there are few apical ancestors, many of the vast
number of combinatorial possibilities do not occur, and the closer relationships have already used up many of the relatives in the network. Only the raw frequencies fit the power-law distribution that is characteristic
of fractality, and this is as it should be.
In the following section, we show that power-law distributions for the
Aydınlı do not apply to affinal relinking.
The Fractality of Two-Family Relinking (nonpreferential)
Figure 7.14 shows the analysis of all the various types of two-family
marital relinkings in the nomad network. Marriage between two brothers
and two sisters and sister exchange are the simplest examples of twofamily relinkings. There are over a thousand more elaborate varieties of
two-family relinkings. Here the types they are rank ordered by their frequency of occurrence, as done for consanguineal marriages in Figure
7.13. Unlike the consanguineal marriages, however, that follow the power-law distribution characteristic of self-organizing systems, the twofamily relinkings follow an exponential distribution that is a characteristic signature of more-or-less random distributions. At the top of the upper left curve of this distribution are the more common types of twofamily relinkings, including the two simplest examples given about (e.g.,
sister exchange). They deviate somewhat from the exponential curve that
fits the distribution generally, and they represent preferred types. There
is no preference gradient over all types, however, as with the consanguineal marriages.
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273
Figure 7.14: The Fractality of Two-Family Relinking Frequencies
10000
turk relink2 redu
Power (turk relink2 redu)
Log. (turk relink2 redu)
Frequency of Relinkings
1000
100
.
10
Rank order of Relinkings by frequency
1
1
10
100
1000
10000
Courtesy of Michael Houseman, using software of Laurent Barry
Power-Law Theory for Preferential Attachment to Degree and
Preferential Attachment to Relinking (Ring Cohesion)
Preferential Attachment to Degree
In general terms, the theory of preferential attachment by degree in social networks entails a theory of competition between individuals or
nodes over popularity, network resources, and a dynamic of “rich get
richer.” This is made explicit in writers like Barabási (2002). The network theory given in the probability models of micro-macro linkages
discussed in Chapter 1 provides a general explantion of the selforganizing feedback loops implicit in such attachments. The discussion
of self-organizing feedback loops in social networks, however, focused
on competition over how nodes in a network are differentially attached,
and how micro behaviors that lead to differential attachment lead to degree distributions (frequencies of nodes with different numbers of links)
in which a topology of centralizing hubs emerges in the network. How
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Chapter 7
do the findings on the Aydınlı accord with the theory of network typology and dynamics outlined therein?
Lack of Preferential Attachment to Degree in the Kinship Domain
Kinship networks cannot by definition have network growth by preferential attachment to degree since children cannot choose to attach themselves preferentially to parents. And in spite of the parental preference
for more children and the greater tendency of large sibling sets to remain
nomadic, the extended tail of frequency of parents ranked by their numbers of children fits an exponential distribution (r2=.905) rather than a
power law (r2=.659). Similarly, the number of descendants of ancestors
is also exponential rather than power law. Perhaps the only kinship networks in human history that had a scale-free extended tail of frequency
of parents ranked by their numbers of children have been in societies
where male leaders were able to amass virtually unlimited numbers of
wives, concubines, and children.
If preferential attachment by degree does not apply to Aydınlı kinship, what can we learn from our results on the preferential attachment
of marriages to a specific gradient of what we might call closer kin? Do
Hypotheses 1.1 to 1.4 of Chapter 1, which are stated in terms of scalefree networks, apply to preferential attachment of marriages to closer
kin? These preferential attachments are not to specific nodes, but specific types of nodes, that is, types of potential marriage partners.
Preferential Attachment to Relinking
Different types of marriage between those who are already kinshiprelated reinforce those existing links to create greater social cohesion.
The possibilities for different kinds of relinking in kinship networks thus
entails a different logic, which we might call preferential attachment by
cohesion. Attachments of this sort have been documented by one of the
present authors in studies of other types of networks (Powell et al. 2004,
Brudner and White 1997). Relinking attachments that form power law
distributions index preference gradients for different forms of cohesion.
These might include repeating an existing type of tie between two lineages, reinforcing a pattern of visiting, creating an exchange relationship
of greater trust between extended families, and others kinds of cohesive
linkage. These forms are multivocal, and no single one can be taken as a
preference “rule”; rather, there are differential gradients in different situations. The aggregate behaviors of individuals over these options form
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
275
an aggregate preference gradient, aggregating individual and family
preferences. Logics of cohesion through cooperation are too often ignored in network studies, partly because good network indices of cohesion have been lacking.
The logic of relinking attachments extends to the negative case where
relinkings do not form power laws and do not index preference gradients. Here we would expect to find that rankings of the frequencies of
different choices will form distributions in which declining frequencies
along the ranking will show the rapid exponential decay expected of a
more random assortment of choices, rather than the slow power-law decay of a preference gradient. For Aydınlı this negative case applies to
affinal relinkings.
The logic of preferential attachment of marriages to closer kin, or
more generally, preference gradients for different types of kin, is a result
of how different forms of cohesion are constructed through cooperative
and competitive processes. Constructing forms of cohesion through cooperation necessarily entails a social competition with distant others who
are excluded from closer cohesion. Social competition of this sort is very
different from the individual or node-based competition over preferential
attachment by degree. In some societies, as for example, those with
competition for class rank and heightened cooperation within social
classes, such constructions often occur for affinal relinkings. In other societies like the Aydınlı they occur for marriages that relink consanguines; and in still others both, neither, or other preference gradients appear. We can be reasonably sure that in the case of the Aydınlı, given
how our findings fit amongst these contrasting types of societies, we are
dealing with a preference gradient for consanguines but not for affinal
relinking, which have a more random exponential distribution.
What we have learned in Chapter 1 about networks, especially from
explanatory micro-macro principles, is how the feedback between local
behavior and global properties of networks alters the context of local behavior to reshape social organization and structure. In the case of preferential attachments to relinking, the local behavior is that of who marries
who and the global behavior is the resulting shape of the marriage frequency distribution, which, in turn, reshapes the context and frequencies
of local behavior, so the feedback loop is complete. Our next question is
how to model this loop.
Ring Cohesion Theory
The theory of network topology and dynamics discussed in Chapter 1
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Chapter 7
bears some close analogies to our preferential attachment to relinking.
To formulate a general theory of preferential attachments to relinking
that is analogous to those for preferential attachments to degree, we need
to identify what it is that relinking contributes to a network, and how
feedback operates in shaping the power-law coefficients associated with
attachments to prreferential relinking. All power-law phenomena tend to
scale between 1 and 3, and for similar reasons. We are not looking, as
physicists do, however, for a single universality class defined by a power
coefficient that might be used to “explain” kinship organization in a
scale-free sense over an extended range of magnitudes. We are looking
for preference gradients indexed by the extended tails of power-law distributions, in this case for different types of relinking marriages.
In our p-graph notation, relinking marriages are identified with closed
cycles. In the Aydınlı case the preferential attachments are those brought
about by consanguineal marriages. In the general case we call these cycles “rings” in order to give a name to a theory that concerns the analysis
and significance of the frequency distributions of different kinds of cycles. Ring cohesion theory begins with the recognition that each independent ring or cycle creates a new link that adds cohesion to a social
network. Ring cohesion theory also provides a method for dealing with
what constitutes an independent cycle and why and how it is that only
independent cycles add to a measure of cohesion.
The graph theoretic definition of a set of cycles that are considered
independent is that each cycle contains at least one edge that is not contained in any of the others. Each independent cycle then contributes one
unit of additional ring cohesion. The theorem for the number of such cycles is that if n is the number of nodes and k the numbers of edges, the
independent cycles number n – k + 1 in a connected graph and n – k + d
if a graph contains d disconnected components. This theorem forms one
leg for a theory of ring cohesion.
A second leg for ring cohesion theory is the premise that shorter cycles contribute more cohesion than longer cycles (White and Harary
2001). The third combines these two findings. Because we can compute
the number r = n – k + d of independent cycles in a p-graph, then finding the first set of smallest cycles of length h so that h > r gives us a
means of finding a set of cycles that is sufficient to identify a superset
that includes a set of independent cycles. The fourth leg of the theory is
that all the cycles of a graph can be generated as products of intersections of independent cycles or their recursive products. (The intersection
operator adds two subgraphs but removes any edges that they had in
common). By this means we generate all of the cohesive cycles in the
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277
graph. In the general case, it is only a set of cycles that are independent
that should be submitted for distributional analysis, so that they constitute a statistically independent set.19 The smallest such independent sets
can also be tested for consanguineal and affinal relinkings separately,
given the importance of this distinction. If only one of these sets has
preference gradients indicated by a power-law distribution of marriage
types, those types will be regarded as independent, and nonindependent
types will be identified from the other set.
The formula for the maximum number of independent rings or cycles
allows us to calculate how much of the variation in marriage behavior is
explained by the preferential set with the power-law gradient. A further
step in the analysis would attempt to identify what kinds of principles
would correctly predict the ranking ordering of the cycles in frequency,
controlling for the marginal constraints on the types of edges present in
the network. This would entail the type of Feynman situation studies that
we discuss in Chapter 8. This more general approach of ring cohesion
methodology was an outgrowth of our analyses of the Aydınlı data. The
advantage of ring cohesion theory and its methodology is that it allows
statistically appropriate samples to be tested for sets of smallest independent cycles.
Ring cohesion theory currently occupies the status of a framework for
investigation, and probabilistic models of network processes that involve
how marriage or other types of cycles generate different types of cohesion in different types of networks requires the level of investigation that
we reviewed in Chapter 1 for preferential attachments by degree. Here,
we can only sketch in this particular case how such processes operate.
What ring cohesion does as a substantive process of cycle formation
within a network is to reinforce some ties in the graph more than others
in terms of what they contribute to cohesion. In the kinship case, for example, a FBD marriage reinforces close ties along the male links in a
shallow patriextended family. If all marriages were endogamous to a patrilineage or segment, the reinforcement would augment cohesion within
these units, which exist mutually exclusive of one another. Marriages
that involve female links would augment lines of cohesion running between lineages. These reinforcement patterns would affect what types of
cohesive clusters form within the clan, and the lines of potential segmentation, the networks of trust and strong ties, and other topological features of the network. These macrostructures would then alter the context
of behavior differentially for different members and groups within the
clan, and the kinds of feedbacks we have described for network processes in general would need to be studied over time. An extension of the
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present study would be needed to study these feedbacks dynamically and
structurally in relation to historical processes through time. Simulation
studies would help in understanding these processes. Ring cohesion theory, then, opens a frontier of new research that is largely untapped, but
that emphasizes social cooperation and social competition rather than the
pure competition among individuals that is emphasized in the study of
preferential attachment by degree (Barabási 2002). It is not just individuals but cohesive groups that complete as well as collaborate.
We have shown that consanguineal marriage frequencies for the Aydınlı have power-law distributions that indicate a preference gradient.
These marriages qualify as the independent cycles that generate cohesion in the Aydınlı genealogical network. The frequencies of different
types of affinal relinking do not have power-law distributions that indicate a preference gradient. If we take those marriages shown by this
means to be statistically preferential as independent cycles that generate
cohesion in the Aydınlı genealogical network, we must also conclude
from the formula for the maximum number of independent cycles that
many of the affinal relinking cycles are the byproducts of consanguineal
marriages. These marriages are therefore disqualified as cycles that contribute independently to constructing genealogical cohesion. When two
brothers arrange FBD marriages their sons by an exchange of daughters,
for example, the two independent FBD marriages generate a nonindependent affinal relinking of sister exchange. Nonindependent affinal relinking ramifies through the genealogy as a result of many different pairs
of consanguineal marriages that have some of the same people in common.
Fractally Segmented Lineages as Self-Organizing Systems:
Navigable Small Worlds in the Kinship Domain
The power-law distributions of consanguineal marriage frequencies for
the Aydınlı exhibit the correct fit to the parameters of a navigable small
world. The fit is between a power coefficient of 1.8 and the navigability
model. This value corresponds roughly to a squeezed two-dimensional
geographical configuration of nomadism that is reflected in how lineages
organize their marriages.
A small world that is navigable is one in which a specific ego can locate a specific alter with certain characteristics in relatively few steps,
but it is also one that can mobilize its zones or segments at various distances from ego, and mobilize segments at levels up to and including
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
279
nearly the entire network. That is precisely the property of segmented
lineage systems.
Figure 7.15 illustrates some of the properties of a segmented lineage
in which each father produces three sons, for eight generations. The
number of sons might vary but the self-similarity of the branches constitutes a fractal structure. The increase in the cumulative number of men
in the lineage follows an exponential curve, shown in the graph. So do
the cumulative numbers of potential sublineages branching from any of
the men in this lineage, over all generations. The distribution does not fit
a power law, as shown by the deviation of a best-fit power curve in Figure 7.15 to the exact curve that is exponential. These distributions remain exponential so long as the number of sons is a poison distribution
around an average number of sons greater than one.
Figure 7.15: Fractal Expansion for a Patrilineage with a Branching
Number 3 – in each of k generations, starting with a single ancestor
at level 0, each new descendant has three sons; the resulting cumulative distribution is exponential
k
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Fk=3k
3
9
27
81
243
729
2187
6561
Cumulative
3
7000
12
6000
39
5000
120
4000
3000
363
2000
1092
1000
3279
0
0
9840
Weak tie
Exponential
Power
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Like Figure 7.14, the distributions of numbers in fractal lineages represent the negative case of absence of a power law. The power laws discovered for the Aydınlı, however, in Figures 7.11 through 7.13 relate not
to the size of lineage segments but how they are tied together by marital
relinkings that make the network of alliances between fractal sublineages
cohesive.
What makes power laws significant? The power-law shape of distributions is a characteristic signature of self-organizing systems (Barabási
2002:74-76) and suggests that the process generating the extreme tails of
large or frequent events in the distribution is the same as that for the
small ones.20 The possibility of the same process underlying the power
laws of different networks is one of the themes of Barabási (2002) but it
is by no means established for social networks.
We have also seen from Analysis 7 that strong ties between subline-
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Chapter 7
ages cluster to define for each sublineage its degree of local curvature of
reciprocal endogamy within its immediate zone of strong marriage allies.
The local clusters and continuities in the curvatures of proximal clusters
of nodes define an important aspect of the topology of the kinship network.
Fractally Segmented Lineages of Self-Organizing Systems
In closing this chapter, we recall Hypotheses 5.1 to 5.3:
Hypothesis 5.1: The Aydınlı genealogical network, which has both living persons and ancestors who are important as links between them,
has the structural properties of a navigable CSW (complex small
world).
Hypothesis 5.2: The specific characteristics that constitute a kin-based
CSW for the Aydınlı are: (1) the basis of trust is relatively near genealogical relationship and the rules of behavior between near relatives, (2) some close relatives will be found at larger spatial distances, (3) marriage frequency correlates with genealogical distance, (4)
lineages provide one of the larger identities needed for navigability,
(5) reciprocal marriages between lineages that extend the bounds of
trust through female or affinal linkages (alliance groups occurring in
specific historical periods) provide a second cross-cutting larger
identity which is a minimum needed for SW navigability.
Hypothesis 5.3: The five characteristics of the kin-based CSW network
of the Aydınlı are not unique but are common to Middle Eastern societies influenced by that form of Arabic social organization that has
segmented patrilineages and a right to marry FBD.
Drawing on these while reflecting on the importance of same-generation
marriages, consistent with the Qur’an, but mostly instantiated for within
rather than between lineage marriages, we can now reformulate the more
functionalist Hypothesis 7.11:
Hypothesis 7.13: Given the possibilities of disruptive feuding
within agnatic lineages with a right to marry a lineage mate, and
with co-residential sublineage segments, in which marriage functions to create cohesion within as well as between lineages, samegeneration marriage is an important functional element that reduces the competition between generations over wives.
Here the prediction is that disruptive feuding within agnatic lineages is
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
281
minimized or absent, partly because such feuding would be of the most
disruptive sort within a segmentary lineage society. In addition, the
same-generation marriage pattern helps to minimize friction by eliminating competition for wives between men of different generations. The hypothesis, while inferential, is supported, or at least not contradicted, by
the fact that Johansen observed no disruptive feuding within agnatic lineages. This reformulation, linking endogamous marriage to issues of social solidarity, might also help to understand—and again, this is highly
inferential—why the lineage of Mustan is the major exception among
lineages to the same-generation marriage rule. His Ecevitli A-B lineage,
as we saw in Chapter 6, was one of the major sources of the marital relinking that established the clan as a cohesive unit. It might appear that
the successful strategy of this lineage in establishing social cohesion
might be accomplished at the cost of overriding the rules of samegeneration marriage as established by the Qur’an.
At a more general level, however, going back to Hypothesis 5.2, we
can also see why a same-generation marriage rule would be highly functional in the segmented lineage systems of the post-Qur’an Arabized
world.
Summary
The term segmentary lineage derives from Evans-Pritchard’s (1940,
1953:26) study of the cattle-keeping Nuer, who lacked a centralized government, had exogamous lineage segments that corresponded to spatial
divisions, and engaged in predatory expansion against other tribes, a feature elaborated by Sahlins (1961). Many of the features that these and
other authors specify for this concept are not widely found in the Middle
East, and they make this concept unsuitable for broader comparative
analysis.21 As noted by Hart (2001: abstract; see also Munson Jr. 1989,
Holy 1979):
The concept of tribe has long been contentious in North African
history and anthropology and the idealized concept of segmentary
lineage theory is inadequate. Segmentation, however, is a useful
concept as it corresponds to tribal self image and cohesion although it undermines chronology.
We employ the more neutral term, embedded or segmented lineage, for
“a descent group in which minimal lineages are encompassed as segments of minor lineages, minor lineages as segments of major lineages,
and so on” (Anthropology Explorer glossary). Embedded lineages are
characteristic of many Bedouin (e.g., Peters 1991), Arab (e.g., Cunnison
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Chapter 7
1966), and Arabized societies of the Middle East that are often dependent on various types of husbandry and on long-distance trade by camel
caravans.
Few studies of segmented lineage structures have looked at how the
cohesion between sublineages is generated by marital alliances; much
less how such a structure forms a navigable small world model of reciprocal alliances. The comparative topology of segmented lineage social
organization is an area open for study, and findings are likely to be
linked to the properties of self-organizing systems.
For the Aydınlı nomads, a structure of alignments among lineage
segments emerges out of the interplay between nomadism and sedentism, egalitarianism and rank, competition and alliance, and it builds up
from a local topology of transitivity of alliances. To see that topology
clearly we have to think carefully about how to measure network dynamics at the local level. Analysis 7 uses a technique developed by Eckmann
and Moses (2002). The method “fractalizes” the cascade of all the possible sublineages as they segment in time by considering all sublineages of
depth five, and the network of relations between them. Because we want
to focus on marriage alliances that are intentionally constructed, we
maximize that possibility by considering only those marriage exchanges
between five-generation sublineages that are reciprocal and in which a
woman from A marries into B and a woman from B into A. When applied to the Aydınlı, because marriages are almost always in the same
generation, these will almost always be true exchange marriages.
The ethnographic context of exchange marriages is that the bride
payments are cancelled, implying a high degree of coordination, trust,
and informality between the families. It is not that these marriages constitute the majority of all marriages, far from it: the majority of all marriages involve bride payments. But as shown in Figure 7.9, the pairs of
the twenty-one sublineages that are linked by at least one reciprocal exchange are more than twice as common as the pairs that have only directed exchanges of brides (e.g., one or more women from A marry into
B, but not the reverse). With the much greater number of reciprocal over
directed links, the average distance between two sublineages in the network of reciprocal exchanges is also much shorter than for the directed
links, peaking at distance one. Marriage alliances show a high tendency
toward transitivity of reciprocal but not of directed exchanges involving
bride payment, and a vastly greater ratio of triples that are not connected
at all than expected by chance, consistent with the idea of topological
clustering and separation (Table 7.4 triad census).22 The topology is not
strictly clustered into cliques but has more chains of reciprocal links than
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283
expected by chance. When we look at the global topology, it is indeed
that of a long sheet of closely entwined paths (Figure 7.4, as in Figure
7.5), with a great deal of local transitivity among close segments.
What does this topology represent socially? It conforms to our hypothesis that the sublineages that are indeed intimately related with one
another engage in reciprocal exchange, and the informal visiting that occurs between these pairs creates a chain of three sublineages, say A, B,
C, in which if A-B are close and B-C are close, then there is a strong
likelihood that A and C will hear intimate information about and encounter one another’s members via the intermediation of B. This is the model
of local clusterability (transitivity) of Eckmann and Moses, and it produces surprisingly good results: The global topology of the alliance
structure is a long series of multiply connecting paths of reciprocal intimacies. One pole of the series begins with the sublineages most involved
in marital alliances with villages. The other pole of the series ends with
the more intensely nomadic sublineages, such as those engaged in
sheepherding in the higher mountain ranges, who are more involved with
each other and with other nomadic tribes. Figure 7.5 showed how this
topological continuum can be visualized on a map of the region in which
the links to villages are superimposed. The internal topology of marital
alliances within the clan matches the external topology of outside alliances.
This topology, then, is one that describes the opportunity space for
marriages, including arranged marriages as well as meetings between the
potential bride and groom, in a structured sociogeographic space. Orthogonal to the geographic social space is the temporal genealogical
space in which the preference gradients are for same-generation marriages. Close visiting relations are between members of proximal sublineages who are also contemporaries in time; they give a dynamic to the
topology because the range of visiting patterns can be extended through
intermediation and transitivity. This topology, then, creates gradients of
possibility and constraint on visiting and getting to know potential
spouses, both for oneself and one’s children.
The “fractalizing” method of analysis, however, which works well to
discover the social topology from the analysis of network patterns, also
bore another dividend: we could interpret change fractally in Figure 7.6,
by the bubbling up of certain sublineages in the scaling pattern (which
has the characteristic tubular shape at the floor of the diagram) into a
dimension (on the vertical axis of the diagram) in which certain cascades
of sublineages are shifting their position relative to that of their maximal
lineage as a whole. Interestingly, variance among the norms and behav-
284
Chapter 7
iors is also probably fractalized within such a space. For most lineages,
for example, same-generational marriage is an absolute rule, but not for
any of the sublineages descended from Mustan or his brother. These
master relinkers, as it were, seem to virtually ignore the norm of samegeneration marriages within their lineage once a depth of 4-5 generations
is reached, so long as the ages of the couple are relatively close.
The findings of this chapter connect with the model of fractal and
complex small world networks constructed in Chapter 5. In that chapter,
Hypotheses 5.1.1-5.1.3 and explicit models for small worlds were developed for an “‘Arab”-type fractal marriage network that integrated the
levels of segmented patrilineages. That analysis showed how if such kinship networks, like those of the Aydınlı nomads, are to provide a basis
for exchange, they must also have a topology that is navigable. The local
curvature of clusters of reciprocal and transitive marriage alliances between lineage segments that we have discovered in this chapter provide a
topology of localized and extensible relations of trust that are the vehicles for navigability. They give to the larger networks of villagers, nomadic tribes, and Aydınlı clans—within which our specific clan is embedded—a specifically fractal quality of a complex small world, one in
which paths of mediated trustworthy connections are, on average, short,
and denser clusters exist which help not only to construct cohesive and
solidary groups that can compete for survival with others, but to make
navigability for suitable exchange partners possible within the larger
small world.
The navigability characteristic needed for network navigability was
confirmed in Analysis 9, Figure 7.11. Figure 7.12 confirmed a powerlaw distribution for consanguineal marriage frequencies, consistent with
a kinship network with distributed agent-based self-organization. Figure
7.13 confirmed that the power law operated through raw frequencies,
which constitute the demographic context of marriage behavior, and not
through percentages distributions (Table 5.1). Affinal relinkings, however, were shown in Figure 7.14 to have an exponential rather than powerlaw distribution. The inference from these results is that consanguineal
marriages represent a preference gradient scaled roughly with kinship
distance which is potentially self-organizing with respect to clustering,
formation of concentric cohesion, and navigability. Affinal relinking, in
contrast, exhibits no such features, and patterns more randomly as indicated by the exponential distribution. Figure 7.15 reinforces the idea that
lineage segments are basically fractal, as argued in Chapter 5, although a
power-law distribution in sizes of sublineages could conceivably result
from a preference gradient in which larger units have a greater success
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
285
and retention rate for nomadic life, with smaller units having a higher
probability of failure or emigration to villages. That hypothesis will be
explored in the next chapter.
Further Reading
Granovetter (1973) and Eckmann and Moses (2002) provide some of the
methodology that is central to the analyses of which chapter, with Barabási (2002) providing an approach to network topology that contrasts
markedly with the models used here. Barth (1953) provides a study of
sheep and goat pastoralism for the Basseri in Iran, a case somewhat
comparable to that of the Aydınlı nomads. Bates (1973) provides a closely comparable case for a nomad group neighboring the Aydınlı and of
the same ethnic, migratory, and tribal origin. There is a wealth of ethnographic detail in Bates’s monograph that can be used to compare with
and flesh out some of the probable workings on Aydınlı society.
Notes
1. An example of rivalries is evident from the 1957 funeral service of patriarch
Fındıklı Abbas (840, lineage #2) shown in the Frontispiece, for example, where
some of those in competition with the brother of the deceased who became
tanıdık kişi that same year, including some of the Kırbaşı lineage (#4), did not
attend.
2. On dowry for the neighboring Kayseri Province Yörük see Bates (1973: 77
f.n. 7).
3. For bride payments of neighboring Kayseri Province Yörük see Bates
(1973: 76). The monetary equivalents of the payments for the two groups are
roughly comparable and ordinarily very high for arranged marriages but for
elopements (“kidnapped” brides) are adjusted to roughly one-quarter of the
amounts for arranged marriages.
4. Bates (1973: 65) states for the neighboring Yörük nomad group that bride
payments are very high for virgins taken as second wives, and while such marriages are almost nonoccurrent among the Aydınlı nomads we take the discouragement of such marriages to also entail high payment demands by reluctant fathers. He also reports “the brideprice will be high for kidnap marriages but not
for divorcées or widows.” Squaring that with his statement in the previous footnote, that means that bride payments for arranged marriages are very high, and
accords with our ordering of bride payments.
5. For example, “the likelihood that FZD’s . . . and MZD’s will be close agnatic kinsmen is high, the exact rate being determined by the incidence of FBD mar-
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Chapter 7
riages in previous generations.” (Bates 1973:61)
6. A graph is transitive when for any subset of three nodes {A, B, C}, a pair of
(directed) lines from A to B and B to C entails one from A to C. An example of
transitivity is the idea that a close friend of a close friend is likely to become a
friend.
7. “Restricted exchanges” is the term used by Lévi-Strauss for reciprocal ties
between lineages.
8. Thus where strong ties link alter A to ego and ego to B, A and B are likely
to be linked by a strong tie whereas if the ties from A to ego to B are weak, transitivity is less likely.
9. This contrast between the structure of strong and weak ties in marriage networks is analogous to Granovetter’s distinction in European societies, although
the content of the two types of ties is very different.
10. To scale these differences quantitatively, the network is drawn with using
Pajek’s automatic drawing option set to Values of lines/Similarities. The similarity value of a line between two nodes is measured by the chi-squared formula for
the excess of actual marriage frequencies over expected values.
11. There were eighteen other village or town names given that White could
not locate: six from Satır Köy, four from Otlu Köy, two from Mağara [“cave,”
also an older name for Tufanbeyli], and one each from Arabica, Kara Köy
(which might be Karabuçak, near Konya), Tarpan, Susamlı, Ilmasit [an older
name for Antalya], and Buzaklı.
12. Lineages 1 and 2 (#2 and #3 respectively) at one end of the spatial continuum are thus brought together with 6-7-8-9 (#1, #6, #4, #5) at the other end.
13. Eckmann and Moses (2002) emphasize that mutual recognition, as indicated by reciprocated ties in social networks, is crucial to understanding how network neighborhoods are structured. Their approach is particularly useful in that
they do not take networks in raw form for the analysis of reciprocity, but they
take into account hierarchical links, like those within a person’s web pages, or
those between members of the same minimal patrilineage, to find the reciprocal
links between units that reside, so to speak, at a different address. Their approach has a useful analog for kinship networks in considering reciprocal marriage links between different parts of hierarchical structures, such as sublineages
that have a meaningful social identity but are nested within larger lineages segments and within maximal linkages having more distant connections through remote ancestors. Their hypothesis is that cohesive content and thematics reside in
the combination of reciprocal links between distinct entities capable of mutual
recognition with locally dense network neighborhoods constructed out of these
meaningful reciprocal links. They found that clustering as measured by the local
density of neighborhoods surrounding single nodes, that is, the density of ties
among those connected to a given node or ego, to be highly correlated with ties
to ego that are reciprocal, and with the degree of overlap of ego neighborhoods
to form larger clusters of higher densities. They found these patterns to be a
common property of “social” networks that replicated for the World Wide Web,
Marriage, Rank, and Migration
287
neuronal networks in the brain, gene regulation networks, and protein interactions. They call this pattern one of curvature, a term borrowed from topology.
We find this pattern of curvature to replicate in our network of marriage
among lineages. We found a well-defined structure of curvatures in overlapping
and relatively dense network neighborhoods, as diagrammed in the bowl-like
scaling of Figure 5.3, where reciprocal links tend to be along the circumference
of the bowl and denser network neighborhoods tend to form around them. Our
Figure 5.4 is an attempt to test whether the network neighborhoods themselves
have some meaningful content to them, as indeed they do.
14. It may be easily seen how to extend this approach to bilateral kindreds that
are also overlapping.
15. Further testing for a small world model could be done using statistical
modeling of social networks, as, for example, the exponential random graph
models discussed by Skvoretz (2002). The results from Table 5.2 are so clear-cut
and consistent with other results, however, as not to require further testing.
16. Our finding that weak ties do not do the spanning in this network––or rather, they do, but they are redundant and, being more random that strong ties,
also lack small world searchability—is consistent with findings from Dodds,
Muhamad and Watts’s (2003) S-W experiment on 67,000 E-mail users and
eighteen targets in thirteen countries, who found that successful chains depended
on finding intermediate links through identities shared with the target, and did
not depend on weaker ties.
17. A good example of a power law in the natural sciences is earthquakes with
half the energy being four times more frequent over an extremely large range of
magnitudes.
18. Similarly for slippage in the earth’s crust, which might start out as a tiny
event below the surface and escalate through proximity along an existing series
of faults and cracks to a massive scale.
19 .Counting cycles also entails minate isomorphisms among cycles so that
they are counted only once.
20. The scaling of frequency of earthquakes in relation to their energetic intensity, for example, is a power-law distribution. For a physicist, this implies that
there is no typical scale for earthquakes and suggests that the physical mechanism for large earthquakes is the same as that for small ones.
21. As we have seen, Korotayev (2000), for example, finds FBD and segmented lineages associated with Arabization under the conquests of the early Caliphates in the seventh and eighth centuries.
22. There is no tendency for ranked clusters, a finding that is consistent with
egalitarianism.
Chapter 8
Demographic Choice and Constraint:
Historical Structure and Change
Demographic Opportunity and Constraint as Influences on Social Cohesion, Resilience, and Change
Lévi-Strauss (1969) shows how patterns of generalized (multiway) and
restricted (pairwise) exchange, in terms of the circulation of goods, information, and people, entail different modes of stratification and patterns of global versus local cohesion. How women circulate, as wives
and mothers, job holders or migrants, and in patterns of sociability, helps
to define some of the key structural parameters in a society. Among the
Aydınlı nomads, for example, bride payments circulate in the orbits of
exchange while wives move in the opposite direction. Understanding the
relationships activated when a bride takes a man to wed is a crucial part
of understanding the system of social exchange by which the society is
constituted. It is within this framework that anthropological theory has
attached such importance to marriages between kin, the forms these marriages take, such as the different types of cousin marriages, and the implications of these forms for social exchange and cohesion.
FBD marriage, as foreshadowed in Chapter 4, is problematic for anthropological theories of social exchange. Most theories of exchange
formulated to aid in understanding systematic differences among kinship
systems deal with the cross-cousin marriages, MBD and FZD. For societies that have a rule of unilineal descent or a gender-specific rule of residence (with husband’s family, wife’s family, etc.), these are marriages
between different kinship groups. FBD marriages seem to contradict the
very premises of anthropological exchange theories (Bourdieu 1972) because they are almost invariably associated with patrilineages and often
with patrilocality, and are thus within kinship groups. This has posed
one of the central theoretical questions that have framed our analysis of
Aydınlı nomad kinship networks and of FBD marriage in general.
290
Chapter 8
In Chapters 2, 4, and 7, we argued that the making of inferences
about marriage rules and the study of marriage choice requires a deeper
understanding, as elsewhere in social life, of the constraints of demographic factors on the opportunities for making choices. Here we analyze
three topics dealing with demographic opportunities and constraints:
1. Co-Selection Bias among Siblings
2. Parallel and Cross-Cousin Marriage
3. Parallel Cousin Demography
Analysis 10: Co-Selection Bias among Siblings
Demographic fluctuations, such as family size, provide opportunities for
making selective choices, such as whether to emigrate, emigrate with
one’s siblings, or to stay at home because of the additional support that a
large set of siblings provides. Kinship links can be a source of social cohesion, as with residential clusters of kin, or a potential for dispersal, as
with siblings who emigrate either jointly or independently. For Aydınlı
nomads, for whom male lineages are crucially important, we decided on
a demographic analysis of whether the size of the sibling set influenced
people’s decisions to leave the nomad clan or to stay with a nomad residential group. For males, that residential group is typically the patrilocal
extended family.
Hypothesis 8.1 (Co-Selection Bias among Brothers): Because
cooperation among co-resident siblings and lineage mates is crucial to the local production units of a pastoral economy, we expect
that males with more brothers would be more likely to continue to
reside (patrilocally) within the clan, while those with fewer brothers would be more likely to emigrate.
The analysis of this and related hypotheses was not conducted by using
any of our usual network software (Pajek or Pgraph), but required a
more specific spreadsheet analysis of the size of sibling groups and an
analysis of how size varies with other variables. The auxiliary analytic
routines (in the Fortran programming language) that were used may become available with the development of new software packages.
Robust health and the value of children to the extended family point
to high fertility of women and population growth in the nomad clan, yet
limitations on resources force outmigration to villages. How is the potential for cohesive integration in the clan, the lineage segments, and the ex-
Demographic Choice and Constraint
291
tended families affected by the demography of sibling groups? In Table
6.4 we examined the question: Who stays and who leaves? We now examine more closely: Who stays together or emigrates together?
Figures 8.1 and 8.2 are the results of testing hypothesis 8.1. It turns
out that the more brothers in a sibling group the more likely they are to
remain nomadic and not to migrate to villages. This is a crucial factor in
nomad demography, supporting the lineage system itself. The relationship between number of brothers and migration, however, is curvilinear,
as shown in Figure 8.1, for brothers of the same father. Here the frequencies on the y axis are number of sets of brothers, not number of
brothers. The ratio of stayers to leavers is simply computed as numbers
of stayers divided by leavers but then multiplied by ten to conform to the
scale for numbers of stayers and leavers. The ratio of stayers to leavers
rises as the number of brothers rises from one to four, then dips between
five and seven, and rises sharply for eight brothers, as are sometimes
produced by two or more wives. The biggest exception to the generalization that supports Hypothesis 8.1, causing much of the dip in the curve
of ratios, are six brothers, five of whom emigrated to the village of their
mother in one of the recent generations.
Figure 8.1: Stayer-Leaver Brothers by Same Father
350
300
leavers
250
stayers
200
ratio*10
150
100
50
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Num ber of Brothers
Another part of the explanation for the two inflections in Figure 8.1 is
the aggregation of full with half-brothers. Figure 8.2 shows the same data graphed for full siblings and, given the small numbers of larger families, averaged in the upper categories of numbers of brothers. The num-
292
Chapter 8
bers of brothers now shows a single mode, and the ratio of stayers to
leavers is more of a curve rising with the number of full brothers. The
two graphs taken together support the idea that full brothers are more
likely to be cohesive than sets of brothers with two different mothers.
What also matters statistically is that these larger sets of brothers remain
nomadic and are less likely to migrate to town.
Figure 8.2: Stayer-Leaver Brothers by Same Parents
120
100
80
r=.47
60
leavers
40
stayers
ratio*10
20
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Number of Brothers of Same Parents
8
Our demographic data cannot provide much more detail than this because of the problem of missing or incomplete data. The blank areas in
Table 8.1 indicate where data are missing on sibling sets for the early
generations. If we take only those after generations d (born after 1875),
where data are more complete, the Pearson’s correlation for brothers of
the same mother increases from .47 (over all generations) to .55 and accounts for 30% of the variance in migration ratio. For brothers of the
same father the correlation increases from .47 in generations starting in
a-c to .53 in generations f and below.
For the two generations for which data on completed birth cohorts are
accurate, generations f (born >1935) and g (born >1965), the average
number of brothers decreased from 3.3 (n=75) to 2.8 (n=86; p<.001). It
is thus likely that from generation g forward, although cohesion is still
higher among larger sets of brothers, the absolute size of these sets is also shrinking. Table 8.2 also shows more men in the >1965 generation
Demographic Choice and Constraint
293
emigrating, but also more whose fathers were from the clan returning
from villages.
For women, there is no correlation (r = -.07, p = .68) between number
of sisters and likelihood of migration, although there might be a tendency
for more women to stay if they have more brothers.
Table 8.1: Number of Males by Number of Brothers by Generation
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
Totals
1
2
0
2
4
8
16
28
16
2
78
2
2
0
8
7
14
26
44
19
0
120
3
0
6
6
3
26
53
44
8
0
146
4
0
4
4
16
20
58
35
0
0
137
5
0
0
0
0
20
15
5
10
0
50
6
0
0
0
6
7
22
36
0
0
71
7
8
9
0
0
0
0
0
0
Missing
data0
0
0
0
0 here0
0
0
0
13
24
9
15
15
3
2
0
0
0
0
0
30
39
12
10
0
0
0
0
0
10
8
0
0
18
Totals
4
10
20
36
95
246
233
55
2
701
Table 8.2: Male Demographics by Generation
ab
Men: % Emigrating
Men: % Returning
Men: Herders Immigrating
Men: Tribals Immigrating
Men: Villagers Immigrating
Men: % with wives unknown
Men: % Single
2
2
40
>1845
c
>75
d
4
>05
e
9
>35
f
12
>65
g
15
3
>80
hi
9
12
53
69
91
2
1
30
6
Marriage Choice and Constraint
Spatial and Network Constraints in Finding a Spouse
For the Aydınlı nomads, relevant factors in the choice of spouses include
spatial distributions and routes of communication, such as the nomad
migration routes that influence the demography of emigration, network
neighborhoods and the structure of meeting places, presence of different
kinds of relatives in those neighborhoods, and the generational levels of
those relatives. These factors were examined in analyses 7 through 9 in
Chapter 7. They operate as contingencies that must be factored in before
we can factor out the extent of actual preferences. Demographic factors
need not be overly complex if at each step we integrate our knowledge
of the structure of networks and interactions, as we have done for the
294
Chapter 8
nomads in Chapter 7. From that analysis of network neighborhoods and
the structure of meeting places there emerged a coherent pattern of interaction among lineages and between them and the sedentary villages that
lie parallel to their migratory routes. Variability in the surrounding environment as it differentially impacts local groups is evident in the network topology of the clan, and may be taken as a general principle of
nomad social organization. We have also seen how emigration rates correlated with position in the interlineage marriage topology of network
neighborhoods, and how the segmentation of lineages, their merging by
intermarriage, and changing environments impact on their alliance patterns. Changes in alliance patterns (and the fact that lineages are not
fixed entities but groups that shift membership as new generations mature and receding ancestries are forgotten) impact back on the network
topology, in some cases changing the structure of the clan. Reading the
data of Figure 7.6 from a complexity perspective, for example, changes
in alliance patterns among the lineage segments whose members change
through time show a temporal fractality as changes in clan structure
bubble up through time at varying magnitudes, some of which entail major structural changes. All that is to say that our study of marriage alliances by means of network analysis has shown fruitful results up to this point,
although we have not yet addressed the issues of Chapter 4 and the anthropological theories of lineage structure or marriage alliance as social exchange. We now address some of the theoretical questions about “forms of
marriage” that we raised in Chapter 4.
Demographic Constraints in Choice of a Spouse
In Chapters 2, 5, and 7, we argued that anthropological progress in the
field of kinship studies has been impeded by lack of systematic analyses
of how the types of kin available for marriage are contingently affected
by demography, even in how to define marriage rules or preferences
(Table 5.1), much less how to study changing rules or preferences. This
became evident with Hammel’s (1976) publication of the principles that
govern how the rates of FZD and MBD marriages are systematically distorted in favor of the latter when and to the extent to which there are differences in the age or other status characteristics of husband and wife.
Given the focus on cousin marriages in anthropological exchange theories, Hammel’s principle seemed to invalidate much of the previous research. What if a disproportionately frequent type of cousin marriage,
for example, could be attributed not to preferential rules or choice, but to
Demographic Choice and Constraint
295
demographic contingency, in which random encounters with relatives
nearby or near in age or of the right status were already biased in the direction of the higher observed frequencies? The kind of thinking that we
see in Hammel’s analysis, about spatial and demographic constraints on
behavior, is what underlies the kinds of methods and analyses we use in
the following analysis. Only by factoring out such constraints can we
begin to talk about preferential rules or choice.
Analysis 11: Cousin Marriage Demography
In contrast to counting the frequency of each of four types of cousin
marriages and comparing the percentages of each, as a method for inferring marriage preferences, having our data on the kinship network allows
us to compute the percentages of different types of consanguineal marriages relative to the availability of relatives of each type (White and
Jorion 1992). This is hardly possible by manual enumeration, and offers
a more realistic baseline given Hammel’s principle (Chapter 5) and the
potentially massive effect of demographic factors.
The Par-Calc program (Pgraph software: White and Skyhorse 1999)
performs this type of analysis. The program examines every possible
consanguineal relation between men and women, and counts the frequency of each type, such as FBD marriage, for each ego, in each generation, and then norms these frequencies as percentages of those available. White and Jorion (1992) describe in detail the analytic techniques
used, which we will not repeat here. The program computes how many
men (overall, or by generation) have at least one relative of each type.
The percentages of actual over possible marriages tell us how many of
those men having a FBD, for example, actually married a FBD, and
similarly for other relatives. The analysis includes blood relatives of
each marriage type where a couple may have common ancestors up to
seven generations back. This includes first, second, and more distant
cousins, as well as relatives of different generations.
Johansen concluded from her pre-computer survey of her genealogical scroll that FBD marriage was decreasing in numbers through time.
Taking FBD marriage as an index of the viability of the system of patrilineages, she concluded that the lineage system was in decline, and that
the traditional kinship system of the Aydınlı nomads was breaking up.
The frequency observation was correct, but the conclusion is not so simple.
Figure 8.3 classifies the frequency and percent of FBD marriages by
296
Chapter 8
historical generations, as well as the percentage of FBD marriages out of
all cousin marriages. The table shows each of the three major measures
in Table 5.1, with raw frequencies on the left, percents in the middle,
and relative numbers on the right. The results confirm Johansen’s earlier
impression for the raw frequencies. The percentage of men who married
an available FBD (center graph) as a percentage of all cousin marriages
(right graph), however, are at variance with the raw frequencies. FBD
marriages are rising slightly in relative rate compared to marriage with
other cousins, and stable or rising in the interactive rate of percent of
men marrying those available.
The low absolute numbers of cousin marriages in the generation born
after (>) 1874, especially for cousins involving female links, are undoubtedly due to missing data on females in early generations; hence,
this generation will be ignored in other figures, and the high relative
numbers of FBD in this early generation should be ignored. The low absolute number for FBD marriages in this generation is probably due to
lineage segmentation because earlier segments of a patrilineage are likely to have split off or perhaps died out, so reports here are also incomplete.
Thus, there is considerable discrepancy between the measures. If absolute and relative numbers for FBD marriage give the impression that
FBD marriage is falling out of favor, this is not confirmed for FBD marriage as a percent of those available. In general, the correlation between
raw and relative rates of cousin marriages and the selective rates for percentage married of those available (as in Figure 8.3) are r = .36 and r =
.28, accounting for only 13% and 8% common variance.
Demographic Choice and Constraint
297
Figure 8.3: Comparison of Changes in Cousin Marriage Rates using
Absolute, Percent Married of Those Available, and Relative Numbers
Absolute
numbers
50
45
% of Available
Relative
numbers as a
% of cousins
>18745
40
35
>1905
30
>1935
25
20
>1965
15
10
5
0
FBD
MZD
FZD
MBD %FBD %MZD %FZD %MBD
fbd
mzd
fzd
mbd
Legend: The actual frequency of each type of cousin marriage (on the left) is divided by
the number of men who have a relative of this type (not shown) to give a percentage
(center graphs) that may be used for comparative purposes and are not subject to distortion by demographic variables such as number of siblings that affect the relative percentages (graphs on the right) of cousin marriages by type.
What we need to explain to understand the evident changes in Figure 8.3
are the following:
a. Raw frequency declines for all four types of cousin marriages in the
last generation. This is a likely result of higher rates of emigration,
so that the size of sibling sets is smaller and the likelihood of finding
cousins to marry is lower.
b. At the same time, MZD (uterine line) marriages increase in the percent married of those available. This might be the expected result of
greater visiting with relatives who have emigrated to villages.
c. FZD marriage rises gradually in percent married of those available.
Note that FZ is an agnatic relative, and while FZD is a child of a lineage mate she belongs to her father’s lineage.
Changes for some of the more remote or nonagnatic cousin marriages
should follow some of the same principles as those closer in. Hence, we
want to examine those data, on more remote cousin marriages, to verify
that we have correctly identified consistent patterns of change. First,
however, we examine the more extensive patterns of patrilineal endogamy beyond FBD proper.
298
Chapter 8
FBD and the Agnatic line
As Figure 8.4 shows, the selective rate of marriage with agnatic lineage
mates is also on the rise over recent generations, even as the numbers of
agnatic relatives available to marry is on the decline. If we compare rates
of marriage with patrilateral relatives of various types, as in Figure 8.5,
we see a rise in percent of marriage with patrilineage mates (the first two
bar graphs in the upper figure). These rises contrast with the low rates
overall for marriages with other patrilateral relatives (the last four bar
graphs in the lower figure). Data for early generations are not given because the absolute numbers are too close to zero to compute percentage
rates.
Demographic Choice and Constraint
299
Figure 8.4: Changes in Marriage Rates within Agnatic Lines
30
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
25
20
15
10
5
0
>1905
>1935
Patrilineage
mates married
as % of
Numbers
available
(25-80)
>1965
Figure 8.5: Comparison of Changes in Patrilateral Marriage Rates
using Absolute Numbers and Percent Married of those Available
50
40
30
20
Absolute Numbers
>1905
>1935
>1965
10
0
FFBSD FFFBSSD FFZSD FFZDD FMBDD FMZSD
The raw frequencies of marriages with designated types of relatives are shown by bar
graphs for successive thirty-year periods from 1905 to 1965. Below are the percentages of marriages with the same designated types of relatives, percentaged over the
total number of each type of relative available to marry.
50
40
30
% of Available
>1905
>1935
>1965
20
10
0
%FFBSD %FFFBSSD %FFZSD %FFZDD %FMBDD %FMZSD
300
Chapter 8
The following hypotheses are generally supported by these data:
Hypothesis 8.2.1: The agnatic principle in marriage is not diminishing in importance.
Hypothesis 8.2.2: There is a general preference for closer patrilateral parallel cousins than for more distant ones.
Hypothesis 8.2.3: The tendency of FBD marriage to decline in absolute numbers in the twentieth century is a result of demographic
factors. These might include greater numbers of nomads shifting
to village life, or a decline in the number of siblings due to a demographic shift. Such factors would account for a decline in the
numbers of FB and FBD relatives, if the cohort size for parallel
cousins were reduced, say, by lower fertility or outmigration.
FBD Marriage: Index of Tradition or Generator of Diversity?
Frequency of FBD marriages is a weak index of agnatic lineages in the
context of nomadism in the Middle East. Rights to FBD marriage may
exist even in instances where people choose not to exercise the right
(Berrenberg 2003, Bell 2002). When massively impacted by the demography of the turn to settled life, for example, our selective measure of
percentage of marriage with those available may be a better indicator of
preference than raw or relative frequencies (Table 5.1).
Within the context of lineage endogamy, many other types of cousin
marriage occur as well. Intralineage MBD marriages, as diagrammed in
Figure 4.6 for example, occur within lineages #1 (2 cases), #2 (2 cases),
and #5 (1); lineages #2 and #3 have reciprocal MBD marriages; and almost all lineages have at least one MBD marriage (wife-taking for #1-23-4-7-8 and wife-giving from #1-2-3-4-5-6). MMBDD and MMMBDDD
occur selectively within lineages (#1 and #2) and where MBD marriages
are already present, and in one case creating a cycle of wife-giving from
#2 to #7 to #5 (through MMBDD and MMMBDDD) to #2 (the latter
with concurrent cases of MBD).
MBD combines with dense intermarriage between as well as within
lineages to form a marriage system of generalized exchange. FZD marriage also does not occur as a privileged type, nor is it restricted to merely local or reciprocal marriage exchanges between lineages, but it is part
of the pattern of generalized exchange. FBD marriage, for all its importance, is only part of a diversity of marriage types and strategies in a
system of shifting competitive and cooperative alliances.
Demographic Choice and Constraint
301
It would seem that there is abundant empirical evidence for the hypothesis of Chapter 4, that FBD marriage is associated with diversity in
types of marriage.
MBD Marriage: The Effects of Spatiality and Demography
Because the selective percentages of FBD, FFBSD and FFFBSSD marriage decrease with kinship distance (17%, 8%, 3%, respectively, over
all periods), for example, it is evident that the expressed preference for
FBD marriage is a function of both common lineage and close patrilateral ties. For MMMBDDD, MMBDD, and MBD marriages (with rates
of 14%, 10%, and 10%), however, the selection for distant marriages is
stronger than for the closer ones. These marriages (see Figure 8.6 for
MBD, and MMBDD) start from a zero baseline for those born in the
nineteenth century, rise dramatically in the twentieth century, and fall
again in the most recent generation. Hammel’s (1976) principle that inequality of age at marriage increases the number MBD versus FZD relatives of an appropriate age for marriage does not provide an explanation
for the drop in selective MBD marriage in generation g because age differences in marriage were minimal in both the earlier and the later time
periods. No systematic differences of status or age in marriage were apparent to Johansen.
Figure 8.6: Changes in Matri-Cross and Similar Cousin Marriages
25
>1905
20
>1935
15
>1965
10
5
0
MBD
MMBDD
MMBSD
MFBSD
%MBD
%MMBDD %MMBSD
%MFBSD
MZD and the Uterine line
Emigration of women significantly exceeds that of men, as shown in
Figure 8.7. This seems to be especially true in later generations but—
given the underreporting of females in early generations—this is likely
to have been true earlier as well. Patrilocal residence and higher rates of
female exogamy and emigration would imply a lower availability of
302
Chapter 8
MZD relatives as potential spouses, even in the early periods. We know,
for example, that women often marry into other nomad tribes, but men
rarely if ever do so; hence, spatial mobility is greater for women than
men (see Figures 6.1 and 6.2 for effects on agnatic and uterine lines).
The same is true for marriage of women into settled villages. What is evident in recent times, however, is heavy migration of men as well, and
with new forms of mobility through trucks, buses, and cars and more visiting of relatives in villages.
Looked at in terms of an identity or descent principle, the rates of
MZD and MMZDD uterine marriages rise in two most recent generations (rates of 6%, 9%, and 25%), as shown in Figure 8.8, even while the
numbers of these relatives available for marriage are falling sharply. In
traditional pasturage, girls’ movements are restricted, and they have little
daily contact with relatives outside their extended family (which would
include the FBS). The head of the family and married sons and children
are a separate unit of residence and production, and girls work in or
nearby their family’s tent. Unmarried boys would also have little contact
with their MZD, who would reside in another place and belong to a family affiliated with another lineage. MZ was a nonetheless a preferred
confidant of young people, including boys, so this might easily lead to a
preference for MZ contacts in visiting patterns under the right circumstances and hence lead to MZD marriages.
Figure 8.7: Changes in Percent Emigration of Men and Women,
from Generations 3 (1875) to 7 (1990)
30
1875
1900
1930
1960
1990
25
To village-Men
20
To villageWomen
To other tribeMen
To other tribeWomen
15
10
5
0
3
4
5
6
7
Demographic Choice and Constraint
303
Figure 8.8: Changes in Marriage Rates within Uterine Lines
30
70
25
60
20
50
15
Matrilineage
mates married
as % of
10
Numbers
available
(12-62)
40
30
20
5
10
0
0
>1905
>1935
>1965
Historically, the increases in selective rates of MZD and MMZDD marriages among Aydınlı nomads correspond to increasing sedentary contact
in the sense of Aydınlı settling near villages in winter, in which they
may rent land and have access to grazing from the village common
lands. The pressure to do so has increased along with increased population density in southeastern Turkey generally and the enclosing of lands
available for pasture. When residing on the edge of villages, nomad families from different lineages come to reside on adjacent plots of land and
families are more likely to interact. Hence, Johansen’s hypothesis concerning social change in MZD marriage practices is this:
Hypothesis 8.3: The increase in MZD selective marriage rates is a
result of greater sedentary contact in which visiting patterns entail
a greater likelihood of meeting relatives linked through females.
From her perspective as an ethnographer, Johansen showed that, consistent with the statistical analysis, increased sedentary contact has had
the effect of changing the visiting patterns among nomad families.
Analysis 12: FBD and MZD Demography Compared
Theory and Measurement: FBD and MZD Demographics
In comparing theories about marriage and types of marriage, appropriate
means of measurement are needed that are sensitive to how the frequencies of different behaviors are conditioned by the demographics and em-
304
Chapter 8
pirical relations existent within the network in which the behaviors are
found. As an illustration of how measurement issues might affect interpretations of marriage frequencies, and hence theoretical conclusions,
we will compare some of our findings on types of cousin marriage with
those of Barry (2000). Barry’s hypothesis is that parallel cousin marriages, both of the MZD and FBD varieties, are affected by behavioral and
psychological tendencies to avoid or not to avoid relatives on the basis
of concepts of identity based on shared substance transmitted in the uterine or agnatic lines, respectively.
Given the favored position of MZ as a confidant of unmarried boys
among Aydınlı nomads, the rise in visitation between female relatives
and the percent of marriages with MZD among those available in recent
generations, and the decline in absolute numbers of FBD marriage, neither Hypothesis 8.3 nor Barry’s hypothesis is implausible. This use of
relative rates for different types of cousin marriages, as explained in Table 5.1, however, leaves much to be desired. Both MZD and FBD marriages are on the decline in absolute terms, but on the rise in selective
percentages.
As for Aydınlı nomad concepts of identity and shared substance,
“bone” (Turkish =kemik, the male contribution through the visible entry
of semen) is thought to be heritable and to give rise to morphological
similarities between lines of fathers and sons, while “flesh” is thought to
be the female contribution to the child in the womb and in later nurturance through breastfeeding. Thus, the Aydınlı do not have a concept of
resemblances between mother and children due to the maternal contribution of inherited “flesh.” These resemblances are recognized, but thought
to come from nurture, not inheritance. Presumably, Barry could assimilate the idea of substance transmitted through nurture, but this would deviate from the source of his theory. While the “seed” that is nurtured is
thought to come from the father, the concept of ovulation and a hereditary line of resemblance through the mother are unrecognized. Hence,
while female lines are of fundamental importance for the Aydınlı, the
importance of these links does not correlate with a concept of a uterine
line.
To examine the evidence for Barry’s theory, we reproduce in Figure
8.9 his regression results. The inverse correlation (r 2=.72) between FBD
and MZD marriages, as measured by raw frequencies, is evident from
the nineteen data points labeled by numbers in square brackets, each of
which represents for a one society the relative frequencies of cousin
marriages. The regression line through these cases has a steep negative
slope. The other two (flat) lines are the regressions lines of FBD with
Demographic Choice and Constraint
305
Fréquences du marriage avec les autres cousins
MBD (r2=.0357) and with FZD (r2=.064) marriage frequencies.
Figure 8.9: Bipolar Continuum between FBD and MZD marriages
Fréquences du marriage avec FBD pour 100 marriages de cousins
We have added to Figure 8.9 (Barry’s figure) a dashed and dashed ellipses around the sedentary and nomadic groups, respectively. The negative
regression line through the cases within these ellipses is due to a contrast
between sedentary (upper left) and nomadic (lower right) societies. FBD
marriage is much higher and MZD marriage much lower for the nomad
than for the settled groups. The Aydınlı nomads fit Barry’s negative correlation regression line for FBD and MZD marriage frequencies: Their
frequencies relative to all cousin marriages over all time periods are 45%
and 18%, respectively, at the midpoint in Barry’s distribution.
Barry’s theory sensitizes us to the importance of enunciating principles of social identity. We have argued throughout this book that uterine
ties are important for establishing social cohesion in the nomadic clan.
He gives us an insight as to how the importance of uterine ties as a lateral extension of kinship identity may be linked to the importance of vertical ties in agnatic descent groups.
MZD-FBD Inverse Correlation: Residence as a Third Factor
There is a simpler explanation of Barry’s finding of a strong negative
correlation, which is unusual in comparative studies, between FZD and
MZD marriage frequencies for societies where FZD marriage is strong to
306
Chapter 8
moderate, that is, constituting over 25% of all cousin marriages. The two
ellipses that we have drawn on his graph, one for settled populations (the
dashed ellipse) and the other for nomadic groups (solid ellipse), provide
a different interpretation of his findings. Our explanation for the negative correlation is that the nomadic societies (within in the solid oval
within the figure) are more likely to be patrilocal so that, while men tend
to stay in their local group after marriage, women are more likely to marry out and emigrate from the population. This reduces the number of
women who stand in relation to a male ego as MZD, as opposed to those
related as FBD. Hence, the stronger the patrilocality, the more FBD will
outnumber MZD marriages numerically. Conversely, the weaker the patrilocality, as in settled populations (those within the dashed oval of the
figure), the more equal will be the numbers FBD and MZD marriages.
That is what we see in Figure 8.9.
Hypothesis 8.4: FBD marriages tend to increase in frequency as
MZD marriages decrease, but relative to a third factor that influences them both: Greater patrilocality and lesser visiting of female
relatives who have emigrated from the home community augment
the likelihood of FZD marriage and diminishes that of marriage
with MZD.
We have already seen evidence for Aydınlı nomads that MZD marriage
percentages (not absolute numbers) increase as the nomads visit in recent generations with their settled relatives (Hypothesis 8.3), although
FBD marriage percentages (not absolute numbers) increase as well, with
patrilocality remaining the rule in the nomadic population.
Table 8.3 tests a generalized Hypothesis 8.4, that MZD marriages
tend to increase in frequency as FBD marriages decrease among the Aydınlı nomads, without further examination of the underlying causation.
By Barry’s method of percentaging the frequencies, a change in this direction is weakly indicated in successive time periods. An inverse trend
is not evident by the method of measuring relative rates (Table 5.1)
Table 8.3: Parallel Cousin Marriage through Time by (a) Relative
Rates (relative to all cousin marriages) and (b) Selective Rates (relative to available cousins of each type)
(a) Barry’s % method
(b) Our selective rate method
FBD MZD
FBD MZD
generation c
50% 0% born 1846-1875
generation d
50% 12%
28% 7% born 1876-1905
generation e
37% 11%
25% 6% born 1906-1935
Demographic Choice and Constraint
307
generation f
39% 13%
33% 10% born 1936-1965
generation g
43% 29%
30% 20% born 1966-1995
A straightforward reading of these results using Barry’s interpretation
would conclude that uterine identity (MZD avoidance) has weakened for
those born 1966-1995. As MZD marriage increases in frequency, FBD
marriage should fall, according to his regression line. But discounting
the early generation bias inflating FBD counts, there is no tendency toward lower percentages of FBD marriages (agnatic descent principle) by
either method. The trend in Table 8.3, in both Barry’s and our measure
of percentages married from those available, is toward more equal rates
of cousin marriages (this, even if low in absolute terms, would indicate
for Barry a shift away from “Arab” type marriages toward his “complex”
type of marriage system).
Other data that need to be examined are the rates of parallel second
cousin marriages: Barry’s theory would predict that the agnatic and uterine types will also vary inversely. As shown in Table 8.4, using both
Barry’s and our methods, second cousin FFBSD marriage increases for
those born 1966-1995, but MMZDD marriage remains roughly constant
by Barry’s measures and increases using our method, contra Barry’s argument. As we might expect from the indigenous theory of kinship and
inheritance, his concept of uterine versus agnatic descent lines does not
work for the Aydınlı nomads. For all the importance of female links as
the source of nurturance for children and for the Aydınlı tracing of alliances, the concept of motherhood is not one that emphasizes transmission of hereditary substances, and hence not one that would lead to the
“identity” within a uterine line, nor to proscriptions against marriage
within that line.
Table 8.4: Parallel Second Cousin Marriage through Time by (a)
Relative Rates (relative to all cousin marriages) and (b) Selective
Rates (relative to available cousins of each type)
(a) Barry’s % method* (b) Our selective rate method**
FFBSD MMZDD FFBSD MMZDD
generation c 0% 0% born 1846-1875
generation d 0% 0% born 1876-1905
generation e 25% 18%
7% 5% born 1906-1935
generation f 27% 9%
12% 9% born 1936-1965
generation g 67% 16%
50% 50% born 1966-1995
* contrasted with FFSSD and MMBDD
Findings from Controlled Simulation
308
Chapter 8
Controlled or Feynman simulation (White 1999), as noted in Chapter 5,
holds constant the demographics of a kinship network, generation by
generation, and reassigns marriage choices randomly within each generation, subject to the actual rules of marriage prohibitions of a population.
The technique used here is to hold the male links in the network constant, plus the parents of females, and to reassign married females to
married males randomly within each generation, within the constraints
of a realistic marriage prohibition. This is then repeated in the randomized structure, holding constant this time the female links and reassigning the marriages of the males. This holds constant the distribution of
nuclear families and the gender composition of their offspring in each
generation. Comparisons of actual marriage choices to controlled simulation outcomes is the most powerful tool presently available to examine
the evidence for marriage preferences as against the background of random choice given demographic and proscriptive constraints on marriages. Given our findings thus far, we reject Barry’s theory in favor of Hypothesis 8.4, and argue that:
Hypothesis 8.5: Cousin marriage preferences for the Turkish nomads are not extended through lineage principles. That is, the only
parallel cousin marriages that occur with a frequency greater than
expected by chance, in comparison to a controlled simulation of
clan marriages (with siblings proscribed), are those of first cousins, not those of more distant cousins.
The results of testing Hypothesis 8.5 are shown in Table 8.5, using comparisons between actual and simulated frequencies of parallel cousin
marriages. For first cousins, but not more distant cousins, the rates of
parallel cousin marriage are much higher than expected by chance
(p<.001) for both FBD and MZD. For second through fourth cousins, the
parallel cousin marriage frequencies are within the range of those expected by chance. This finding would be expected from and consistent
with Turkish nomad beliefs concerning nonhereditary contributions of
“flesh” in mother-child relationships, but consistent with the ethnographer’s observation that the preference for FBD marriage is a matter of
close relationships within the extended family, and is not a matter of lineages.
The use of FBD marriage as a strategy to reinforce the agnatic line
does not exceed the level that might be expected of a variety of widely
dispersed or distributed marriages. Beyond the first degree, cousins are
Demographic Choice and Constraint
309
neither strongly avoided nor preferred either for agnatic or uterine kinship lines. The exception is the MMZDD, for which Johansen’s Hypothesis 8.3 rather than the lineage principle might provide an explanation,
but there is also a slight and equally significant tendency (weaker in
terms of actual/expected ratios; more significant because of the greater
number of male links in the population) for FFBDD marriage.
Table 8.5: Comparison of Actual with Simulated Parallel Cousin
Marriage Frequencies
Patrilateral parallel Ratios Matrilateral parallel Ratios
marriage
marriage
F(F) . . . B(S) . . . D
M(M) . . . Z(D) . . . D
Cousin
Actual
SimulatP
Actual SimulatM
Marriages data
ed data
data
ed data
First
3.8%
4:1 5.4%
0.7%
8:1
16%
p<.001 8/149
1/149
p<.001
31/187 7/186
Second
7.0%
4.8%
1.5:1 6%
0%
3:0
11/157 7/146
p=.14 3/50
0/45
p=.15
Third
3%
3.2%
n.s. 0%
0%
n.s.
4/126
3/94
0/19
0/16
Fourth
0%
1.7%
n.s. 0%
0%
n.s.
1/103
1/59
0/15
0/5
Marriage and Social Change
The social pressure that preservation of nomadism exerts on reproduction is evident in marriage customs. In spite of schooling, many fathers
pressure their sons to marry before they have to do their two years of
military services, at the age of eighteen or nineteen years, with the purpose of possibly getting grandchildren from them even in the case their
sons lost their lives as soldiers and, when serving in a town, preventing
“sinful” sexual experiences with prostitutes. The wish to delay military
service was the reason why births of boys were often announced to the
administration not before the child reached an age of two to three years.
The importance of marriage to nomadic life is reflected in the norms
applying to marriage as a normal state for both men and women. Girls
were very rarely unmarried and until about 1980 it was looked at as ridiculous and blameworthy if a healthy girl did not marry. Likewise, all
men were married. A sixty year-old man in a village about 30km away
who had never married was looked at as a sensation. The usual age for
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Chapter 8
marriages was fifteen to twenty for girls and seventeen to twenty-five for
young men. In 1982, after it had become a habit that all boys and many
girls to receive at least five forms of schooling, the age of marriage rose
by two or three years. Formal schooling, as in most traditional cultures,
is a major transforming factor in the lifeways of the clan.
Stayers and Leavers Revisited
Barth (1964) noted for the Basseri goat- and sheepherders of Iran that
fertility is high, and the pressure of the nomadic way of life on the nomads is so severe that great numbers of families and individuals are
sloughed off through migration to villages and towns. In most cases
these are the poor and unsuccessful, but in some cases they are those
who have invested wealth in land in and near villages or towns, and
leave nomadism for landlordism.
For Aydınlı nomads, similar pressures and processes are operative.
Our study, in addition, has shown that the larger sibling sets (particularly
those of brothers) are the most likely to be stayers. In Chapter 6 (Table
6.4) we found that marital cohesion through relinking was a strong correlate of remaining nomadic, within the clan, rather than emigrating. FBD
marriage contributes to both sides of the equation, as both a form of relinking and a means of cohesively relinking the families of brothers who
have taken up or are likely to take up separate residence after their father
dies.
Summary
The sloughing off of population among the nomads occurs more frequently in the sibling sets with fewer brothers, and less frequently the
greater the number of brothers (Figures 8.1 and 8.2). Because nomads
typically have a healthy environment in which women’s activity promotes high fertility, our findings in exploring Hypothesis 8.1 provide
needed detail about the process of sloughing off population also reported
by other ethnographers (e.g., Barth 1953) of Middle Eastern sheep and
goat pastoralists. This greater cohesion of larger sets of brothers, especially full siblings, and the lack of a similar pattern for sisters, implies a
demographic situation in which shallow patrilineages are quite large, and
those men who do not migrate to villages then have many living males
who are close lineage males. Over time, this pattern will also tend to develop three-generation lineage segments that are deeply embedded in
Demographic Choice and Constraint
311
large and deep segmented patrilineages. The smaller patrilines, given
this pattern, are both more likely to migrate out as well as to die out given their smaller size.
Figure 8.10 supplements Barth’s diagram in Figure 7.1 by showing
some of the operative pressures, factors, and processes affecting size of
lineages, co-selection for residence with the clan, marital relinking versus emigration, and flexible ranking. These outcome variables are shown
on the right side of the diagram, with arrows to or between them to indicate probable influences. Two of the many factors that affect them are
the quality of the environment (upper right, influencing high fertility)
and the pastoral division of labor (lower right, enhancing value of cohesion and belief in equality). Other influences can be read from the diagram.
Figure 8.10: The Effects of Environment, Fertility, and Sibship Size
on Stayers’ Sublineage Sizes
Good
Environment
High
Fertility
Many
Brothers
High Population
Pressure
Pastoral
Division
of Labor
Enhances
Value of
Cohesion
Sloughing off
Population
Belief in Same Age
Equality Marriage
Large Segmented
Lineages
Co-Selection for
In-Group Residence
Emigration versus
Marital Relinking
Flexible Ranking,
given Emigration
Every new marriage is one that knits together various components of the
functioning society of the nomadic clan. We have seen great diversity in
the ways that marriage as a coherent and cohesive force operates: within
the extended family, within lineages, between lineages, between tribes,
and establishing patterns of visiting and exchange with villages and
towns. Structural endogamy is a key factor in continued residence in the
nomadic group but also provides coherence between the complex bodies
of skills and knowledge possessed by clan members, both men and
women.
Marriage preferences for FBD continue to be expressed by rural families in the present era but the raw frequencies of FBD marriage plummet
in the most recent period, along with those of other types of cousin mar-
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Chapter 8
riage. Is this an index of the decline of the lineage principle? The network calculation of young women available in these categories also
drops with the increases in emigration (Figure 8.7). It may be demographic constraints, not a change in the kinds of spouses that are selected, that account for the decline in frequencies. What is evident from the
demographic data is that the size of sibling cohorts is shrinking. The answer to our question about effects of demography needs further close
evaluation, but one of the key questions is whether there is still solidarity
among large sibling sets, especially whether larger sets of brothers tend
to remain nomadic. To get a preliminary answer, we can compare rates
of emigration of males who were sons of women in two recent generations (e and f), the pre- and post-World War II cohorts for women with
completed births. For the prewar mothers, the husbands’ rates of emigration (an index of the family’s moving) were 15% for those with five
children or less, and 13% with six or more. For the postwar mothers, the
rates rose to 23% for the smaller families but dip to only 4% for the
larger. This is a much greater rate of retention of nomadism among the
larger completed families of the more recent generation. It seems likely,
however, that a demographic shift to smaller family sizes is underway.
Whether this will affect nomadism as a viable way of life in this region
remains to be seen, but we must wait for completed fertility to make a
new assessment for the most recent generations.
A further demographic analysis, which must be the subject of a separate study, might well show that as migration rates have increased in recent years there is an even greater effort on the part of parents and siblings to keep intact the larger families that seem to be essential both to
nomadism and to patrilineages. The answer to the question as to the continued viability of patrilineage segments is still unfinished, but there is
no strong reason from our evidence that its viability is diminished as an
element of nomadism. The self-selection process fits a general pattern
observed for camel nomads and small animal pastoralists in which members of smaller units are more likely to emigrate (Barth 1953), pushed
out by competition over limited resources whose productive use depends
on effective sublineage-size production units that are also defensive and
raiding units (Bell 2002).
New methods of analyzing marriage rates among kin open new questions. Cousin marriages on the mother’s side, for example, remain significant for MBD and increase for MZD if we take as our measure the percentage of men with cousins available in these categories that make such
marriages. The reason for some of these changes seems to be the combination of increased migration and the visiting of the mother’s kin in the
Demographic Choice and Constraint
313
villages.
Lineage membership, either agnatic or uterine, does not seem to be a
primary factor in the favoring of parallel cousin marriages. The more
preferential parallel cousin marriages are with first cousins; those with
third cousins occur at the same rate as simulated random marriages under existing demographic constraints (Feynman simulation). The marriage patterns in general are in line with the complexity distributions introduced in the previous chapter. The general hypotheses advanced in
Chapter 4, namely, that FBD is a marriage type associated with a preferential gradient for diversity in marriage types, is supported.
Further Reading
Ethnographic examples of the network study of marriage, rank, and
leadership are found in White and Schweizer (1998) and Houseman and
White (1998b). Barth (1953), Korotayev (2000), and Bell (2002) provide
an overview of the issues surrounding FBD marriage. The property of
fractality as a component of self-organizing systems is reviewed in Solé
and Goodwin (2000).
Chapter 9
Decentralized Leadership
and Network Cohesion
Decentralized Leadership and the Aydınlı Case
A well-analyzed social network is one of the rare contexts in which it is
possible to observe political processes closely enough across generations
to pose questions about the nature of emergent leadership and the pathways by which it is produced and reproduced. In centralized political
systems, which occur in both state and nonstate societies, recruitment
into leadership positions is hemmed in by highly institutionalized processes. In state systems, political institutions, such as parties and formal
bureaucratic governmental institutions, play the role of defining leadership positions and shaping the careers and opportunities of potential
leaders. In many pre-state societies, the institutional forms of relatively
centralized political institutions, such as rules of hereditary succession,
play a similar role in institutionalized recruitment. Not so obvious are
the career pathways of emergent leaders.
To observe recruitment and influence in its more protean form, decentralized and relatively autonomous political contexts are thus of special interest. These include societies with emergent leadership where
leaders are neither routinely appointed nor elected nor selected according to overt prescribed criteria, and those in which leadership is not hierarchical, that is, in which the leader does not command but is regarded
as a leading councilor among peers. Weber termed emergent leaders
“charismatic” to call attention to the unique personality of the leader. It
is the social process by which leaders emerge that is of more interest to
us, regardless of whether they are charismatic in the Weberian sense or
not. In an extremely wide variety of contexts in which the ethos of the
group is egalitarian, the more protean processes of leadership occur
(Boehm 1993, 1997, 1999), and leaders emerge by informal processes.
Such systems are pervasive in many parts of the world, including inter-
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Chapter 9
stitial groups in state societies. Leadership processes in relatively new
nation-states, and emergent leadership is characteristic of many pre-state
societies that operate with a decentralized political process.
What we may learn from the Aydınlı nomad case concerns the network processes of this more protean form. We will identify candidates,
their positions in networks, and outcomes, and determine whether similar kinds of outcomes, given network location of actors, are repeated
over generations of emergent leaders.
Aydınlı Leadership and Network Cohesion
One of the ideas we want to test is whether potential candidates become
qualified for leadership, in addition to their personal attributes, by the
extent of their cohesive embedding in a social network. The Aydınlı nomads are an interesting case in point. There is no rule of succession to
the leadership position of tanıdık kişi (see Table 9.2 and 9.7). For all the
importance of kinship networks among the Aydınlı, their system of leadership is not based on hereditary succession. They depend for social and
political support on cohesive embedding in social networks. Only in the
earliest generations of the late nineteenth century, at a time when lineage
#5 had already arrived from the west and was clearly the dominant
group, did succession go from father to son (228 to 343). Thereafter, typically, each major lineage had its contenders for tanıdık kişi, and succession often went to a contender in a lineage in competition with that of
the current tanıdık kişi. Tribal “two-party systems” of interlineage competition in the Middle East are discussed by Gellner (1981:186 & 190)
and Yalçin-Heckmann (1991:115).
The acceptance of a leader became obvious by the men’s frequent
visits in his tent. A tanıdık kişi has to own a four-pole tent, not only the
usual three-pole tent. Thus his selâmlık (=men’s and guestroom within
the tent) was doubly larger than normal. A patriarch’s pretensions to
play a leading role in the clan were shown, in the cases where it was not
already necessary by reason of the extraordinary largeness of his family,
by his having the women of his family weave such a tent. Some of the
patriarchs had special reception tents. But it would be seen as ridiculous
to own such rooms, if honorable guests did not regularly crowd them.
A decision was usually known by consensus long before a new
tanıdık kişi finally emerged, as evidenced by attendance as the tents.
Such discussions, in which respected men of each lineage were seated in
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
317
prominent positions, did not prevent other candidates from offering
themselves or competing for recognition. Even before such a leader
might begin to make what were widely considered mistakes of judgment,
however, criticism of a tanıdık kişi would often be heard from families
who thought they had a better candidate for leadership, and there was no
shortage of such discussions. Kozan Mehmet (32), for example, the
tanıdık kişi from 1930 to 1957, was ruined by the criticism of his egotism when he choose a new village location and then choose the best site
for himself, after which others moved elsewhere.
The tanıdık kişi in the time from 1957 to 1982 was Fındıklı Hacı
(=Hazelnut Hacı— Hacı=“Pilgrim” was not a title but an official first
name) from the Ecevitli A-B lineage (#2; 818). In the generation before
him Kozan Mehmet (=Cauldron-Mehmet—but Kozan is the name of a
town too) from the Dolaşıklı lineage (#1; 32) was the tanıdık kişi, but he
became sedentary before Johansen’s 1957 stay with the nomads. His
younger cousin Hacı Molla (=Hacı, the Religious Student or Pilgrim; 99)
tried to become the tanıdık kişi after him and until the age of about
eighty (he is now over 100 years old) always muttered against Fındıklı
Hacı’s decisions. He almost never went to the latter’s tent and was the
center of all those who complained about Fındıklı Hacı’s egoism. His
second marriage with a Ecevitli A woman (674) was a failure: The
woman he was given turned out to be mentally ill. Kırbaşı’s lineage,
which had developed close ties to Kozan Mehmet’s family by agreeing
to the marriage of a sister of the ruling patriarchs to him, also spoke of
the Hazelnuts often as “swaggerers” and did not fully accept them. Nevertheless, Fındıklı Hacı as the second and most able son of the pious
Fındıklı Ali (=Hazelnut Ali; 784, the second son of Mustan) and—so far
as Johansen could elicit—the most powerful competitor of Kozan
Mehmet, was accepted as tanıdık kişi, not Hacı Molla. After Fındıklı
Hacı’s illness and death, the role of most influential personality shifted
to Mustafa (597), nicknamed “Dede” (=Grandfather), from Johansen’s
extended family of the Kırbaşı lineage (#4)—the group somewhat opposed to the Ecevitli leadership. She observed in 1982, in the period of
his leadership, that “Dede” received no less than five visitors daily, often
more; some of them patiently waiting for him for hours, served by his
two wives in the guest room when he was away, while the women and
children used the other room of the tent (see Johansen 1965).
Fındıklı Hacı (818) successfully received nearly every day a number
of male guests and decided, in the above-mentioned way, affairs such as
the settling of disputes between the families, if this could not be ar-
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Chapter 9
ranged by the families themselves, over issues such as the use of wells,
the confining of herds with epidemic diseases to a special part of the
summer pasture, or the restitution of bride payment, when a young woman had fled from her husband’s tent back to her parents. Fındıklı Hacı
organized matters such as the elections of the official mayor of the village they pretended to live in—in the first period himself, and in 1963
putting up as his representative a young man from an allied lineage who
was dependant on him. He also negotiated winter pasture for his joint
family and some less influential families with village elders in the Çukurova, the transport of poor people to the physician in the next town, and
the engagement of lawyers in lawsuits of common interest for the group.
Such lawsuits he watched personally and whenever there was an occasion he appeared as a witness for the sake of his group. He had no means
to enforce the carrying through of the decisions made in his tent, but
they were looked at by most of the clan members as public opinion
against which it was not popular to act.
Because the tanıdık kişiler were members of the most numerous lineages and not only family solidarity but the standing together of all relatives is a well-known necessity in societies where governmental institutions are far away (cf. Barth 1953:70), they could always rely on a large
group of followers. Thus, the many marriage relinkings shaped a basis
for their power and their power was the reason that many families were
interested in establishing new relinkings with their families.
To try to document the importance of this type of diffuse sociopolitical support, we will measure cohesive embedding in networks in a way
that has not been employed before in the social science literature on
leadership and social or political support. Hence, this study speaks to issues of how to understand complex and decentralized political systems.
For a variety of reasons, and because social science has had little detailed ethnographic and network data available for study of decentralized
and relatively autonomous political systems, a test of the links between
leadership emergence and cohesive embedding among the Aydınlı nomads may be of general interest. This study may thus potentially contribute to a much broader literature on latent sources of social and political support. This type of diffuse leadership also has considerable
importance for complex societies, which is not so evident given that
more formally institutionalized process are typically considered sufficient to explain the recruitment of leaders. As suggested earlier, examination of Aydınlı leadership—being relatively marginal to Turkish national political institutions—is all the more important because it is
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
319
situated outside the context of parties and formal governmental institutions, and outside the contexts of hereditary or elective leadership that
are important in pre-state societies.
Network Cohesion Created by Marriage as a Predictor of
Emergent Leadership: Hypotheses and Measures
In the previous chapter, our problem of measuring cohesion was relatively simple: we were concerned only with identification of the clustering
and transitivity of reciprocal exchanges between lineage segments.
There, we looked at local cohesion or clustering of local lineage segments in terms of the extent to which each such unit had a set of like
units in its immediate network neighborhood (i.e., consisting of those to
which it is directly linked) that were in turn directly linked with one another so as to form broader clusters, and at the still larger societal level
how the local clusters link to form a coherent structure.
Here, we are interested in cohesion on a scale broader than network
clustering. Aydınlı nomad leaders, the tanıdık kişi, according to informant reports, are not simply proposed by lineages, or selected on the basis
of their reciprocal alliances, or even on the basis of the size of their clusters of ties. The ethnographer’s report was that they emerge as candidates for clan leadership through their support from the broadest possible networks of family, distant relatives, and allies through marriage
from throughout the clan. Second, it is not the pure number of persons
who are close in the network of a tanıdık kişi, but the personal weight of
the clan members who are on his side. Third, in any dispute there are always some among the patriarchs, for example, who stand aside and do
not want to interfere. These perceptions led us to examine broader cohesive embedding and network centralities as potential predictors of emergent leadership.
Cohesive embedding is the extent to which an individual or couple
possesses a high level (for the moment read: density, but be prepared for
other concepts to follow) of cohesive linkage with as broad a group as
possible within the larger group. This conception of cohesion, shortly to
be defined more precisely, differs from centrality in a network (Freeman
1977, 1979), which is often measured for individual nodes as the raw
number of links a person has (degree centrality) or, at the global level,
by having in the aggregate the shortest possible paths of reachability
(closeness centrality) to every other member of the group. Both are too
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narrow to capture cohesion, and they ignore how cohesive subsets are
themselves organized in the larger network. Cohesion also differs from
two other concepts of centrality at the global level: betweenness centrality, which is the extent to which a person mediates the paths that connect
other pairs in the network, and the recursive centrality of links to others
that are central. Both of these concepts weight the strategic placement of
being between groups as much as being at the cohesive center of a
group, and they do not capture the dimension of cohesion that we want
to explore.
Cohesive embedding in a social network—the extent to which someone or some couple is at a high level of cohesion that is shared by as
large a subset of others as possible within the total group—sounds like a
difficult network concept to measure (see Friedkin 1998) as an alternative predictor of emergent leaders to the standard measures of centrality.
It is a measure of social cohesion recently proposed by White and Harary (2001) and one which they and others (Moody and White 2003)
have found to be predictive of many of the theoretical consequences that
should follow from the differentially cohesive placement of individuals
in a network. Friedkin (1993) finds similar results for processes of interpersonal influence.
In the present case of candidates for emergent leadership, we expect
that those with higher levels of network cohesion in a potentially largescale social group (in this case the larger clan) will also have higher levels of participation with others in joint activities, and enjoy higher levels
of broad-based support.
This leads to testable hypotheses as to the consequences of varying
levels of cohesion in kinship networks.
Hypothesis 9.1.1: Differences in the extent to which individuals
or couples are cohesively linked within the kinship network of the
broad social group of the nomad clan are predictive of broad-based
social and political support for potential leaders, and hence of the
emergence of particular individuals as tanıdık kişi, the emergent
leaders of the clan.
Hypothesis 9.1.2: Measures of cohesion will be better predictors
of tanıdık kişi emergent leadership than measures of degree, closeness, betweenness, or eigen centrality (see Glossary).
We describe how cohesion is measured, as distinct from centrality, and
then test these hypothesis using network measures of cohesion, centrality, and other variables that may affect support for potential leaders.
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
321
Measuring Network Cohesion Created by Marriage
As social cohesion is one of the most subtle concepts in social science,
at least in terms of measurement, its logical rendering is dependent upon
insights into the fundamentals of network structures. The following introduction to the logic of cohesion is not only theoretical, nor merely of
descriptive value in the present instance, but also provides the basis for
the measurement of cohesion that can be used, in appropriate form, for
any network. It thus provides the basis for testing hypotheses about both
the antecedents and the consequences of cohesion, including its connection to leadership selection. The logic of embeddedness of actors in specific positions of the network structure is discussed here to demonstrate
the basis for the network measurement of cohesion used subsequently in
this chapter. It provides also a means of understanding how the existence
of universal scaling parameters (k-connectivities) for cohesion can be
used for measuring the extent to which networks may be constructed so
as to be relatively invulnerable to structural ruptures through disconnection by removal of nodes, or to disruption of flows by the closure of
paths. The understanding of these parameters of network cohesion gives
us a potential for deep insight into the logics of cohesion that are in play
in social groups.
The Logical Construction of Social Cohesion
The level of embeddedness of a person in a social network (White and
Harary 2001; Moody and White 2003) is defined by considering the
most cohesive group to which that individual belongs. This is identified
from network data using as a criterion for level of cohesion the minimum
number of people who must be removed from the group to disconnect any
of its members. The highest level
of cohesion attainable for a group
is when every pair of its n members
is connected in a clique, with n-1
as its level of cohesion: here even
after removal of all but one member no pair can be disconnected. A
group within a network is said to
be k-cohesive (a cohesive group, at
some level k) when any subset of
fewer than k members can be removed without disconnecting the
when no removal of fewer than k of
its members disconnects its remaining members. The variable k is the
scaling parameter for level of cohesion.
The cohesive embeddedness of a
member of a series of cohesive
groups is the highest level of kcohesion of any of these groups.
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Chapter 9
remaining members.
One way to find a set of people who might belong to a common kcohesive group in a network is to prune away all those who have fewer
than k direct connections to others, then do the same for the resulting
group, and to repeat this pruning until every remaining member is directly linked to at least k others in the resultant group. This “outer limit” is
in technical terms the k-core of a network, in which every person is connected to at least k others in the k-core. A k-core, however, is not necessarily k-cohesive because it may have segments that can be broken off by
removal of fewer than k of its members. That second kind of pruning is
the basis for algorithms, some recently developed (see Moody and White
2003 for an example), for identifying k-cohesive groups.
One of the fundamental insights of graph theory (Harary 1969) is the
theorem of connectivity level1 that shows that if a pair of nodes in a network can be disconnected by removal of k but no fewer intervening
nodes, then there are precisely k completely distinct paths that connect
them. Conversely, if there are only k completely distinct paths that connect the pair, then only k nodes are needed to disconnect them. The theorem generalizes to groups whose boundaries, robustness to disconnection, and internal redundancy or strength of connection are precisely
defined by the pairwise parameter k, as follows.
A k-component of a graph G is deThe pairwise cohesion or pairfined as a maximal set of nodes that wise connectivity k of two nodes
cannot be internally disconnected by in a network is the minimum
removal of fewer than k nodes in the number of nodes whose removal
set. The theorem of connectivity level will disconnect them, and also the
proves that a k-component will have number of completely distinct
paths between them.
at least k completely distinct paths be- The
k-components of a network
tween every pair of its nodes. It also are the largest possible sets that
shows that a maximal subgraph S of G cannot be disconnected by removwith at least k completely distinct al of fewer than k nodes, and
paths in S between every pair of its where all pair of members in each
set have pairwise connectivity k.
nodes is a k-component of G. The
theorem thus shows the strict equiva- The k-components within a netlence of the dual aspects of the pa- work form cohesive blocks that
rameter k: strength of ties through k may be hierarchically nested in
node-independent paths and invulner- parallel series, from 1 to k, each
like a Chinese box.
ability to k-disconnection amount to
exactly the same thing.
The twin aspects of the way in which cohesion is constructed in so-
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
323
cial networks, as shown by the theorem of connectivity level, parallel
what people everywhere seem to understand and operate with intuitively
when it comes to social groups, namely, recognition of the importance of
the redundancies of paths that make social groups cohesive and of the
fact that these redundancies create potentially greater levels of invulnerability to disruption if one or more members of the group were to be absent or withdraw. These two axes constitute a dual framework, one dealing with structure (effects of node removal on connectedness of the
whole) and the other with traversal (properties of paths connecting parts
of the network), that the theorem of connectivity level shows to be unitary for a single cohesion parameter k of connectivity and path redundancy.
Reliance on Dependent Nodes for Cohesion in Kinship Networks
That relinking marriages produce cohesion in terms of creating or increasing the number of multiple paths by which people are connected
within a kinship network is one of the recurrent themes in this book, undergirding our network analyses. The theorem of connectivity level
shows that when each is taken to its largest limit the following two sets
of couples are identical: (1) those that are all connected by multiple
paths in the network and (2) those relatives and affines that cannot be
disconnected by removal of single nodes in the network. This unit of cohesion is a bicomponent of the kinship network, as discussed earlier.
An important distinction must be made, however, to clarify how we
measure the cohesion created by marriage in a kinship network. Note
that in a nuclear family, the marriage between father and mother and the
birth of their children creates the 1-connectedness of a unique configuration of relationships between each pair. Only if brother and sister married would relatedness in more than one way create an additional level of
cohesion: in this case, the siblings would now also be spouses, the parents
would also be in-laws to their children, and so forth. The way we
define cohesion in terms of multiple
Recall that a p-graph provides a
paths or biconnectedness in the pmeans of studying cohesion in
graph that we use to represent kinship
terms of distinct multiple paths
networks is consistent with the obserof connectedness in kinship networks that is consistent with the
vation that it is only relinking marordinary concept of how people
riages that create new multiple paths.
acquire multiple kinship relations
The maximal connectivity level in a pwith one another.
graph, however, is only two.
In a p-graph bicomponent, which has been made more cohesive by re-
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linking marriages, every member is related in more than one way. Figure
9.1 is a p-graph that illustrates the limits of cohesion in kinship networks: it has an order of generations, from top to bottom, as nobody is
ever their own ancestor, and dashed lines represent female parent/child
bonds, while solid lines represent male bonds. The upper four nodes are
couples involved in a FBD marriage, which creates bicomponent cohesion among them (i.e., they are multiply related by virtue of this marriage). In the lower two marriages we have another FBD as well as a
BDD marriage.2 The skewedness of this last marriage is not important,
as other examples could be given without skewedness: what is important
for our purposes is that each of these last two marriages increases the
pairwise connectivity among each of the four top couples, while the bottom two nodes have only bicomponent cohesion. These two lower nodes,
however, mediate the additional pairwise connectivity of the upper
nodes. It is characteristic of kinship networks that ancestral nodes and
descendant marriages mediate the extra pairwise connectivity beyond
bicomponents.
Figure 9.1: p-graph with pairwise connectivity beyond a bicomponent
Exocohesive 3-block (4 nodes)
FBD
( embedded within)
Bicomponent of six nodes
FBD
BDD
No matter how we array such configurations of cohesion-throughrelinking, at the group level of cohesion, biconnectivity forms a limit
against which kinship networks must contend. In a genealogical network,
there must always be in any p-graph bicomponent of that network at
least one couple who lacks children (assuming that parentage cannot cycle back on itself) and (in order to be in the bicomponent) who has links
to other parental couples in the group, which can be none other and no
more that the parents of the husband and the parents of the wife. Thus it
is impossible to construct a p-graph of genealogical links that is cohesive
through marital relinking alone—the type of cohesion examined here—
beyond the level of the bicomponent.
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
325
Direct versus Mediated Forms of Cohesion
To accommodate this insight on the limits on cohesion that stem from
the intrinsic structure of marriage and parenthood in kinship networks,
and the mediation of pairwise connectivity by ancestral nodes and descendant marriages, we describe one of the ways that these limits may be
overcome in measuring cohesion:
White and Harary (2001) give us the A k-block is a unit of
means to define a k-block of a graph G as a potential cohesion that
maximal subgraph of at least k+1 nodes that has as many members as
has at least k node-independent paths in G be- possible, but at least
tween every pair of its nodes. Thus, a k- k+1 members each pair
of which is connected
component of a graph G will be a k-block in G by at least k completely
because a k-component is a maximal subgraph distinct paths. It is not
of G that has within it at least k node- yet a k-component beindependent paths between every pair of its cause some paths may
nodes and must have at least k+1 nodes. A k- go outside the unit.
block, however, is not necessarily a kcomponent.
Figure 9.2 illustrates, for a graph with six nodes and eight edges, an
example of a k-block that is not a k-component, for k=3. The whole
graph is a bicomponent (outer oval), with 2-cohesion (every pair of
nodes has two or more completely distinct paths between them). Each
pair of the four nodes in the inner oval, however, has three completely
distinct paths between them. Some of these paths are with the nodes that
lie outside the inner oval, so this 3-block of four nodes is not a 3component. It is cohesively embedded within a bicomponent, but has extra pairwise connectivity beyond that needed for a bicomponent.
Figure 9.2: A k-block That Is Not a k-component for k=3
Exocohesive 3-block (4 nodes)
(embedded within)
Bicomponent of six nodes
This is the kind of cohesion that we find, beyond bicomponents, in kinship networks. The graph in Figure 9.2 is a copy of that in Figure 9.1,
326
Chapter 9
but ignoring the difference between male and female edges and the order
of generations. These are details that—at the most general level of analysis—make no difference in measuring cohesion.
The k-block, defined above, takes us one additional step toward identifying the additional mediated cohesion in kinship networks that goes
beyond the level of the bicomponent.3 That is, in addition to 2-connected
blocks, there is additional cohesion that may occur pairwise between individuals. To reiterate, cohesive embeddedness in kinship networks may
exceed the parametric level two only at level of specific pairs of individuals, or in larger sets of such pairs. Sets of pairs may also resemble in
important ways a k-cohesive group or k-component. That is, there may
be many completely distinct paths that link nodes A and B in a kinship
network, and B and C, and even all the pairs in a large set of individuals,
although these may never form an actual k-component where all these
multiple paths connect nodes within the set. This observation leads us to
define an exocohesive set of nodes in a network as follows: A k-block B
of a graph G is exocohesive when there are not, within B, at least k nodeindependent paths between every pair of its nodes. The nodes in the inner oval of Figure 9.2, for example, constitute an exocohesive 3-block.
Figure 9.2 is also an example of
a k-block that is not a k-component. An exocohesive k-block is one in
which not all pairs of members are
All pairs of the four nodes within connected by at least k completely
the circle have three node- distinct paths. It is not a k-component
independent paths connecting one because some of its paths go outside
another, but one of these paths the unit. We may say that such a kpasses outside the 3-block to a node block has extraconnectivity k. This
that does not form part of the 3- concept is perfectly suited for the
study of cohesion in kinship netblock itself because it has only two works.
node-independent paths connecting
to the others.
A k-block defines a cohesive group in terms of a minimal number of
links or node-independent paths between every pair of its nodes, and is
of sufficient size to be a k-component, but an exocohesive k-block may
draw upon independent paths and hence “dependent” nodes, like the
lower node in Figure 9.1, that are not themselves sufficiently connected
to be joined to the k-block, but which contribute to its cohesion. This
concept is perfectly suited for the study of cohesion in kinship networks,
which will show different structural levels of exocohesion.
Thus the fundamental insight about cohesion in kinship networks,
that grow out of parent-child connections, is that pairwise connectivity
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
327
can grow beyond the cohesion of bicomponents to a level of k > 2, where
k is the parameter of cohesion, only by additional connecting paths to
what might be termed “dependent” members of a group, that is, members
who do not share membership with the cohesive pair in a common kcohesive group or k-component.
In Aydınlı nomad kinship networks, we look for blocks of k or more
couples in which every pair of which has k or more completely distinct
paths that connect them, but where some of those paths pass through
“dependent” nodes that are outside the block, such as children, grandchildren, or ancestors. We use the term exocohesive groups for such
blocks, within a kinship context, because they represent the only available
type of higher-order pairwise that is available in kinship p-graphs as defined by genealogical links. That is, kinship networks may have 2components but not k-components where k > 2.
It is very common in kinship networks, and indeed in networks of all
sorts (Moody and White 2003), that cohesive and exocohesive blocks
form embedded hierarchies. That is, there is typically a nice buildup in
kinship networks of embedded k-connected pairs of higher order that can
be well modeled by hierarchical clustering. If in a kinship network we
compute a matrix of the number of node-independent paths between every couple, then the maximal submatrices that are all filled with values at
some level k are the exocohesive blocks (White and Harary 2001, White
and Newman 2001) where the node-independent paths may (and indeed
in the case of k > 2 for p-graphs, must) pass outside the block.4 Exocohesive hierarchies are exactly what we find in Aydınlı nomad kinship networks, and hierarchical clustering of these matrices is an appropriate
method. Couples who are deeply embedded in these hierarchies can be
thought of as a set of nested exocohesive cores of the community, at different levels of intensity. The deeper the nesting of the block, the more
the kinship links among block members involve distinct multiple connections between them, and the fewer people they have nested with them
at that level.5
Hence, we come away from this discourse on method with a sense of
the topology of social networks, and of kinship networks in particular, in
which there are different elevations, similar to the topological contours
of terrain, but here consisting of well-defined and measurable levels of
social cohesion. The reader may well understand by now that it is precisely the development of a new set of tools for charting this terrain and
for relating its social contours of cohesion to other aspects of social dynamics, such as emergent leadership and social change, that is an addi-
328
Chapter 9
tional motivation for undertaking this work, for it is now possible to
measure such complex aspects of social topology, and to apply this topological mapping to the Aydınlı. Hence, the testing of the hypotheses of
this chapter may merit the heaviness of this introduction, which bears the
weight of defining a methodology for the network analysis of social cohesion in kinship. We turn next to the actual network components out of
which these contours of cohesion are built.
Analysis 13: Hierarchical Embedding of Cohesion
The analysis of cohesion in networks needs a method for displaying and
locating how exocohesive subsets are hierarchically embedded at different levels of cohesion. Hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) is a
method for analyzing square matrices of similarity coefficients, or
measures such as numbers of node-independent paths, in order to show
subsets for which all elements or nodes have a minimum number, or level of similarity. Such subsets may form one or more hierarchies at successively higher levels of similarities or cohesion.
Hypothesis 9.2: The nomad clan is integrated not by mutually exclusive exocohesive clusters with some overlay but by a single hierarchical order of successively embedded exocohesive blocks.
Concentric Rings of Decreasing Pairwise Connectivity
When pairwise connectivity for the couples in the bicomponent of the
kinship graph is analyzed by HCA,6 as shown in Figure 9.3, a hierarchical embedding of exocohesive groups becomes evident. Hierarchical
containment is exactly what is expected from pairwise connectivity
(White and Harary 2001), but what is evident is that there is a single
such hierarchy and not two or more semi-independent hierarchies, which
would be the case with multiple clusters of similar items.
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
329
Figure 9.3: Hierarchical Clustering of Pairwise Connectivity Values
VIII
VI
II
I
III
IV
V
VII
Support for this hypothesis is evident in the hierarchical clustering results in Figure 9.3. The single peak that rises out of the pyramidal structure to the left in the HCA diagram out of a wider base on the right
shows small sets of actors with high pairwise connectivity values from
the many node-independent paths between them—as with two ancestors
with many intermarried or common descendants. As we move from these
sets toward the right of the figure, with successively larger blocks labeled I-VIII in the column to the right, the general pattern is that these
smaller sets of nodes are successively contained within larger sets of
nodes with deceasing minimum pairwise connectivity. These results are
consistent with the results of the previous analysis, namely, that exocohesion disperses and diminishes as total group size grows over time
(counting ancestors) and greater cohesion adheres to ancestors farther
back.7
These results are further examined in the following figures and tables
that show the results of multivariate analyses. The exocohesive groups
labeled by roman numerals I-VIII at the base of Figure 9.3, for example,
are ordered by similarities in cohesion scores of individual nodes in a
principal components analysis of the matrix.8 The groups with the lowest
roman numerals (starting with I and II) have the highest correlations
among them. Table 9.1 tabulates the number of couples for each of the
groups I-VIII by the number of lines (nodal degree) that connect them to
their parental couples and children. It shows that the exocohesiveness
330
Chapter 9
structure correlates almost perfectly (tau-b=.99) with nodal degree. This
is an expected result because nodes with pairwise connectivity k with
another node must have at least degree k. The upper groups (V and VII)
are smaller than k+1 where k is their minimum degree, which is an indicator that they cannot be k-components, but only k-blocks.
DEG * REGRP9 Crosstabulation
Count
Table
9.1: Crosstab of Nodal Degree of Couples by Cohesion Group
VIII
DEG
Total
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
8.00
9.00
10.00
11.00
12.00
14.00
2.00
143 4
VI
3.00
8
II
4.00
REGRP9
III
6.00 2
I
6
5.00
5
33
3
IV
7.00
V
VII
1
8.00
9.00
7
22
16
1
9
1
11
4
3
143
36
3
1
1
Symmetric Measures
1
1
Asymp.
22
17
10
11
a 7
b7
Value
Std. Error
Approx. T
Kendall's tau-b
.994
.002
21.547
3
Total
143
33
25
16
10
12
4
6
1
1
1
1
Approx.
253
Sig.
.000
These results support
Hypothesis 9.2 by showing a series of levels of
Ordinal by Ordinal
N of Valid Cases
exocohesive subgroups
within the clan nested 253
at successively higher leva. Not assuming the null hypothesis.
els of connectivity. The more exocohesive subgroups are not differentithe asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.
ated into opposingb. Using
factions,
but form a single core. It is along this exocohesiveness axis that we expect the central leadership (individual
tanıdık kişi) to emerge.
Leadership and Levels of Exocohesion
Once we reached this point in our analysis of leadership and cohesion,
we were in a position to reformulate our thinking about how the overall
cohesion structure of the clan plays into emergent leadership in each
generation. In considering leaders and the exocohesive groups that support them, it is common to think of differentiated exocohesive clusters
around each leader, with support groups tending to be mutually exclusive. The structure of cohesion in the clan is radically different from this
because it consists of a single hierarchy of exocohesively embedded
groups.
If our initial hypothesis 9.1.1 had been correct in affirming that level
of cohesion predicts emergent leadership, then a hierarchical embedding
of cohesion in the clan would place all the emergent leaders at the top of
this hierarchy. Instead, they are distributed across different levels of the
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
331
hierarchy, (if instead of looking at Table 9.1. we look ahead to a figure
based on the same data, the location of leaders is as shown by the solid
dots at the top of Figure 9.9). Nonetheless, our hypothesis was partially
successful because the leaders all scaled at exocohesive levels 3 or more,
and not simply at level 2. Having discovered the exocohesive hierarchy,
we thought that, if leaders were selected in each generation from a family that had attained a considerable level of wealth but whose lineage had
not been previously selected for leadership, then there might be the following association between leadership and exocohesive levels.
Hypothesis 9.3: Positions of clan leadership are associated with
differential exocohesiveness levels within the clan bicomponent.
For this hypothesis to work, however, given our findings about wealth
gained in recent generations in a lineage that has not yet led the clan as a
predictor of leadership, there would also have to be some historical process that ties level of cohesion in each generation into the wealthgeneration process. This would add to our serendipitous discoveries
about the entrepreneurial fathers and well-connected mothers of the
emergent leaders and to the constituencies that they might represent.
The Erosion of Exocohesion over Time
A partial solution to the puzzle of how cohesion is linked to leadership
became evident when we plotted Figure 9.4 to show how, for each exocohesive group associated with the tanıdık kişi for a given period, the
level of that group’s cohesion changes over time. Cohesion might be expected to be lower in early generations because of memory loss concerning genealogies, but we can allow for that by correcting our estimates to
give probable greater exocohesive levels for earlier generations than we
extrapolate given missing data. This is shown by the dotted lines in the
graph for the earliest two leaders from lineage #5. We then see a coherent pattern: The k-blocks in which the tanıdık kişi are embedded, extrapolating for early generations with missing data, seem to decrease in exocohesion with time.
The finding of an erosion of exocohesion over time is theoretically
significant for our understanding of kinship networks, and may be understood as follows. In a society with large sibling sets, the ancestral
couples who spawned many offspring who stayed and relinked by marriage within the group (the clan in this case) will have more pairwise
connectivity, in proportion to their offspring, than those who are relinking in the lowest generations. Further, if the size of sibling groups stay-
332
Chapter 9
ing within the group is shrinking due to emigration or a changing demography, then the most exocohesive groups in each generation will be
ordered in time from those with highest pairwise connectivity in the earlier generations (if or when data are complete) and lower levels of exocohesiveness in the later generations. This is a possible explanation for
the pattern we see for the Aydınlı nomads in Figure 9.4; namely, the loss
of cohesion dating from the early twentieth century (when our data start
to be complete) represents a real historical decline in cohesion along
with a growth of inclusive group size, that is, as founders have more descents. There is also some growth in absolute group size as well.
The numbers on the graph next to the lineage numbers of the leaders,
such as #4:7 (14), refer to the sizes of the cohesion groups at the level in
which the leader is embedded, in this case a cohesion level of 8 (as read
from the vertical axis of the graph) with 7 couples at that level (and 14 at
that level or above). While cohesion falls, these numbers rise. That part
of the story follows from the definition of hierarchically embedded kblocs (or HCA structures of exocohesive pairwise connectivity), in
which as levels of cohesion rise the cumulative size of all groups with
that level of cohesion or higher necessarily shrinks.
Level of Exocohesion
Figure 9.4: Erosion of Cohesion Level of tanıdık kişi Groups
over Time
10
(#5)
9
(#5)
(inferences
given memory
loss)
8
#4:7 (14)
6
5
4
#5:11 (25)
#1:11 (25)
#5:17 (42)
#2:22 (64)
3
1850
1875
1900
1925
1950
1975
#4:36 (100)
Growth of Size as a Dilution of the Exocohesive Groups
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
333
Increases in group size (inclusive of ancestors) partly explain the erosion
of exocohesion that we observe over time. Table 9.2 shows the inverse
correlation between the pairwise connectivity level of a group (exocohesiveness) and its size. Group sizes, including higher levels of exocohesion, are given in parentheses. Lineage numbers as in Figure 9.4 and
generation and dates of leadership of the tanıdık kişi are also listed in the
table. The entries in the table are ordered by the dates of leadership of
each of the leaders.
334
Chapter 9
Table 9.2: Exocohesive Groups by Dates of Leaders, Size
and Pairwise connectivity
ExocoSize of
Pairwise Lineage of
Gen Date
Cohesive connectanıdık kişi
hesive
Groups tivity
Groups
I
17(42)
#5 (228) c
ca.1850-75
>5*
III
11(25)
#5 (343) d
ca.1875-99
>6*
VII
7
2 No t.k.***
[20th C.***]
9+
V
7(14)
#4 (517) d
ca.1900-30
8
III
11(25)
#1
(32) d
ca.1930-57
6
IV
11(25)
1 (99)**
d** 1957- **
7
II
22(64)
#2 (818) e
1957-82
4
VI
36(100)
#4 (597) f
1982-94
3
VIII
143
None
2
* Cohesion probably higher because these are early generations with missing data
** Failed attempt
*** No tanıdık kişi: foremost member Fındıklı Ali 784, S of 716 Mustan, and F of 818
Tanıdık Kişi and cohesion
Table 9.3 shows, in support of Hypothesis 9.3, the correlation between
exocohesive blocks at different cohesion levels and the existence of a
tanıdık kişi leader. The correlation is nearly perfect. The one exception
is cohesion group VII, with the highest degree of cohesion and whose
leading member was Fındıklı Ali (784, lineage #2), son of clan founder
Mustan (716) and father of Fındıklı Hacı (818), the tanıdık kişi from
1957-1982 This venerable and pious man was olne of the well known
spiritual leaders of the clan and not unlike a tanıdık kişi, although group
political decisions might not have been undertaken in his tent. Other than
that, at each cohesion level there is one or more tanıdık kişi (or someone
who attempted to be a tanıdık kişi) and each tanıdık kişi is in one of the
groups that are distinguished by their cohesion levels.
Table 9.3: Membership of tanıdık kişi Couples by Cohesion Groups
Structured:
Unstructured:
p=.003
In one of exocoheIn noncohesive
sive groups I-VII
group VIII
6 groups,
groups with a tanıdık
89 couples
kişiler or aspirant
\groups lacking a tanıdık 1 group w. religious 1 marginal group,
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
kişiler
leader, 22 couples
335
143 couples
The historical process that we think accounts for these well-structured
results is this. The early generations are remarkably cohesive, as is
known from the relinking marriages in the generation of Mustan’s children, including Fındıklı Hacı (the exceptional case to the correlation
noted in Table 9.3). Out of this cohesive network-building by the founder generations of the clan comes a system of generalized exchange in
which bride payments circulate in one direction in long paths or cycles
among families while brides circulate in the other direction. The social
embedding and potential for economic cooperation created by marital
relinking facilitates entrepreneurial men to attain wealth, multiple wives,
married sons and daughters-in-law, and to expand their tent size. The cooccurrence of these factors acts as an attractor for those in their kinship
web to gravitate to their tent for political discussions. Given these factors, emergent leaders and their fathers will tend to be in the most cohesive segment of the clan in their generation. The same processes tend to
occur in succeeding generations, except that the gravitation is toward a
newly emergent wealthy family from a lineage that has not served in office previously. Their inclusion in the successive circles of leadership is
at a lower level of cohesion in part because cohesion decreases on average over generations and in part because the former leading lineage, associated with higher cohesion, is now avoided as a meeting place for
new leaders. This family brings in, and the new leader represents, a
broader set of additional families that are linked overall at lower cohesive levels. This account is too complex to test directly by regression
analysis, but it is consistent with the previous regression analyses and
with our hierarchical analysis of cohesion as it varies with leadership
through time.
With this historical model in mind as to how kinship cohesion relates
to emergent leadership for the clan, several types of further analysis of
cohesion are merited before we shift to the personal and family attributes
as a statistical explanation for the emergence of leaders from among the
potential candidates (Analysis 16). One is to examine more closely the
structure of cohesion itself in relation to avoidance behavior associated
with prior leadership (Analysis 14). Another is to examine how groups
of nodes at different exocohesive levels are distributed in the kinship
networks of the clan (Analysis 15). In our final analysis (17) we pull all
our results together into an overall perspective on emergent leadership.
336
Chapter 9
Analysis 14: Exclusion Principles: Cohesion versus
Adhesion
The exclusion principle of competition by the avoidance or withdrawal
of social ties can operate in many ways, and it can have many different
effects. When a person or group withdraws some of its ties within a
clique this leaves those who are still attached in a more central position
where they are now an intermediary to those for whom ties were withdrawn. Withdrawing a tie that provides an intermediate bridge for others
outside the clique, on the other hand, may leave them more isolated and
more distant from others in the network; hence, with lower centralities.
Withdrawal of ties is thus a means of manipulating the centrality of
one’s or another’s group. Here we explore whether there is evidence that
Aydınlı nomad marriage strategies, in a context of cooperation in large
zones of high curvature and competition with groups whose zones are
remote, include the avoidance of marriages that give centrality to others.
Avoidance of marriages that give centrality to others might have the effect of dispersing one’s relinking throughout the network, but in some
circumstances can lead to segmentation in the network.
There remains an important element that offers a different dimension
for understanding how cohesion and support operate, one that is especially relevant in the decentralized political context of Aydınlı nomad
marriage networks. The idea is that exocohesive groups and support
networks may be both polycentric and dispersed, interpenetrating in
ways that go unrecognized in conventional approaches to thinking about
cohesion. What we learn from the decentralized case, in which this kind
of structure is more evident and supported by ethnographic observations,
may make it easier to also identify such structures in centralized social
systems, once we are attuned to conceptualize and look for them in diverse settings.
By way of background, the ethnographic data we have provided thus
far makes it clear that Aydınlı nomads, like many tribes in the Middle
East, are deeply egalitarian, a value that makes nomadic life attractive
not only in terms of setting and lifeway but also in getting out from under the boot of central authority. The amassing of wealth by the tanıdık
kişi from lineage #1 leading to his retirement to town with many of his
kin as a newly wealthy landowner, for example, was much commented
upon and often resented by other nomads. The unsuccessful bid for leadership by his cousin from #1 was also a frequent source of gossip. The
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
337
nomads distrust the concentration of wealth and power. They do not
state a preference for rotation of leadership, nor state this as a principle,
nor do they do so voluntarily; yet, this is the pattern that recurs instead
of succession within the same lineage or group, which would be hotly
contested. This attitude toward concentration of wealth is also ambivalent in that as individuals and families, each also wants to succeed economically, and leaders emerge in part out of respect for their economic
success.9
Distrust or ambivalence about concentration of wealth or influence
might also be a common attitude toward those who might capitalize on
more central positions of influence within the kinship network. Mustan,
his brother, and their children, while they may not have been not rich or
powerful, were clearly the major sources of network integration within
the clan. Yet, no member of Mustan’s lineage Ecevitli A emerged as
leader until the grandchild generation after Fındıklı Hacı’s father had
achieved economic success 10 and neither did they retain leadership in the
next generation in spite of their formidable combination of wealth and
social influence because all his sons obtained a higher education and
gave up nomadism. Some of the sons gained great influence but in another social context.
Thus, from the ethnographic perspective, we may lay out the following regularities of competition and cooperation that apply to Aydınlı
nomad behavior, ones that can be seen to generate by preference or outcome polycentric, dispersed, interpenetrating forms of cohesion:
 Everyone wants to reinforce alliances within their group because the
production units are small residential groups, and lineages are subject
to segmentation and hence weakly bonded, but also:
 Everyone wants to disperse their alliances broadly so as to have unanimous the support of the clan as a whole and all of its subgroups.
Another way of putting this is that no one wants to make enemies (and
no Aydınlı mentioned such a practice) by allowing schisms in the exocohesive structure of the clan, with the result, of course, being a network
of generalized exchange.
This leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 9.4: Members of more central groups will tend to avoid
the creation of alliances such that the centrality or dominance of others is enhanced.
To thus conceive of a resultant social cohesion that is polycentric, dis-
338
Chapter 9
persed, and interpenetrating is to break out of the mental template that
sees cohesive groups as based on boundaries between densely connected
centers whose members are mutually exclusive sets. The common alternative, when density of ties is used to define such groups, is to conceive
of groups that shade into another, in which some people are members of
multiple groups. But if we shift to thinking of groups in terms of overlapping sets, as with the idea of overlapping cliques, the problem of
overlap is one that is complex. Still, both sets of ideas about cohesion—
mutually exclusive groups and overlapping groups—are intuitively and
often formally based on the ideas of distance and density. What is lacking in these conceptions is the idea of cohesion at a distance, namely,
that one group can reach into another, by multiple paths, even if the distances are considerable (see Friedkin 1993). This is the multiconnectivity or multiple-paths conception of cohesion (White and Harary 2001;
Moody and White 2003) that we have employed throughout this book to
identify the boundaries of exocohesive groups and measure the degree
and structure of cohesion in various subgroups. This conception, based
on the graph-theoretic concepts of connectivity, runs counter to a common preconception that social interaction has only proximal effects, and
that indirect effects quickly decay as we move from direct effects (distance 1) to effects along paths of distance 2 or 3, beyond which indirect
effects, in the social networks literature, are mostly thought to be minimal.11 There are, however, two different graph-theoretic conceptions of
connectivity that we can put to good use in testing hypotheses. The one
we have been working with up to this point has been that of nodeconnectivity, which has provided our measures of social cohesion. We
now introduce a second notion that is based on a slightly different measure, that of edge-connectivity, which White and Harary (2001) call the
measure of social adhesion.
Adhesion versus Cohesion (Maxflow versus Node connectivity)
The notion of social adhesion is that when many paths converge on a
central node, such as an urban center or junction in a transport network,
the paths that pass through this node still provide independent routes of
traversal, ones that are not node-independent, but edge-independent.
Thus, if all transport routes between Los Angeles and Tijuana passed
through a certain checkpoint at the border in San Diego, one could
measure the flow capacity of transport from Los Angeles-Tijuana as the
sum of capacities on all these different routes, but the measure would
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
339
fail to take into account the potential bottleneck effects of the mediating
node.
The commonly used measure of flow capacity in networks is, in fact,
the Ford-Fulkerson algorithmic computation of the sum of capacities on
edge-independent paths (in UCINET and Pajek this is called the
maxflow computation). Edge-independent paths differ from nodeindependent paths in the following way. Intermediate nodes on nodeindependent paths between u and v must all be distinct. The number k of
node-independent paths between nodes u and v is a measure of cohesion
because u and v cannot be separated without removing k of the nodes
that connect them. Edge-independent paths between nodes u and v in a
graph, however, may pass through a common node intermediate to u
and v, so
long as all the edges of the paths are
The cohesion of two nodes in a
distinct. Hence, the number k of edgenetwork is the lowest number of
independent paths between nodes u
nodes needed to disconnect
and v is not a measure of cohesion. It
them and equals the number of
is referred to, instead, as a measure of
node-independent paths between
adhesion. High levels of adhesion bethem. Their adhesion is the
lowest number of edges needed
tween two nodes in a network, like the
to disconnect them and equals
Tijuana bottleneck problem, are no
the number of edge-independent
guarantee that there will not be a sinpaths between them.
gle node whose removal from or
blockage in the network would disconnect them.
As regards computation, the UCINET program currently computes
matrices for node- or point-connectivity (cohesion) as well as edge- or
maxflow connectivity (adhesion). Pajek at present computes only maximum flow or edge-connectivity matrices.12
Zachary (1975) made use of the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm to compute
maximum edge-independent flows (maxflow) between two rival leaders
of a karate club during a period when the club was segmenting into two.
The edges were those of friendship, weighted by the number of contexts
in which pairs of individuals hung out together. The assumption was that
each member of the club, during and after the potential split, would tend
to adhere to the leader with whom they had more edge-independent path
flow capacity. Maxflow in this context is an indicator of capacity for potential communication flow such as information, sentiment, and directives that in this case might influence decisions to support one or the
other leader on the basis either of direct edges or indirect paths of
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Chapter 9
friendship links. On this basis, he was able to accurately predict the factional split in terms of who went with which of the leaders.
White and Harary (2001) showed that, using node-independent paths
as a measure of cohesion within Zachary’s karate network, there is an
equally good if not better prediction of the same outcome (factional division). It is a better prediction considering parsimony because it does not
rely on weighted edges. Beyond that, however, it is difficult to evaluate
which concept gives the better prediction in this case, however, because
the measures were so highly correlated that they did not give different
predictions. These two measures do not always give the same results because they measure very different structural properties. There are many
studies that show excellent predictions of diverse outcomes from the
measures of cohesion that we use, so on that count there is greater support for White and Harary’s hypothesis but few if any other studies that
replicate Zachary’s result of predicting similar outcomes from adhesion
rather than from cohesion when the two measures give different results.
The fact that the measure of adhesion versus cohesion differs in The k-edge-components of a netprinciple, if not always in specific work are the largest possible sets
each associated with a value of k,
networks, however, gives us the where all members of each set have
potential for testing Hypothesis 9.4 at least k completely edge-independabout strategies of network- ent paths to every other node in the
building, which predicts that the set, and by the connectivity theorem
Aydınlı nomads avoid, in their the set cannot be disconnected by
marital relinking behavior, the cre- removal of fewer than k edges. The
least or minimum edge-cut of a
ation of alliances such that the cen- graph is the fewest number of edges
trality or dominance of others is whose removal is needed to disconenhanced. We need the graph theo- nect it.
retic definition shown to the right.
Table 9.4 explains the basis for this test of our Hypothesis 9.4. The
table simplifies the contrast between high versus low levels of cohesive
(k-connectivity) and adhesive (k-edge-connectivity) connectivity, independently measured, within any given k-edge-component of an actual
network. One cell of the table is empty because it is impossible for the
node-connectivity of a k-edge-component to be greater than k, although
it can be less than k. When the latter occurs—as in the cell of the table
labeled by high adhesion and low cohesion—then there must be highadhesion members of two or more high-cohesion groups.
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
341
Table 9.4: Adhesion versus Cohesion
Adhesion:
EdgeLow
Connectivity
High
Cohesion: Node-Connectivity (Multiconnectivity)
Low
High
Little or no cohesion
[empty cell]
Adhesive Mediators between Cohesive Groups
Cohesive groups
with no mediators
Marriage Behavior That Avoids Enhancement of the
Centrality of Others
Aydınlı nomad marriage networks show no difference between cohesion
based on node connectivity and adhesion based on edge connectivity,
that is, their exocohesive groups have no high-betweenness mediators.13
The only way that this can be true is if discrepant situations of high adhesion and low cohesion are avoided. This result, then, is consistent with
Hypothesis 9.4, namely, that nomad members of central or more exocohesive groups avoid alliances that make other groups more central.
When one person or lineages starts to become excessively central as a
mediator between other groups, those groups begin to ally among themselves and reduce the competing lineage’s centrality.14
Analysis 15: Distributed Cohesion in Kinship Networks
Automated drawings that minimize line length have the capability of
showing cohesive subgroups in networks, and the potential for showing
how other phenomena, such as the positions of leaders, are structurally
located with respect to how cohesion is distributed in a network. Figure
9.5 is an automatic drawing that shows the kinship links among couples
in exocohesive groups I-VI, with nodes as couples: Solid arrows point to
husband’s parents, and dotted arrows point to wife’s parents. The visual
message of the graph, which shows up more clearly in the web version
where groups are differently colored, is that nodes of the same group are
clustered, but each exocohesive group also has members that are widely
dispersed. The large shaded nodes indicate leaders, and they are often
but not always located near the center of their cluster. This is the typical
pattern of dispersed block-cohesion.
In Figure 9.5 there are V=253 vertices or nodes, A=431 arcs, and an
342
Chapter 9
index of relinking of .74, which is a very high level of cohesion. The
nodes are colored by group, and the larger nodes indicate tanıdık kişi
group leaders. It is evident that while the cohesion groups overlap, leaders seem to come from opposing sides of this graph, which would account for the small second eigenvector (principal component) in the factor analysis of pairwise connectivity (Analysis 14). Note that there are
two leaders, 2 and 4, at extracohesive level 6, group III, and they belong
to lineages #5 and #1, respectively. That also explains why there are
seven large superimposed nodes, coded by leader, in the graph rather
than six.
Figure 9.5: The Six Leadership and Exocohesive Kin Groups—
Atemporal Cohesion (V=253, A=431, index of relinking=.74)
Group
I
Cohesion
5
Leader 1 (# 5)
III
6
Leaders 2 (# 5)
4 (# 1)
V
8
Leader 3 (# 4)
IV
7
Challenger 5
(# 1)
II
4
Leader 5 (# 2)
VI
3
Leader 6 (# 4)
The color-coded figure is found at http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/images/TurkishNomads
Hypothesis 9.5: Tanıdık kişi group leaders are differentiated by
relatively long genealogical distances among themselves, without
diminishing their overall cohesion in terms of multiple connections, which may vary in their distances.
The feature shown by Figure 9.5, and others that we will see of this type,
is the wide distribution of nodes of the same cohesion (color) group.
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
343
What this signifies is that each tanıdık kişi factional leader builds many
independent paths that connect to other couples who are distant in the
kinship network, thereby achieving high exocohesiveness overall with
other significant groupings of the clan.
Figure 9.6 shows the same network as the previous drawing, with the
addition of a third (vertical) dimension for generational time. There is an
oscillation every two generations between a left side of factional leadership and a right side that is slightly more central in the kinship network.
What we think this shows is that the tanıdık kişi, as factional leaders of
different allied groups of lineages within the overall exocohesive structure of the clan, occupy positions of latent opposition within the kinship
networks, linking through multiple connections to the supporters of others leaders (a structure of diffuse overlapping cohesion for each leader),
but avoiding closer links with the core segments of opposing factions.
Figure 9.6: The Six Leadership and Exocohesive Kin Groups—
Group Cohesion
Temporal Perspective
I
5
Leader 1 (# 5)
III
6
Leaders 2 (# 5)
4 (# 1)
V
8
Leader 3 (# 4)
IV
7
Challenger 5
(# 1)
II
4
Leader 5 (# 2)
VI
3
Leader 6 (# 4)
The color coded figure is found at http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/images/TurkishNomads
In Figure 9.7 the peripheral nodes (degree 2: ones that do not correlate
with the exocohesiveness structure) of Figure 9.5 are deleted, and the
figure is then rescaled. What this graph shows is that the high-cohesion
leadership factions are themselves directly connected and cohesive
among and across themselves. The son in the father-son pair of early
leaders from lineage #5 is in the center; leadership then switches to more
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Chapter 9
peripheral nodes for two generations, and then returns to the center for
the last two generations, with a failed challenge from the nephew of the
fourth leader (a peripheral) to the emergent leader in the fifth.
Figure 9.7: The Six Leadership and Exocohesive Kin Groups Minus
Peripherals—Atemporal Cohesion (A=110, V=161, relinking index
=.55)
Group
I
Cohesion
5
Leader 1 (# 5)
III
6
Leaders 2 (# 5)
4 (# 1)
V
8
Leader 3 (# 4)
IV
7
Challenger 5
(# 1)
II
4
Leader 5 (# 2)
VI
3
Leader 6 (# 4)
The color coded figure is found at http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/images/TurkishNomads
In Figure 9.7, compared with Figure 9.5, it is more clear which is the
more central cluster of groups, and that the outlying factions tend to
have somewhat higher levels of cohesion. Perhaps the reason for this is
that outlying groups need greater cohesion than do more central ones in
order to gain leadership.
Figure 9.8 shows the same data as in Figure 9.7, adding the generational time dimension. Again we see a temporal oscillation between a
left side factional leadership and a right side that is slightly more central
in the network.
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
345
Figure 9.8: The Six Leadership and Exocohesive Kin Groups Minus
Peripherals—Temporal Perspective (A=110, V=161, relinking index
Group Cohesion
=.55)
I
5
Leader 1 (# 5)
III
6
Leaders 2 (# 5)
4 (# 1)
V
8
Leader 3 (# 4)
IV
7
Challenger 5
(# 1)
II
4
Leader 5 (# 2)
VI
3
Leader 6 (# 4)
The color-coded figure is found at http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/images/TurkishNomads
In Figure 9.8 there are V=110 vertices or nodes, A=161 arcs, and an index of relinking of .55, which is a high level of cohesion, but not as high
an index of relinking as in Figure 9.5 where the peripheral couples are
present.
The hierarchical clustering of maximum flow values for 110 couples
in structured groups (minus peripherals) identified by factor analysis is
almost identical to that of the bicomponent, except for a few irregularities. Removing the more marginal nodes of degree 2 makes the exocohesiveness structure more irregular, but it is clear that these marginal nodes
add to and balance out the overall clan cohesiveness rather than adding
to any one particular group. As before, the level of pairwise connectivity
goes up to 13, which is the maximum number of edge-independent paths
between any two pairs of couples.
Hypothesis 9.6: Nomad cohesion is not organized in tightly clustered factions, each having short-distance connections, but in
terms of distributed connectivities.
We test this hypothesis by a factor analysis of the matrix of geodesic or
shortest distances between nodes in the bicomponent of the network.
Large factor loadings of the first few factors, provided they are greater
than one, which indicates a lack of clustering for each successive com-
346
Chapter 9
ponent, indicate clustering. As shown by the results from UCINET15 in
Table 9.5, the results show a lack of clustering in the distances. This is
very different from the factor structure of pairwise connectivity, which
shows a very high degree of clustering. Hypothesis 9.6, then, would explain the results in Table 9.5 in relation to our results on cohesion.
Table 9.5: Factor Analysis of Geodesic Distances
Factor Value Percent Cum% Ratio
------- -------- ------ ------ ------1: 65.468 26.9 26.9 1.493
2: 43.853 18.0 45.0 1.560
3: 28.108 11.6 56.6 1.373
4: 20.468
8.4 65.0 1.389
5: 14.739
6.1 71.0 1.095
6: 13.462
5.5 76.6 1.307
7: 10.304
4.2 80.8 1.329
8: 7.754
3.2 84.0 1.254
9: 6.182
2.5 86.6 1.349
10: 4.582
1.9 88.4 1.110
11: 4.129
1.7 90.1 1.490
To summarize the findings of this chapter in the form of an hypothesis to
be investigated further in other chapters:
Hypothesis 9.7: The rotation of leadership within the clan, while
it must occur among men with the attributes and qualifications for
emergent leadership, also depends on networks of kinship support
in terms of distributed cohesion throughout the clan.
Analysis 16: Network and Attribute Predictors
of Leadership
Network methods facilitate testing broader hypotheses than are usual in
social sciences because structural properties as well as attributes can be
used as independent variables. Six different attribute and network hypotheses about leadership have been hinted at thus far in our discussion
of Aydınlı nomad politics. Any one or many of these might account for
the relation between the leadership position of males at various historical
periods and their position in the social network of genealogical ties relative to other factors, including the ties through marriage across the geographical and cultural landscape, and the movement of Aydınlı themselves or people to whom they are linked.
We can fairly quickly eliminate the hypothesis that wife-giving ver-
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
347
sus wife-taking confers changes in family or lineage status for the relatively egalitarian but competitive-status society of the nomad clan, in
which wife-givers and wife-takers are considered as equals. Barring that,
the following six hypotheses were formulated prior to developing quantitative variables that could be used for testing different models of leadership.
Hypothesis 9.8.1: Status may just vary by numbers of supporters
from one’s lineage. (Predictor: Size of husband’s or wife’s lineage.)16
Hypothesis 9.8.2: The broader the overall span of their links to
others in the clan, the greater their support from others and the
higher the support for their rank. (Predictor: Network closeness
centrality.)
Hypothesis 9.8.3: The more prominent males occupy positions of
maximal betweenness (betweenness centrality) with respect to different segments of the clan, that is, their genealogical links put
them in the best positions to mediate between various factions and
thereby to gain support through conflict resolution. (Predictor:
Network betweenness centrality.)17
Hypothesis 9.8.4: As between patriarchs of two contending
groups, vying for leadership, the boundary in the network where
removal of the minimum number of nodes would cleave into two
opposing factions would predict the division into two clusters of
supporters. (Predictor: Exocohesive embedding. This is a restatement of Hypothesis 9.7, but now stated in terms of pairwise connectivity (which applies to k-blocks).
Hypothesis 9.8.5: The variables involved in the ranking of prominent men (and affecting the status of their lineages) involve not
only the size of their group, the alliances of their family and lineage, and influence exerted through the kinship network, but also
qualitative variables such as personal influence, character, and
charisma.
With many competing hypotheses it is best to use a multivariate model
for testing hypotheses. Using linear regression, the first five variables
predict only about 9% of the variance in leadership status (r=.31,
s.e.=15), not such a poor result because there are only six leaders to predict. The hypotheses supported are better indicated by their tests of significance: size for husband’s lineage size times wife’s lineage size
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(p=.20: weak, but stronger than any other direct size effect); betweenness (p=.001), and exocohesive embedding (p=.002). Closeness and eigen centrality had no effect independent of these factors (p > .5), and the
results for maximal pairwise connectivity are negative for outliers (negative effect for this factor squared, p=.003) but positive controlling for
each of the previous variables (p=.019, taking as a measure the excess of
pairwise connectivity above the exocohesive or group level cohesion).
The group-level variables of size and cohesion work best when size is
multiplied by cohesion and this interactive term predicts leadership
(p=.076) more strongly than size alone, while cohesion and other variables continue to have the same effects (now the variance is 10% accounted for, with r=.315). The variance accounted for with this model is
brought up to 22% if other attributes are added (see below): older sons,
having 3-5 married sons, both husband and wife born in and stay in the
clan and come from one of the four largest lineages, and father a tanıdık
kişi. In the expanded model, betweenness centrality and exocohesive
blocks continue to predict, and the square of pairwise connectivity to
negatively predict, emergent leadership.
Figure 9.9 shows how the variables used in testing these hypotheses
work in tandem. In this log-log plot, the horizontal axis is an ordering of
the 256 marriages in the bicomponent of the kinship network, which we
used for testing hypotheses, on the basis of their exocohesive embedding
and secondarily their betweenness centralities. These are the strongest
predictors at the level of the group and the individual couple, respectively. The vertical axis are logged multiples of the network variables,
shown in the lower part of the graph (scale is not important here), while
the dependent variable of political leadership (labeled “Tanidik and
wife”) is given for the six marriages shown as round dots at the top of
the plot. They are positioned to show their order within the rank order of
marriages by k-block exocohesiveness. All the leaders have a minimal
exocohesiveness between the 5th and 55th percentile within the bicomponent, statistically significant at p=.0001, but other factors are also
needed (as in the regression analysis) to predict their emergence as leaders because there are many couples with higher cohesion. As we have
seen in Analyses 12 and Figure 9.4, however, a strong direct correlation
between leadership and cohesion in the bicomponent for all time periods
would be impossible because cohesion in that context decays across
generations.
The three asterisks at the top left of Figure 9.9 are the top three nodes
on the scale of group cohesion. These include Mustan (the middle of the
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
349
leftmost starred nodes at the top), whose high betweenness centrality is
seen by the upturn in the profiles of betweenness centralities shown below, and two of his sons, one with high and the other with low centrality.
These men were prominent in the socioemotional leadership of the clan:
Mustan the great founder-relinker, one son (868) being the father of the
clan healer and the other (Fındıklı Ali, 784) the father of the political
leader and also a spiritual leader. From a lineage that may have been
poor at that early time period, they themselves did not become political
leaders, but their cohesion as a form of social capital was converted in
the grandchild generation into a leadership position.
Figure 9.9: Logged Plot of Variables Used in Predicting Leadership
Percentiles
1% 5%
30% 50%
100
Betweenness
Cohesion
10
Closeness
MarrChildren
Leader&Wi
Tanıdık kişi
Tandik&Wi
and Wife
1
LEADER
1
10
100
1000
TANDIKI
Figure 9.9 is drawn to show the fractal or power-law (linear in log-log)
Power
relationship between levels of cohesion and betweenness and their per(Cohesion)
centage distributions in the population. The parallel Power
heavy regression
lines show the power-law slopes of cohesion (k-block
membership,
(MarrChildren)
Power and numwhich begins at 2 and rises to 14 in the bicomponent sample)
ber of married children (out degree of nodes as parents,(Closeness)
a measure of social support for leadership from having multiple married children). A
parallel lighter regression line shows the same power-law slope for betweenness centralities, which have considerable independent variability
even while correlated with cohesion. Closeness has a nearly flat slope
and is basically uncorrelated with cohesion. The fractal distributions of
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Chapter 9
these variables are a likely indication that when we take samples of varying size from the population, within certain limits, we will observe the
same form of such distributions.
Pairwise connectivity and the degree (number of kinship links) of
nodes in the kinship and marriage network is associated with tanıdık kişi
leadership in different factions, as we have seen. The degree of nodes in
a network is one measure of node centrality.
More detailed modeling of cohesion as a predictor of leadership is
needed within the six different time frames of the different leaders, but
focusing on one leader at a time, for only six leaders, makes it difficult
to assess statistical hypotheses when the dependent variable has only one
case that varies in each time period. Reframing the time periods would
provide an outcome variable once again of six leaders to be predicted, as
we have done here, but perhaps that game is not worth the candle, especially because there is an added dimension of how leadership itself, its
structure and dynamics, changes over time. In Chapter 5, with the curvature analysis, we were able to break the structure of lineages into temporally coherent fractal (and overlapping) pieces to get a larger set of units
to work with to study the structure of connectedness and the dynamics of
change, but for our six political leaders, a comparable methodology has
not been invented. To go into more detail, rather than testing hypotheses
quantitatively, what will have to suffice is a qualitative depiction of the
position of leaders in the networks of each time period, and how leadership seems to be changing at various time periods as indicated by differences in leadership histories and positions in relation to the temporally
specific networks. The following hypothesis was developed after the
others: it is intuitively obvious although it does not require quantitative
testing, so obvious that we did not think to develop data to document its
relevance until after the previous section had been written.
Hypothesis 9.9: In most periods of succession, a son of one of the
wealthiest families in that period that has not already held leadership tends to emerge as leader. Because of the father’s wealth, that
man can acquire several wives even before taking leadership, and
the wealth, wives, and married sons (plus well-connected daughters-in-law) already presuppose that this man’s family will have
acquired the large type of tent that is a sign of leadership status
and of a size in which others can gather for discussions.
The following narratives about fathers and sons (in bold: the emergent
leaders) show this hypothesis to be accurate:
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
351
#5. 1850. 224/228. The Koca bey (224) lineage (#5) was originally the
highest in social ranking. Before the eastward migration, headman
Veli Kahya (228c) had three sons by his wife from Antalya, but was
rich enough, as the most influential man of the clan in his generation,
to adopt into his lineage a smart but poor boy, younger than his own
sons, to help care for his flocks. We do not know much about his father, Koca bey (224b), but the fact that he is remembered (along with
his brother) speaks to his prominence and possible wealth. This does
not contradict the hypothesis in spite of missing data.
#5. 1875. 228/343. Veli Kahya’s (228) son Hasan bey (343d) became
the next headman. His lineage segment was among the first to leave
the Antalya region for the eastern pastures, in the 1870s. He left in
order to spare his most gifted son Hafız Ali (345e) from a lengthy
military service. He fits the pattern of having a wealthy father who,
because he did not migrate to the east, had not been headman of that
lineage segment but of the pre-migration group.
#4. 1900. 514/517. The Kırbaşı oğulları have been fairly rich because the
time of Ali (514b) of the c-generation, whose wife was daughter of an
efendi (formerly gentleman or man of some influence in town, now
simply Mr.). His son Erkek Mustafa (517c) was a tanıdık kişi and
wealthy. This fits the hypothesis.
#1. 1930. 31/32. Hacı Dolaşıklı (28b) himself and his brother and their
sons began poorly, but the sons were successful at last and owned
herds of at least medium size (about 300 animals). The eldest son of
Hacı Dolaşıklı (28b), Hacı Mehmet (31c), who already owned large
herds, and whose wife was heir to Ecevit Mehmet (whose family had
no male heirs), had a very rich son, Kozan Mehmet (32d), who was
tanıdık kişi for a certain time. He married three wives, which only the
very richest can afford. He was a breeder of small cattle, and also cattle merchant and did other business. He became sedentary in a small
town thereafter, which created distance between him and the clan.
(As Eberhard has shown, nomads who become wealthy absentee
landlords settle in or near towns, while poor nomads settle near villages.) This pattern of wealthy fathers also fits the hypothesis.
#2. 1957. 784/818. The Ecevitli were poor until the c-generation. Only
thereafter did they advance in richness and influence, as we have already written. Among the offspring of Mustan (716c, son of 659b)
and his brother Hacı Ketir Mehmet (661) of Ecevitli lineages #2A-B,
the most influential and rich in the d-generation was Fındıklı Ali
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Chapter 9
(784d). His wife was daughter of a Molla (trained in a religious
school) who would be above the average in wealth. Their position
had influence on their son, Fındıklı Hacı (818e), as tanıdık kişi.
Fındıklı Hacı’s herd was a good, large one, estimated in 1964 at 500
goats or more, but it included the animals of his nephews and obviously also two of his brothers. This fits the hypothesis.
#4. 1982. 584/597. The eldest of the sons of Erkek Mustafa (above, #4),
who reached old age, was Molla Ali (532), who was also the richest.
He owned about 700 goats all together in 1957, but lost many because
in this summer an epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease happened. He
had two very able sons who managed to stay rich, nevertheless. The
next son after Molla Ali, Isa (584d), was at the beginning of his independence a rich man too, and had married a woman from a well-to-do
family of the Dazkırlı (#6). They had an elder son who was honest
and of fine character, but not very intelligent, and his second son died
after Isa had spent much money to save him and even more money to
get the daughter-in-law, Ayşa (359), for his eldest son, who became
lovesick for her and had to be cured too. Moreover, Isa had had some
losses in the years before, especially from a failed second marriage
that cost him dearly. Thus, he owned only about 140 goats, which fell
to below 100 during the epidemic of 1957. This was a critical situation for the family, but then the youngest son Mustafa (597), called
“Dede,” and later tanıdık kişi, had grown up sufficiently following his
military services to take the reins of the family economy, and had also
learned reading, arithmetic, and ways to make contacts in towns from
Johansen, his lineage “sister” for whom he was also responsible.
Within fifteen years he managed to make it the richest in the clan. His
brother continued goat-breeding with his advice and he himself did
many sorts of business very effectively and extremely diligently. He
was twice married. This fits the hypothesis, with some ups and downs
in the family fortunes.
The pattern of a tanıdık kişi son succeeding a father who had recently
become the richest man in the clan in a lineage other than the preceding
tanıdık kişi is recurrent in these narratives. A secondary theme, one that
creates conflict, is the consolidation of wealth by the son as tanıdık kişi,
which allows him and his relatives to return to village life as owners of
significant fixed property. This was the case with Kozan Mehmet from
lineage #1.
This finding, which we had not expected to emerge so clearly, sug-
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
353
gests that our quantitative testing might well be redirected to the question: what are the network and other factors that dispose toward the
emergence of an entrepreneurial father whose sons have the best chance
of becoming tanıdık kişi? Having constructed all the necessary variables
for use in testing hypotheses 8.4.1 through 8.4.6, we used multiple regression once more to try to predict the six fathers of the tanıdık kişi.
Hypothesis 9.10: The fathers of tanıdık kişi can be predicted from
the same type of network and other variables specified in hypotheses 9.7.1 through 9.7.5, as applied to the fathers rather than the son
as a candidate for tanıdık kişi.
Entrepreneurship and Parents’ Status as Predictors of
Emergent Leadership
We stumbled onto the investigation of leader’s parents by serendipity,
and as a purely exploratory model simply used the same variables that
predicted emergence of tanıdık kişi leaders, this time trying to predict,
from the network characteristics and attributes of the parents, whether
they became the parents of a leader. What we found, although there was
more missing data, was that 11.3% of the variance was predicted from
three variables: embedding in exocohesive blocks (p<.001), excess pairwise connectivity (p<.001), and less than one link to parents (p<.001).
The last predictor in this list reflects something about the mothers of
the tanıdık kişi, two of whom came from the Antalya homeland (the earliest cases from lineage #5), or from a place unknown (three cases). In
these latter cases, judging from the mother’s father, the women were
from prestigious families.18
What these results seem to imply is that Aydınlı nomad entrepreneurship and emergent leaderships is roughly equivalent to a very common
pattern worldwide, namely, immigrant entrepreneurship. This often included high status from the sending community, the establishment of
multiconnectivity in the new locale, often by joint or network migration
(moving with others with already established ties), and the endowment
of children with the resources from a “good family” on the mother’s side
and from an entrepreneurial father’s achievements to allow them to attain political prominence.
The features of Aydınlı nomad politics that are unusual are that the
leader is not selected by an electoral or formal procedure but an informal
one, and that leadership at the lineage level is based on a norm of turn-
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taking. The turn-taking is not automatic, but often disputed, with competing contenders. The following narrative illustrates how conflict and
cohesion enters into this process.
The case of a failed contender is also illustrative. After the time of
Kozan-Mehmet’s (32, #1) leadership and his abdication to town, his
younger patrilineal cousin Hacı Molla (99, #1) tried to become the
tanıdık kişi after him. Nevertheless, Fındıklı Hacı (818) as the second
and most able son of the pious Fındıklı Ali (784, the second son of Mustan) was accepted as tanıdık kişi, not Hacı Molla. The interesting structural factor in this completion was that the two were almost exactly
matched on all of our network and attribute variables, except that the
lineage of the winner was different from that of the previous incumbent
(and somewhat larger than Hacı Molla’s, although when it came to the
lineages of the wives, the latter’s was the larger). Perhaps this structural
similarity was the reason why Hacı Molla continued to mutter, until the
age of about eighty, against the decisions of Fındıklı Hacı and to complain of Fındıklı Hacı’s egoism. It is also noteworthy that this failed contender was the only hereditary candidate (as cousin of the former leader)
pushing himself for tanıdık kişi status in recent times, which was perhaps
a factor in his rejection, although reasons given had to do with his actions and poor judgments. His kinship and wealth qualifications were
impressive, however: Not only was his cousin (32, #1) a tanıdık kişi, but
his father (31) had also become rich at the same time as his cousin’s father, and his mother a FBD of his father and daughter of the lineagename founder, Ecevit (1, #1).
Leadership, Marriage, and Social Change
A final theme on which to close this chapter on the issue of leadership in
the complex but decentralized society of the clan is the importance of
women and marriage to political leadership. Although more than one
marriage is not legally permitted in Turkey, Islam allows up to four
wives at a time. To have more than one wife was looked at as a sign of
power and the most influential men were often married to two, and occasionally to three wives, which required considerable wealth. As Table
9.6 shows, it is not just the number of wives that correlate with tanıdık
kişi leadership rank but wives plus daughters-in-law. The minimum
number of wives and daughters in law for leaders was four, excepting
the present leader, “Dede,” whose sons had not yet married. In the next
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
355
chapter we consider marriage as a source of cohesion in the network of
kin-based support that is important in a decentralized political system. It
is not only the wives and daughters-in-law of the leader who are important,19 but the marriages that make his kinship block cohesive that
may be considered important.
Other patterns that link leadership to marriage alliance are evident in
Table 9.6. One set of patterns are those of repetition of alliances from
one leader to the next:
 Each turn at leadership renews some of previous marriage alliances
of the leader.
 In each turn except the last, there is a marriage within the lineage.
There is also a discontinuity in the sequence, labeled as phases one and
two in Table 9.6:
 The succession of #4 from #5 is accompanied by a marriage alliance
with #5 (daughter-in-law), but this does not repeat.
 The leaders in Phase One (#4 and most likely, #5, for which data are
missing) have alliances with other tribes, but not with villages. The
pattern changes in Phase Two to marriage alliance with a village for
the more recent leaders, starting with #1, and continuing through #2
and the last successor, #4.
Another pattern is that lineage #4 repeats a leadership role, once in
Phase One and again in Two, after a two-generation lag. Overall, there is
also a pattern of the temporal succession of lineages occupying the leadership position mimicking the continuum from traditional to more village-oriented lineages that we saw in Figure 7.4, a continuum that resulted from scaling the similarities in marital ties among the lineages. The
alliance structure among leaders, that is, mimics the alliance patterns
among their lineages, and the traditional-to-village oriented scaling is
mimicked by a secular trend toward more village-oriented leaders.
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Table 9.6 Leaders and their Wives and Daughters-in Law
Lineage Leaders
Wives’ lineages Da-in-law’s lineages Total
Phase One: Traditional Pattern of Marital Alliances
#5 228 Veli Kahya
two: ? ?
five: ? ?
seven
#5 343 Hasan bey
one: #2
two: #3, ?
four
#4 517 Erkek Mustafa
one: #4
four: #2,#5,#6,A,K*five
Phase Two: Village (V)-Oriented Pattern of Marital Alliances
#1 32 Kozan Mahmut three: #2 #5 V
five: #1,#5,V
#2 818 Fındıklı Hacı
three: #2 #5 V
two: #2,V
#4 597 “Dede”
two:
#5 V
zero (six sons)**
* A,K are tribes
eight
five
two
** None married as yet
Analysis 17: Overall Cohesion, Lineage, and Leaders
Network analysis makes it possible to formulate hypotheses about alliance patterns that do not restrict themselves to characterizing the social
norms of entire societies but to analyzing variations on social structure
that occur within societies or across various types of social boundaries.
The structure of cohesion that we see in the graphic figures over all time
periods, as analyzed in this chapter, is the cumulative result of relinking
processes over successive time periods. Overall structure is the historical
residue of past strategic action. Thus, we can return to our consideration
of lineages, alliances, factions, and leadership (analyzed in Tables 9.2,
9.6, and 9.7). We want to understand how the overall pattern of cohesion
relates to the strategies of lineages and patterns of social coalitions used
to provide social support to those of their leaders who became known
men (tanıdık kişiler) in different historical periods.
Hypothesis 9.11: In temporal sequence, the lineage with the greatest distributive cohesion within the clan is the one in which a leader emerges (the causality here is one of recursion, or mutual influence, rather than unidirectional; it should be noted that “Dede”
would be an exception for reasons to be explained). During the
tenure of leadership, competitors emerge and the next lineage to
emerge with the greatest distributive cohesion within the clan is
the one that takes over clan leadership. As time goes on, the distributive cohesion of lineages of earlier leaders decays. In considering the cohesion of a lineage, the role of allies and marriage alliances needs also to be considered as contributing to cohesion of a
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
357
leadership factional core that is larger than a single leader.
The extent to which the cohesion of lineages is distributed across the
clan or norm narrowly focused within small segments of the clan is
gauged by the distribution of members of each clan within the energy
scaling of the entire clan over all time periods, shown in Figure 9.10.
Nodes are colored according to lineage in original version of Figure 9.10
(now found at the URL for the web site indicated), as in Table 9.7.
Hence, all nodes of the same lineage are connected by male father/son
links. This energy scaling of marriages for the whole clan is the same
scaling used in Figure 9.9, for which subsets are shown for different periods. The difference is not in the location of nodes or marriages in these
scalings, which is invariant, but that Figure 9.10 includes all the nodes
that have lineage membership within the clan, for all time periods. Figure 9.10 is simplified by removing female links so that connectedness
among agnatically related nodes can be identified. The scaling, however,
reflects the invisible presence of female ties. If the female ties reinforced
the tree-like structure of the male lineages the black-and-white graph
would simply radiate out from the center (where the marital cohesion of
Mustan’s grandchildren holds it together). Instead, we see many lines
that cross over into other sectors of the graph, and the pattern is one of
rather diffuse or distributed integration. The lineages do tend to cluster
(this is only evident in the colored graph), but each lineage has its outliers who are found at longer distances from the lineage cluster.
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Figure 9.10: The Scaling of Marriage for Overall Cohesion
(The color coded figure is found at http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/images/TurkishNomads;
lines for individual males and females are readably numbered at the WWW site )
Table 9.7 presents data on leadership and alliances among the lineages, ordered by the time period in which they held the principal leadership position for the clan. The numbers of lineages and the coloring of
nodes for each lineage in Figure 9.10 are given in the first column of Table 9.7. In the second column are given the periods of leadership for
each lineage, as in Table 9.2. Column 3 summarizes the kind of cohesion
held by the lineage, whether widely distributed or concentrated in certain
locations in Figure 9.10. Lineages occupying correlated spaces within
Figure 9.10 are, by virtue of the scaling algorithm, allied through marriage. Alliances of a lineage with a lineage appearing earlier or having a
higher leadership position are summarized in column 4 (taking the data
from Table 9.2. and Table 9.6). Relinking within lineages (Table 6.7) is
summarized in column 5. Finally, the location of specific leaders in the
cohesion structure of Figure 9.10 is given in column 6.
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
359
Table 9.7: Summary of Data Relevant to Lineages, Their Exocohesive Integration in the Clan, and Emergent Leadership (Hypothesis
9.11, for the Cohesive Structure in Figure 9.10)
Lineage in
Figure 9.10
and colors*
#5 Green
#8 Lite
Green
#4 White
#6 Lite
Blue
#1 Yellow
Leadership
Periods
Table 9.2
1.1850-75
2.1875-99
client
Position in Fig.
9.10 Cohesion
Structure
Quasidistributed***
upper center
3.1900-30
6.1980-95
(ally)
Lower left
Lower left
Lower center
4.1930-57
Distributed
central band
lower left
upper right
like #1, but
denser on left
Fully distributed
Thin central
band
#9 Orange
#10 Purple
#7 Red
client
client
(ally)
#2 Pink
5.1957-80
#3 Dark
(ally)
Green
* Colored in web version
** Table 6.6
*** Displaced to left center
Alliances
Table 9.2,
Table 9.7
Relinking
within
Lineage**
Third
Highest
Position
of Leader
Fig. 9.10
1 Center
2 Center
Fourth
Highest
1 Center
2 Center
Second
Highest
1 Center
right
Highest
1 Center
upper
#4
#1/9/10
#5/8
#2
From the data in Table 9.7, it is evident that Hypothesis 9.11 holds up to
the end of the 1980s (period 5), which ends with the leadership of
Fındıklı Hacı (818, lineage #2), and does not hold for the leadership of
“Dede.” Up to this point the most recent lineage to hold clan leadership
(#2: 1957-1980), along with their marriage allies in lineage #3, has the
most fully distributed cohesion in Figure 9.10 (URL image: the pink
nodes, that is, are the most widely and uniformly distributed across the
figure). We will examine shortly the pivotal role of Fındıklı Hacı in the
social change and modernization that the clan experienced after the end
of his tenure of leadership. The previous lineage to hold clan leadership
(#1: 1930-1957), with their marriage allies in lineages 9,10, and 7, has
the next broadest distribution (URL image: yellow nodes) across Figure
9.10, more focused on a central horizontal band (the client lineages have
complementary distributions). Farther back in time, lineage #4 held the
leading personality position in period 3 (1900-1930)—and again later in
period 6 (after 1980)—and has one of the least distributed patterns of
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cohesion. It should also be noted that the leading personality position is
not unequivocally transmitted. In the long and turbulent period 3, for example, it is not always clear as to the relative influence of Erkek Mustafa
(517) and Fındıklı Ali (784).
The first lineage to hold clan leadership (#5, URL image: green;
1850-1900) is somewhat dispersed but displaced to left center. According to Hypothesis 9.11, the most recent lineage (#4, the first to hold
leadership in discontinuous time periods) ought to have a pattern of distributed cohesion. A similar logic may be operative, however, but now
dependent on personal networks rather than cohesion through the lineage. The recent leader of lineage #4 is personally located at the center of
Figure 9.10 (and is the nephew of the previous leader who also occupied
a central position in terms of cohesion). In all cases, leaders are quite
central in the cohesion network, but the leader of #4 in period 6 (597,
“Dede”) is more central in terms of his personal network than either of
the leaders in periods 4 and 5, although their lineages had more dispersed cohesion. The possibility of a change from a lineage-based distributed cohesion as a leadership base to a person-based centrality in the
network of cohesion is another hint of changes in nomad social structure
in recent decades (see Hypothesis 9.13).
Hypothesis 9.12: To use the alliance theory terminology of LéviStrauss, it might be inferred from the preceding analysis that, historically, the lineages of clan leaders occupied positions of clan
cohesion corresponding to generalized exchange (in our terms:
distributed alliances). In contrast, lineages marginal to clan leadership, or after a period of time delay, have restricted exchanges
(more focused and restricted marriage alliances).
Hypothesis 9.13: The basis of leadership is changing, after the
1980s, from distributed cohesion in which a leader’s extended
marital ties through lineage mates are of central importance, to cohesion based on personal networks that are more limited in their
ability to integrate broad support within the clan.
Ethnographically, there are two aspects of social change that lead up to
and then occur in the transition of the 1980s. The first was the pivotal
role of Fındıklı Hacı (818, lineage #2), the last of the “traditional” clan
leaders, in modernization. The second was the pivotal role of “Dede,”
the first of the “modern” leaders. The first supported the emergent role
of the second in the social changes that occurred. Fındıklı Hacı was a
traditional tanıdık kişi in terms of his selection, his kinship support, and
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
361
his comportment, but his contacts outside the clan proved decisive in altering his perspectives. Fındıklı Hacı and his brothers were highly intelligent and respected men, but he himself was illiterate. The children of
his first wife (389) were traditionally oriented clan members and lifelong
nomads. One of his brothers (855) left the clan and resided in the small
town of Saımbeylı, where one son (855) became a lawyer. His children
by a second wife (894, Emine, who had no special education), advanced
through formal education, in which Fındıklı Hacı had a special interest
because he represented the clan in its negotiations in villages and towns.
He had the oratorical style of a lawyer, and he sent his children to
schools in town. One become a high-level district administrator and later
a member of the Turkish parliament (Koçali, 826), another a doctor
(829), and a third a director of a high school (830). Another brother
(840) married a great-granddaughter (652, Nuriye, D of 851M of 652F)
of a man (630) who was one of the few to rejoin the clan after retreating
to the high mountains for many years to avoid the tax collectors, but who
was a grandson of the lineage #1 founder (1926) nicknamed “Quarrelsome” Mustafa. The four sons of Nuriye (652) went on to become a policeman (846), a high school teacher (851), a primary school director
(853), and a tractor driver (854). When her husband died, his brother
Fındıklı Hacı took her in leviratic marriage as a co-wife to Emine. Of
their children, one son (838) made a career in the police force and the
daughter (639) became a high school teacher.
When Fındıklı Hacı reached the age of retirement in 1980, he clearly
understood that times had changed. All of his sons except the eldest
were educated professionals. In the meantime, the Turkish authorities
had required from the 1960s forward that the clan, having a small settlement in the mountain camp, elect a mayor, which was managed by
Fındıklı Hacı by appointed someone to the task who would take orders
from him. A local committee of young men was elected to help the
mayor, one of whom was “Dede.” Fındıklı Hacı opposed the choice of
“Dede,” the most dynamic of the young men to succeed him as tanıdık
kişi, but, after his health worsened and he moved to town, he relented
and “Dede,” who had then become mayor, also became his successor.
“Dede,” from lineage #4, then, not only represented a new set of values
but also a willingness to participate in a new organizational structure
imposed on top of the traditional leadership position. “Dede” had started
poor, worked extremely hard, became a cattle trader, came to own trucks
for transport, and, by selling animals and buying property built up a respective position among the sedentary population, although he had never
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been to school; still, he had learned so much by himself that he earned a
basic school diploma.
We can examine in detail the structures of marital alliances that still
operated to create kinship cohesion for “Dede” (597), but now in reduced form, if we return to the example of Figure 6.5. This was the figure we used to illustrate the existence of multiple large bicomponents
(fragmented social cohesion). We used this figure to illustrate the way
that the network ties in this period might have looked from the egocentric perspective of “Dede” as the clan leader of that period. The figure
also illustrates how changeable or emergent are such elements of social
structure: a marriage between a daughter of couple 44 in Figure 6.5 and
a son of couple 1, for example, would radically reduce the kinship distances in this network, and would integrate the two bicomponents. Yet
the fact that this has not occurred given ample opportunity, that “Dede’s” lineage is not widely integrated in terms of distributed cohesion,
and that it is only his personal network that places him at the center clan
cohesion, gives convergent empirical support for Hypothesis 9.13, of a
fundamental change of the basis of political leadership.
Still, there were other factors behind the changes that the succession
of “Dede” represented in 1980. Traditionally, prior to the 1930s, the
poorest and the richest had turned to sedentary life: the richest by selling
commons pasture land as if it was their own and investing in village
lands to become landlords, and the poorest because they were forced to
make a living as field hands. Up to this time, however, usually there
were no land ownership documents. Beginning in the 1930s the Turkish
administration started to provide and administer land documents as requirements for sale. In the following periods it became increasingly recognized that economic success for those who would become wealthy or
move upward to better positions depended either on education—and emigration—or on the type work ethic that “Dede” represented in the transition to a different basis for leadership.
Summary
Emergent leadership for Aydınlı nomads is part of a multigenerational
process. At stage one, the pattern is that an entrepreneurial father and a
mother from a well-off family (with the social cohesion needed to have
access to the nomad exchange networks) may emerge as one of the richest families in their generation from a lineage either not having had a re-
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
363
cent turn in the rotation of leadership among competing and cooperating
lineage segments, or where the father was a headman in a different location, prior to migration, as was the case with the second of the leading
personalities of the clan. If they have the local attributes of cohesive
marriage and family practices, including several married sons who retain
their nomadism, one of these sons may have the character, economic
success, and respect associated with achievement within the contemporary economic setting to become the tanıdık kişi, the important person
who coordinates clan discussions and decision making. In a society that
does not appoint or elect their leaders but lets them emerge through a
consensus process according to how many others (eventually, all) beat a
path to their tent, one of the requirements is that his family have one of
the larger tents associated with large and wealthy families.
At stage two, for the son to be successful, he must also have the attributes of cohesive marriage and family practices, and partly because of
his father’s wealth he may also been able to afford several wives, which
are an asset in producing more married sons, endowing daughters with
bride payments for further marriage alliances, and in providing the labor
needed to host large groups in a large tent for discussions. The attributes
and the network variables of kinship cohesion fit together in a tight
package associated with a process that is not ascribed, or even rigidly
predictable (as we see from the low r-squared of attributes in regression
analysis, although these have significant effects that fit this description).
We see the process as an intricate pattern of emergence and synchronization, in which behavioral practices and goal-driven choices interact with
societal values and the judgment and respect of others. The process is
fundamentally a social one, an elaborate social choreography, deeply
embedded within the needs and drives for economic success, but attuned
to the political nuances of alliance-making and social support. Cohesive
social practice seems an apt label for this kind of emergent process.
Let us not forget, however, that it is the personality that turns the
scale for leadership. Here we come to the limits of our network data,
where we have no adequate measures of differing personalities.
Marriage alliances and structural endogamy, however, are also crucially important for Aydınlı nomad clan leadership and equally so for
lineages and sublineages at various levels. Leaders and their sons tend to
have one wife who relinks with other segments within the same lineage,
another who relinks with the lineage of the previous leader, another who
repeats the alliances of the former leader, and so forth. In each case there
is continuity from one period to the next, but also evidence ruptures or
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change to a more village-oriented alliance pattern in the 1960s and later,
such as the importance of formal schooling. With this, and questions
about continuity and change, we introduce in the next chapter our examination of political leaderships.
Further Reading
Aydınlı nomad emergent leadership fits the pattern of emulation of successful role-= models or prestige-biased cultural transmission described
by anthropologist Joseph Henrich (2002) and colleagues in a series of
studies carried out cross-culturally. Boehm (1993, 1997, and 1999) has
extensively studied egalitarian leadership and its effects on human evolution in a series of prize-winning studies. Friedkin (1993) shows, for
example, in one case study, that social cohesion (measured by an access
measure that incorporates number of communication paths, length of
paths, and strengths of constituent ties along paths) is the primary determinant of issue-related communication. The latter turn is the primary
predictor of issue-related influence, controlling for rewards, coercion,
authority, and expertise that have influence through the elementary
structure of differential power. Bourgeois and Friedkin (2001) argue
from the evidence of a case study that while interpersonal ties (including
measures of cohesion) foster social solidarity, the expected negative effects of social distance may be salient in certain core-periphery structures. However, they are not ubiquitous implications of social differentiation but properties of particular forms of social organization. Friedkin
(1998) gives less attention to social cohesion as a basis of interpersonal
influence in his empirical analyses than he does structural similarity and
centrality, but he includes an excellent discussion of social cohesion.
Notes
1. Categorical connectivity or the category of connectivity (Friedkin
1998:164) refers to four categories of reachability in a directed graph: unilateral
(one or the other of each pair can reach the other on a directed path), weak (every node can reach any other through a semipath), strong (every node can reach
any other through a directed path), and disconnected (there is some node that
cannot reach another through a semipath). In contrast, the connectivity level k as
we use it here corresponds to the type of connectivity in Menger’s Theorem (Harary 1969: Ch. 5), for example, the number of nodes whose removal is needed to
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
365
disconnect a graph, and the minimum number of node-independent paths between pairs of nodes (White and Harary 2001).
2. Marriage with a grand niece (BDD) is not found among the Aydınlı but is
only a hypothetical example in the illustration.
3. Note once again that although treating the p-graph as an ordinary graph in
this way provides a means of identifying distinct multiple paths of connectedness, and of measuring levels of cohesion, there cannot be a k-component in a pgraph that is more than a bicomponent, that is, having a level of group cohesion
greater than k=2. This is because, at the group level, no set of couples may be
connected to all other couples in the set by paths within the set that begin with
three or more parental edges. To illustrate this more concretely, imagine that we
tried to increase the cohesion of the p-graph in Figure 9.1 by adding an edge
from the lower FBD marriage to the upper ancestral node. This would violate the
principles of the genealogical ordering of generations. The upper node cannot be
a child of this couple because it is an ancestral node. Nor can it be an ancestor
for either member of this couple because both sets of parents for the couple have
already been identified. Thus, if there were a kinship network for which the underlying graph was a 3-component, then someone would have to be their own
ancestor, and this cannot be the case in genealogical relations because parents
are always in a preceding generation.
4. A 1-block is necessarily a component, and a 2-block is a bicomponent because it can have no nodes outside the block that add extraconnectivity. Only kblocks for k >2 are distinct from k-components.
5. It is known mathematically that no two k-components can have k nodes in
common, but it has not been proven that two exocohesive k-blocks cannot have k
nodes in common. It is obvious, however, that every k-block is embedded in a k1 block, just as every k-component is embedded in a k-1 component.
6. Bicomponent analysis, pairwise connectivity, and PCA are available in
UCINET.
7. When we scale exocohesive blocks that have a minimum size-of-group requirement (equal to the level of embedding plus one) the embedding structure is
somewhat flattened (data available from D. White. A Fortran program
(maxflow.for) is available from the first author that identifies the highest kblocks in UCInet output matrices for point or edge- (maxflow) connectivity.
8. Because the first component of a principal components analysis (PCA,
available in UCINET) corresponds to marginal sums of the cohesion matrix, the
values on the second eigenvector sort the nodes as to their similarities in level of
cohesion.
9. Whether wealth that is achieved, such as by the father of a potential tanıdık
kişi, is more respected than wealth that is hereditary and consolidated, in the
sense that the latter is a threat to the delicate balance of equality among nomad
lineages and families, is not at all clear from the experience of the ethnographer.
10. Fındıklı Hacı was not very rich as a young man and never became the rich-
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est, but his father was a highly respected personality too and a fairly rich man in
the c-generation.
11. Recall from Chapter 6 that while genealogical distances among individual
Aydınlı can be quite large, distances between lineages at a higher order are
small. Higher-order linkages is one way to overcome long linkage-distance between individuals, but because cohesive groups are often the basis of higherorder groups, it is well worth repeating some of the relevant quotes about how
cohesive groups overcome distance in the general case:
[W]hat this bias [against long-distance ties among individuals having demonstrable effects] in preconceptions of social cohesion omits are the two
fundamental properties of the redundancies created by multiple independent
pathways and multiple-node cut sets. First, independent pathways are convergent in their indirect effects, even at a distance. Independent paths between
every pair of nodes in a cohesive block defined by connectivity level k
(which necessarily equals the minimum number of such paths) may more than
compensate for the decay of effects of cohesive interaction along long paths.
Studies of large-scale social diffusion, for example, typically rest upon and
demonstrate the fact that long paths matter. What connectivity provides in
terms of transmission effects within the internal networks of cohesive groups
is the possibility for repetition along multiple independent pathways of rumor, information, material item, and influence transmission. Second, multiple
independent pathways (equi-numerous to minimum cuts) necessarily imply
stronger bonding between pairs of nodes, regardless of distance decay. It is k
times as hard to break apart a network tying nodes together by k nodeindependent pathways than it is to break apart a single chain that connects
them. (White and Harary 2001:351)
The effects of multiple bonding and redundancy or repetition along convergent independent pathways are crucial in the formation of social coherence, social norms, sanctions and solidarities, and the emergence of socially
or culturally homogeneous groups, and thus should be of focal interest to the
study of social cohesion, including cohesion on a very large scale. (White and
Harary 2001:355).
12. To reiterate, the number of edge-independent paths linking actors is the
number of paths that are independent in terms of their edges and corresponds to
the number of edges that must be removed to disconnect a pair of nodes. It is always equal to or greater than the number of node-independent paths linking actors. These computations are usually made for relatively small matrices (<400)
because computation can be quite lengthy. White and Harary (2001) explain why
“adhesion” is a better label than “cohesion” for the maxflow measure. Two
nodes may require any number of edges to be removed before they are disconnected, and yet be disconnected by removal of a single node. Hence, high adhesion does not entail high cohesion (where the number of node-independent paths
Decentralized Leadership and Network Cohesion
367
>> 1).
13. That is, when we compute the pairwise matrices of adhesion and that of
cohesion, they are virtually identical. As in the high-high cell of Table 9.4, the
Aydınlı nomads have no adhesive mediators between exocohesive groups, mediators that would attain added influence in view of their betweenness centrality.
14. One might ask: Why do we not test the Zachary’s hypothesis that minimum
edge-cuts in Aydınlı nomad social networks are a predictor of leadership? They
are, indeed, but only in the sense that the edge-cut predictions are virtually identical to the node-cut (cohesion) predictions. Our answer is that the empirical
equivalence between the two measures (which is not foreordained because they
are defined to be partially independent) is itself an indication that the Aydınlı
themselves express in their behavior a preference for cohesive strategies and
avoid adhesive ones. By doing so they also avoid giving greater betweenness
centrality to other nodes, clusters of nodes, and lineage or support groups. Accordingly, the betweenness centrality index of the bicomponent of the kinship
network, as a percentage of the possible maximum for this many nodes, stands at
27%, which is not particular centralized given that certain ancestors such as
Mustan have had so many descendants.
15. The UCINET options are Network/Cohesion/Distance and Tools/MDS/
Metric.
16. We know that leading known-persons are always members of the larger
lineages, but not necessarily the largest. There is a complex relation between lineage size and succession to leadership, as was shown in Figure 6.10. In the earliest period, for example, lineage #5 is apparently not the largest lineage, at least
from our retrospective data, but holds leadership for two generations. An alternative possibility suggested by accounts of some of the old men is that lineage #5
was more numerous than the genealogical accounts would imply because many
of the early collaterals of the lineage segmented from the clan and left no descendants. Lineage size in genealogical reconstructions is not necessarily accurate but must be supplemented by oral historical accounts.
17. This hypothesis gains support from the role of Mustan’s lineage as mediators. In a separate analysis of betweenness centralities for all the nodes, organized by lineages, Mustan’s (#2) lineage and its members are by far the most
central in terms of relinking within the clan, but they started as a poor lineage,
and they only attained the leadership role very late in the succession. According
to Figure 6.10, however, they had become the largest lineage by 1900 when the
tenure lineage #5 ended. Again, however, it may be that their central role in integrating through social cohesion (marital relinking) those who choose to stay rather than migrate only makes it appear retrospectively, through a stayer-bias, that
they were most numerous a century ago.
18. One was of a prestigious origin (515, #4: judged from the father’s title,
efendi, a man of influence), another heir to property (10, #1), a third the daughter
of a Molla (1413, #2) and thus probably from a well-off family, as was also the
368
Chapter 9
mother (445, #4) of the sixth tanıdık kişi.
19. A young wife is described in relation to her father-in-law, as for example,
Molla Ali’s daughter-in-law (Molla Ali’nin gelini) for whom the term used
means Molla Ali’s young woman.
Chapter 10
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity:
The Endoconical Clan
Informants gave a history of specific clan founders and the genealogical
data on the marriage network on the clan and its members’ links to villages and the other tribes. From this information, we analyzed the structure of relinkings and structural endogamy so as to ascertain some of the
principles of the formation of the clan. Can we illuminate these astoundingly complex linkages with graphic representation and then use analysis
of graphs to help evaluate further social aspects of their construction?
Structural analysis of the network as a whole is a task of formidable
complexity. The Pgraph package used at the time that Figures 2.2 to 2.5
were made (circa1997) lacked the requisite scaling algorithms for such a
task. Development of the Pajek program (Batagelj and Mrvar 1998) for
large network analysis made possible an automatic drawing of the entire
structure of relinked marriages. (As noted, Pajek reads both the genealogical GEDCOM file made by the Ego2Cpl program from the data in
Appendix 1, whose format is given in Table 2.1, and the NET file also
made by Ego2Cpl).
Pajek was instructed to scale the network of parent/child relations
among couples in a three-dimensional representation, so as to produce
Figure 10.1.1 Here, generational time is the vertical or z-axis while the
generally conical shape of the graph results from a Pajek automatic
drawing (energy scaling)2 in the x-y planes that project out toward the
viewer. The scaling shows how the early generations were closely knit
through marriage. Over succeeding generations, some couples at the center remain closely knit while others diverge along the lower slopes of the
cone into sectors that are locally but less centrally knit within the entire
clan. One gets the immediate impression of a “conical” clan and of the
occasional dying-out of descent lines.
370
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1: 3-D Graphic of the Entire Nomad Genealogy
1860s
1890s
1920s
1950s
1980s
The color coded figure is found at http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/images/TurkishNomads
The Endoconical Clan
In this chapter we explore the idea of endoconicality in the sense of clan
members coming from a common root or roots (Analysis 4), having
some form of endogamous cohesion that keeps the clan together (Analyses 3 and 5), and a flexible principle of ranking among stayers that accommodates the high rates of emigration.
The black-and-white shadings of nodes (originally colors) in Figure
10.1 indicate generations, roughly Johansen’s [a] through [h], but generations are rescaled by Pajek to the fewest levels needed for parents to be
prior to children. A Pajek partition that computes generational layers
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
371
was used as the z axis in the graph, which here is the vertical time dimension. In 3-D renderings the nodes are smaller as they recede in the xy horizontal plane orthogonal to the time dimension. The x-y coordinates
were computed by Pajek’s automatic drawing that minimizes length of
lines. Couples that are closely relinked are pulled to the x-y center of the
graph along the vertical axis. The couples at the outside of the cone are
those less centrally connected.3
A partial structure consisting of all the relinkings through marriage is
extracted in Figure 10.2 from the complete genealogical network of Figure 10.1. The shading (colors) of nodes remains the same as in Figure
10.1, and members of the earliest generations with no relinkings (and only partial data) are removed.
Figure 10.2: 3-D Graphic—Relinking Marriages among Nomad Kin
Koca Bey #5
Abbas
Kirbasi Ecevitli
#4
#3
#2
1860s
1890s
1920s
1950s
1980s
The color coded figure is found at http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/images/TurkishNomads
The automatic drawings in Figures 10.1 and 10.2 pull to the center of the
graph those who have closely intermarried and push apart those who
372
Chapter 10
have not. This is ideal for displaying the general morphology of marital
relinking given our questions about tribal structure, alliance, and rank.
Figure 10.1 presents the results of the embedding for the clan as a
whole—the entire genealogy—while 10.2 selects out only those couples
who are connected to this structure by two or more relationships. These
marriages are structurally endogamous (White 1997, Brudner and White
1997) in that every pair of these couples is maritally relinked. Of the total of 414 marriages and 557 single individuals, for a total of 956 vertices, there were 243 relinked marriages that are graphed in Figure 10.2.
Marital relinking among the nomads, shown in Figure 10.2, is quite
dense and occurs around a set of people in lines constituting a distinct
center of the graph that focuses on two of the Karahacılı ancestors (#2
Abbas and #5 Koca bey), whose son and grandson are the first of our
leading known-persons. These and two other Karahacılı lines, from the
Ecevitli C village ancestor #3 and the Kırbaşı ancestor #4 furnish the
main central starting points of the central line in the first few generations. Karahacılı line #4, descended from Koca bey, joins the central line
in the fourth and fifth generations. No other apical ancestors appear to be
central to the early generations. The father of Yusuf and Ismail of
“Dolaşıklı” lineage (#1) is the only early ancestor in the first six generations who begins at a distance from the central lines. Because he does
not himself relink to others, but relinking in his line starts only at the
grandchildren’s generation, he is not shown in Figure 10.2.
Recalling Analysis 4, the genealogical network reveals in its general
morphology something of interest as to how dense intermarriage can
lead to the perception of being “all from one root.” While there are multiple apical ancestors, their descendants become so closely fused through
blood marriages and relinking marriages from the central confluence of
this graph in the third generation, it is easy to see how “from one root”
might be justified. There are very few other apical ancestors from lines
that are not already linked after the third generation. From the central
stock, a central core of descendants remain tightly intermarried in the
center of the graph, but other lines of descendants relink more and more
remotely to the main lines. There appears to be a certain point in the
tribe’s history at which a “common root” is formed by dense intermarriages. This funnel of relinking density probably marks the emergence at
a certain place and time of the clan itself.
The automatic drawing, seen as a structure over generations, captures
much that is significant about marital relinking in the structure of tribal
formation, as seen through the genealogies. Multiple marriage affinities
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
373
hold the clan together as do blood lines, and intermarriage leads to
common bilateral bloodlines. The structure gradually fans out as relinking becomes more and more divergent. This might correspond to a process whereby the more central members are more likely to remain nomadic, while the more divergent members from the central line might be
more likely to convert to sedentism. The structure of marital relinking
also helps to see how people from the outside are absorbed, through multiple marriage alliances, into the core group. Indeed, one of the early
founders of the nomad clan (7, father of 1230 Deli Abdurrahman) as
well as the three adopted shepherds (founders of lineages #9,10,11) seem
to have “disappeared” from Figure 10.2 as distinctive lines outside of the
central cone of the genealogy. All that has happened is that due to their
relinkings they have been assimilated into and obscured within the main
part of the structure, due to their proximity to affines.
To what extent are the marital relinkings that pull the couples in the
center of the graph marriages among blood kin as opposed to affines?4
Chapters 7 and 8 suggest the importance of preferential blood marriages
while Analysis 7 suggests that marriage exchanges are central for constructing cohesion. The question remains unresolved.
Analysis 18: Age Ranking and the Endoconical Clan
Network analysis can address questions of network topologies of kinship
in quite precise ways. A clan, for example, might have a concentric marriage structure if those at the center are the most closely relinked and
those at the edges are less so. A clan might be “conical” if the descent
lines of a unilineal or ambilineal descent group that has an apical ancestor and status ranking such that the line of highest successive ranks can
be drawn at the center, and successive peripheries can be scale concentrically toward the sides. Figures 10.1 and 10.2 give an image of the nomad clan as distinctly “concentric” in structure in that what holds members of the clan closer together in the automatic drawing are the
gradients in intensity of cohesion that come from marital relinking. But
they are conical in this limited sense only in the compactness of nodes at
the top, and the growing number of nodes and distances moving down.
Whether the Aydınlı nomad clan is also conical in the sense of a ranking
system can be answered only by a network analysis of how the attributes
and relations of individuals (e.g., the section on “Rank” in Chapter 5) are
related to the network structure.
374
Chapter 10
Fustel de Coulange (1864) and Gifford (1929) were among the first
to describe the ranking principles that define a conical or core-periphery
ranking structure of the respective clan systems of Greco-Roman gens
and Tongan ha’a patrilineages. In the Tongan case, primogeniture creates the center-periphery ranking. Mason (1954) found ranking by primogeniture in Marshallese matrilineages. Leach (1954) found an inverse
ranking, based on ultimogeniture, among the Kachin (gumsa). Kirchoff
(1955), describing the general principle of ranked conical clans, noted
that descent might be traced unilineally through either males or females,
or ambilineally through either men or women. Other principles of rank
may enter in, such as sibling rankings by gender, or differences among
affines. In the Tongan case, for example, sisters outrank brothers, husbands outrank their wife’s brothers, and wife-takers outrank wife-givers.
In the Kachin (gumsa) case, wife-givers are superior to wife-takers. Marriage alliance is often implicated in the dynamics of the ranking systems
that define the core-periphery structure of conical clans. All of the cases
of conical clans discussed by Kirchoff, and later reviewed by Hage and
Harary (1996), also allow endogamy, so that Kirchoff’s concept of the
conical clan stands in contrast to the exogamous clan.
Does the Aydınlı case represent a different type of conical clan, one
with a conception of a “common root” in such a deeply endogamous set
of ancestors that the root appears unitary, but in which there are degrees
of membership that depend on how deeply one is intermarried into the
clan, and relationships are reckoned bilaterally even though a single lineage principle may be operative? If so, might there be a principle of rank
that applies to individuals, ranking siblings by age, for example, such
that higher ranked individuals also tend to be at the highest levels of endogamy created by marital relinking within the clan? We might call this
an endoconical clan not just in the sense of endogamy but of endogamic
intensity as an important basis of differential identification, membership,
and leadership. This conception would constitute a coherent type of clan
system with its own dynamic (marital relinking), with leadership and
other forms of participation in the life of the clan varying according to a
looser conception of how individuals are ranked. This endoconical type
of clan, in our conception, is one that, compared to Kirchoff’s conical
clan, has greater gender equality because of the importance of bilateral
relationships and a lesser degree of rank inequality because the principle
of rank is more emergent than prescribed. This is the idea we explore
here.
The Aydınlı clan system approximates what we called above an en-
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
375
doconical clan, marked by intense endogamy, lineages, lineage segmentation, and the tendency to attribute descent from a common ancestor or
“root” to those with whom they have relationships of affinity. 5 The concept of an endoconical clan is not so far from that of Kirchoff’s conical
clan, in which endogamy is an important element, in contrast to the exogamous clan. As opposed to strict status ranking, however, the Aydınlı
are fiercely egalitarian in their political leadership, egalitarian in their
distribution of inheritance, oriented toward same-generation marriage
rather than age-skewed marriages, and recognize no status inequality between wife-giving and wife-taking.
Aydınlı nomads do recognize, however, elder/younger sibling distinctions in greetings and other behaviors, and, like all Turkish speakers, distinguish the elder brother by a distinct kinship term (ağa, as distinct
from kardaş, yB). Given the importance of age rankings, a question remains: do elder brother/younger brother distinctions carry over to the
ranking of lineage segments?
Hage and Harary (1996: Chapters 4 and 5) identified the system of
recounting genealogies known in computer science as depth first search
(DFS) as indexical of Kirchoff’s (1955) conical clans with strict age- or
status-ranked descent systems, such as ultimogeniture for gumsa (Kachin) or primogeniture for Tongan patrilineages. A strict DFS ranking is
exemplified on the left of Figure 10.3. Here, the recitation of ancestors
begins with the highest ancestor (1), takes next the highest ranked offspring (2), and goes down through each of their highest ranked offspring
(3,4) as far as possible (4) before going up as little as possible and then
down again as far as possible, repeatedly (5; then 6-7; then 8-9). In this
way each branch is exhausted, until the whole descent tree is traversed.
A sibling-set depth first search, shown to the right in the figure, imposes the recounting of sibling sets within the order of a DFS, that is,
each time a lower node is taken the siblings of that node are recounted
next before going on to the descendants of the initial node. This method
is used by the bilateral Tory Islanders (Fox 1978) for recounting deep
genealogies, who may represent another variant of endoconical clans.
Starting from the highest ancestor (1), the age-ranked children are listed
from eldest to youngest (2-6), then the most prominent sibling is selected
(2) for moving down to the next generation so as to list his children (79), then down another generation by the same principle, arriving at the
lowest generation in one branch (10) before going back as little as possible to the level of lesser ranked descendants (8, then 9, 11-12, and 13)
who were not previously recounted, always down again as far as possi-
376
Chapter 10
ble, continuing until the entire set of known offspring of the lineage
(ending with 14-15 and 16-17) is recounted.
Figure 10.3: Depth First Search (DFS: leftmost) and Aydınlı Siblingset DFS Reckoning (right)
1
2
1
10 11
16
3 5 6 12
15
4
7
8 13
9
14
17
2
3 4
7 8 9
10
11 12
5
6
14 15
16 17
13
Tribal peoples Islamized by the Arabic conquests that began in the seventh and eight centuries often acquired Arabic customs that included
FBD marriage practices and familiarity with deep genealogical accounting. Such Arab tribes, by all reports, recite genealogies orally only back
from the present (Paul Dresch, personal communication). Strict DFS is
not the system of recounting deep genealogies from memory in the Middle East, nor is sibling-set DFS.
Aydınlı nomads are not so hierarchical in recounting genealogies as
to use top-down DFS-type systems. Like other tribes, they start from the
bottom and work up to F, FF, FFF, and eventually to the oldest known
relatives. Genealogical recounting has a certain rhetorical style and pattern, but as it is done in the context of a group of men, who join in to recount their relations to the early founders of the clan and the intermediate generations. They remember and comment upon the relative age of
siblings (especially brothers) when discussing genealogy. In asking them
to give a fuller recounting of lineages, Johansen found they could easily
trace the sibling-set variant of DFS recounting, as shown on the right of
Figure 10.3 and as found among the Tory Islanders. Even in recounting
genealogies upwards, however, they would give the siblings in the descent line, with other men coming in later to recount how their descent
line connects with one of those siblings.6
Age-ranking within sibling sets, then, is an important principle in the
reciting of Aydınlı nomad genealogies. Further, when Aydınlı men recount genealogies, women are usually recalled only as ranked members
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
377
of sibling sets, when first recounted, and as wives, but not as among the
vertical elements in the depth-first reckoning. Men’s recitals often left
out the tracing of a woman’s children, and Johansen would have to do
separate interviews with both women and men to complete the female
lines.
Blood feud is given by another ethnographer of the Yörük Black-Tent
peoples (which includes the Aydınlı nomads), as one of the reasons why
nomad tribes tend to avoid the telling of deep genealogies from the top
down:
A sharp limit to the scope of genealogies is seen in informant efforts to
recite their patrilineal ancestry. A point is reached below which every
male can place most of his patrilineal relatives, but above which even elderly males of a higher generation cannot pass. This is not a feature
unique to Yörük segmented lineages: Irons notes a strikingly similar pattern of “limited recall” among the Yomut Turkmen (1969b:58-65). His
explanation is that the Yomut obscure their genealogies above a certain
point in order to avoid the risk of being included in vengeance killings or
feuds which through remote linkages of agnatic kinship might be held to
define them as objects of revenge. Vengeance among the Yörük [including, we note, the Aydınlı] is an obligation which falls to close patri-kin of
the victim of murder, but without clearly defined outer limits of either involvement or responsibility. (Bates 1973:47)7
Aydınlı nomads also fit the pattern described by Bates (1973:50-51) for
his Yörük group, in which the relative age of brothers . . .
is not merely a linguistic phenomenon; it has considerable importance in
interpersonal relations among siblings. What is relevant here with respect
to segmentation is that the eldest of the brothers is held to be senior to all
younger, irrespective of wealth, in situations of formal etiquette; he serves
as spokesman when brothers act in concert. After the father’s death he is
obliged, more than the father in his lifetime, to provide for his single
brothers, and to assist them in time of trouble . . . marriage takes place in
order of birth, which again sets the order of household fissioning to form
new ones as younger sons marry and bring their brides into the tent. This,
of course, gives older brothers in any generation an earlier start in the
production of progeny to further their name. . . . However, just as the
point of segmentation does not depend entirely on genealogical depth,
neither does the relative seniority of brothers escape the impact of political and residential fact in determining which of several will provide the
name under which the group passes.
Given our conjecture of a loosely ranked endoconical clan system for the
Aydınlı, we wanted to test whether the network data supported the idea
378
Chapter 10
that first or early born sons, as listed in the genealogies, bearing in mind
that some of them will migrate or will fail economically, tended to be
more important actors in the clan, both at the level of cohesive relinking
and of political succession.
Hypothesis 10.1: First and second sons are more important in
marital relinking within the clan than are younger sons.
We state the hypothesis this way because first born sometimes emigrate,
leaving the second son who remains behind the one with highest agerank,8 but also because our numbers of first and second sons (400 marriages) and second and younger sons (408 marriages) are roughly equal,
which is useful for network comparisons. To test the hypothesis we
compared relinking in the first network to that in the second network to
see if there is a difference in the extent to which each forms a cohesive
bicomponent of the clan in its own right. Recall that bicomponents in a
p-graph are the largest units of structural endogamy. As Figure 10.4
shows, there is a massive difference: the network of marriages among
the first and second sons (400 marriages: 374 edges; 277 male and 97
female) forms a bicomponent of 314 nodes, while the network of marriages among the younger sons (408 marriages: 296 edges; 230 male and
66 female) forms a bicomponent only two-thirds that size (226).
Johansen (1999) also supports Hypothesis 10.1, for which we may
give a brief summary. The principle of seniority is not an absolute rule
and in practice the smartest will be the most respected. Neither Fındıklı
Hacı nor “Dede,” for example, were the eldest sons. Nomad societies,
especially the more egalitarian, have to be flexible if they want to survive as a group.
500
400
Number
males
females
bicomponent
300
200
100
0
2 thru 9
sons 1&2
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
379
Figure 10.4: Comparison of Bicomponents (Structural Endogamy)
Formed by Birth Order Sets
To guard against the possibility that the older sons’ network was biased
toward early generations, in which some brothers are missing, we also
took the network of marriages in generations 3-6, computed the distribution of sons’ birth orders (which is uniform across these generations),
computed the bicomponent again, and, within that, computed the new
distribution of sons’ birth orders. The results are shown in Figure 10.5.
Overall there are 34% first sons. There are many more first sons within
the bicomponent (41%) than outside the bicomponent (29%), a significant confirmation (p=.002) of the hypothesis, especially because first
sons are in the minority in the overall network.
Figure 10.5: Comparison of Birth Orders within Bicomponents
100
80
60
In Bico
Outside
40
20
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Hypothesis 10.2: In the traditional system of leadership, emergent
leaders and their fathers are likely to be first or second sons (or to
segment to form a new lineage in a different clan).
This hypothesis applies only to the first five tanıdık kişiler and not the
last because we have argued that “Dede” represented a break from the
traditional pattern of leadership. Excluding the father of the first, about
which we know nothing but the name, this leaves nine tanıdık kişiler and
their fathers, of which eight are first or second sons (p=.07 in the direction of the hypothesis), with the exceptional case being one of lineage
segmentation (i.e., no older brother within the clan itself). Taking this
into account, all nine fit the hypothesis (p=.01 that all nine will be first
or second sons given the total distribution of birth orders). Six of our
380
Chapter 10
eight cases of first or second sons are second sons, which also deviates
from the demographic expectation that most will be first sons (p=.07).
One first son (785, Fındıklı Mustafa) was married with children at the
time that his younger brother was tanıdık kişiler, consistent with the lack
of a strict rule of primogeniture.
What we find, then, is that first and second sons do play the social
roles that might be expected of those with higher rank: Compared to
what is expected demographically in relation to younger brothers, they
have a greater frequency of involvement in the cohesive networks and in
the leadership roles of the clan. Older brothers are only primus inter
pares, and inherit equally with other brothers, although they have greater
obligations to support them after their father dies. They are assured bride
payments for attaining wives, however, and if they attain more wives
than their younger brothers this alone might explain how and why they
play greater roles in kinship cohesion as well as leadership. Where there
are only two brothers, for example, the first born is significantly more
likely to take a second or third wife (p=.02). Further, none of the twentyfour brothers in birth orders 5 to 10 attained more than one wife
(p=.0002). Thus number of wives, associated with birth order, contributes to the prediction that early-born children will have higher exocohesive relinking (more wives; more children) and a better chance (because
of the wives) at emergent leadership. Our evidence is consistent with the
idea that the endoconical clan is an emergent structure among the Aydınlı, not based on a strict rule of succession such as primogeniture, but
on an age-ranking tendency for older sons to have a higher place as primus inter pares. Competitively, older brothers simply have early-arrival
advantages in the division of tent space, herds, bride payments, in securing wives. The endoconical clan, as we have described it, forms part of a
continuum with Kirchoff’s conical clan, the former based on an emergent primus inter pares ranking, and the latter on a more ascriptive and
ineqalitarian ranking system.
Kirchoff’s conical clan can be contrasted with similar systems having
looser and more emergent ranking systems, as we could discern for the
Aydınlı, as shown in Table 10.1. Here we summarize the ways in which
the endoconical clan is intermediate in terms of stratification between
his conical clan (rigid stratification) and his exogamous clan (strictly
egalitarian), although there ought to be a greater range of types on that
continuum. In terms of descent principle, however, it contrasts with both
of Kirchoff’s types, of unilineal or ambilineal clans. The Aydınlı nomads
have a bilateral clan, but one that contains patrilineages which may fuse
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
381
or segment, a common pattern among the tribes of the Middle East. Genealogical amnesia beyond 5-6 generations is common in Middle Eastern
tribes and greater genealogical depths are mostly recorded only in written form. In the Tory Island variant of the endoconical clan lineages are
lacking and descent is bilateral, genealogies are deeper, and genealogies
are recited from the top down, apparently in relation to the inheritance of
land. We do not see this classification as a discrete set of types but suggestive of dimensions of variation in types of conical clans.
Table 10.1: Defining Features of Clan Types
Conical Clan
Unilineal
or Ambilineal
Endogamy allowed
Strict Ranking
Stratification
Genealogies may be
recited from the top
Deep political
Genealogies
Endoconical Clan
Bilateral clan, lineages
may fuse or segment
Endogamy allowed
Emergent Ranking
Primus inter pares
Genealogies recited
only upward
Genealogical amnesia
beyond 5-6 generations
Exogamous Clan
Unilineal
or Ambilineal
Lineage Exogamy
No Ranking
Egalitarian
Ancestor may be
putative or traced
Genealogical depth
varies
Analysis 19: Levels of Relinking
Graph theory and graphic approaches are useful not only to visualize but
also to help us to model, measure, and explain social phenomena. In the
present case, we have made considerable use of concepts from graph
theory to formulate testable hypotheses about social structure. Relinking,
structural endogamy, p-graph, bicomponent, exocohesive blocks, centralities, controlled simulation, and ranked search trees are all concepts derived from graph and network theory that have helped us to do so. As
another test of this approach, we can ask whether graph theoretic concepts contribute to an explanation of the question: Why do Aydınlı nomads have so high a level of marital relinking?
We begin to examine further properties of the nomad kinship network
by considering the lengths of paths between various relatives, paths in
which the lack of branching relations weakens the cohesion between the
endnodes. A chain is a path that contains no branches. We will use the
length of maximal chains as a graph theoretic concept to help define the
weaker kinship ties in a p-graph.
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Chapter 10
Maximal Chains
A maximal chain of a graph G is a path of maximal length between endnodes u and v such that no node between u and v has degree greater than
2. That is, a maximal chain between u and v is a path that has no branches, yet is as long as possible. There exists a unique set of longest chains
for each length d in any graph. The maximal chain length of a graph G is
the length d of the longest maximal chain in G. The maximal chain
length of a graph G is a measure of the compactness of G. If the maximal
chain length d is 1 for a graph G then G is a clique. Graph (a) of Figure
10.6, in contrast, is minimally compact. As shown in graph a of the figure, if every relationship from ego in a kinship network were composed
of maximal chains with chain length d > 1 (e.g., for ego u: chain u-w-v),
then ego would be a sociocentric “star” in which we could label every
relative by a unique path by which they are linked, as shown in graph b
of the figure. Star-like kinship networks such as this occur when there
are few siblings to create branching paths. Ego’s relationships also
weaken with longer chain distances, especially when they are not compensated by the cohesiveness of multiple independent paths created by
relinking marriages.
Figure 10.6: Egocentered Graph (a) and Labeled Reduction b
v
v' where x = u'v' = uw+wv
(its label)
w
u
graph a
u'
graph b
In many populations where genealogies are collected, many of the paths
between nodes are maximal chains of moderate to very long length. Relinking may occur so as to define large-scale structurally endogamous
groups, but the shortest distance between spouses prior to a relinking
through marriage is high. This is not the case for the Aydınlı nomads. In
societies where distances between relinked spouses are very high, however, the distance may be so great that relationships are not recognizable
even to those who are relinked. Hence, to find the denser cores of re-
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
383
linked endogamous groups, we may need to remove from the genealogical graph those maximal chains of some length d or greater that defines
more compact and recognizable relationships. If such reduction—of removing longer maximal chains—is done, and bicomponents are computed on the network of either shorter maximal chains or of branching linkages, these bicomponents will have a higher relinking density.
Chain-Reduced Graph
A chain-reduced graph Gd of a graph G is one in which every maximal
chain of length d or greater is eliminated. Thus, if we define a cutoff d
and remove all longest chains of length > d for a graph G, the result is
the graph Gd.
Hypothesis 10.3: The kinship network of Aydınlı clan members is
not only highly cohesive, but compactly cohesive: It has very short
maximal chains (e.g., no longer than two), and the removal of
longer maximal chains has little effect on the boundaries of structural endogamy or on the relinking index.
Figure 10.7 gives an inventory of maximal chains with various vertical
orientations corresponding to possible p-graph segments (subgraphs) in
which there are no branchings. The various types of kinship links between u and v in these graphs are (a) GreatGreatGreatGrandparent (b)
GrChSpGrPa (c) Grandparent’s Sibling’s Child (d) Grandchild’s
Spouse’s Sibling’s Child, (e) GreatGreatGrandparent (f) GrChSpPa (g)
Parent’s Sibling’s Child (h) Great grandparent, (i) ChSpPa, and (j) Sibling’s Child.
None of the length 5 chains in fact occur in the Aydınlı data, and
none of those of length 4 except for two cases of chain g. As for chains
of length 3, the only type which occurs empirically is that of chain i, involving new marriages for which there are no children, which will cease
to be a maximal chain when children are born. Hence, there are no stable
maximal chains greater than length 2, consistent with Hypothesis 10.3.
Chain h does not occur in the data, and even the grandparental/grandchild segment of this type of length 2 does not occur. Effectively, this finding entails that people do not occur or stay in the nomad clan
if they lack siblings (chain h, and shorter versions thereof). This provides an explanation for the high degree of relinking in the clan. The absence of maximal chains with no branchings implies a high degree of relinking. The lack of nonbranching maximal chains generates high
relinking density.
384
Chapter 10
Demographic Change in Stayer Bias
for Larger Families
The demographic regime under which this kind of very dense relinking
is possible is closely connected with families that produce many children
and where having siblings is very common among adults. Our shortchains finding, as it reflects on sibling links, suggests the following:
Hypothesis 10.4: With adult siblings as a source of a coresidential
and cooperative group, individuals are less likely to emigrate.
Figure 10.7: Maximal Chains (nonbranching) of Length 5, 4, and 3
u
v
u
u
v
v
u
chain a
chain b
v
chain c
Length 5 Maximal Chains
chain d
u
u
e1
v
v
chain e
nonoccurrent
u
v
e2
u
chain f
chain g
nonoccurrent
nearly nonoccurrent (2 cases)
Length 4 Maximal Chains
u
v
e1
e2
chain i
v
chain j
v
chain h
u
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
nonoccurrent
occurs
Length 3 Maximal Chains
385
nonoccurrent
Figure 10.8.1 shows that the closer we move to the present (generations f
and gh), where the selection bias of leavers is minimized, the more being
in a small sized sibling set (1-2) disposes to emigration, while being in a
larger one disposes to remaining nomadic (p=.02). Figure 10.8.2 shows,
for the latest p-graph generation, that having fewer brothers is correlated
with a higher rate of emigration (p<.001).
Figure 10.8.1: Small Families Dispose to Emigration (generations a to
h)
100
percentages
80
60
40
Stayers
Migrate
Small
Large
Small
Large
Small
0
Large
20
a-e
a-e
f
f
gh
gh
Figure 10.8.2: Small Families Dispose to Emigration (absolute numbers in latest generation as computed by p-graph; tau b=.32)
100
80
60
Stay
40
Migrate
20
0
3-8 Brothers
1-2 Brothers
386
Chapter 10
If the clan passes through a demographic transition where sizes of sibling groups are much reduced, our prediction would be that current basis
of economic cooperation among the nomads would be greatly diminished.
Analysis 20: Time Slice Graphs of Network Change
Successive historical periods can be analyzed in longitudinal perspective
and displayed in time slices that help to visualize their dynamics. Dating
nodes by their historical generations allows us to display time-series
graphs using the Pajek program. In Figure 10.9, graphs for four historical
periods each having four adjacent generations are displayed graphically.
They are left purposefully very fuzzy because our only interest here is
not in the detail but in the size and cohesiveness or, in this case, the density of certain clusters compared to white patches that indicate separations between cohesive segments. The marital relinkings in the last of
these periods (spanning those born between 1860 and somewhat after
1960) have little missing data, but they are clustered in a way that suggests that the cohesiveness of the clan as a whole may be breaking up. In
the color version of these graphs (not shown), the nodes colored blue are
those couples known to have emigrated.
Hypothesis 10.5: There is a breakup of cohesion in the generation
born after 1960 (Table 10.2 Period 6, Figure 10.9 graph 4).
Table 10.2, in which for our seven historical periods four sets of up to
four adjacent generations are considered provides a test of Hypothesis
10.5. Figure 10.9 shows the four periods from periods 3-6, shown in bold
in Table 10.2, for which data are mostly complete in informants having
memories of the four generations corresponding to that period (except
completed marriages in the latest generation of period 6). Given the
memories of ancestors in each period, changes in levels of cohesion can
be compared, with some special cautions as to period 6. The smaller
number of relatives remembered as we go back toward period 3 may not
accurately reflect the complete demography of that period, because if
early segments of the clan migrated out, there may have been elements
of the population at earlier times who left no descendants to remember
them. Still, the fact that the percentage of females recalled in each of
these periods is roughly the same is a good indicator that there is little
memory bias in the recall of these generations (because such bias favors
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
387
remembering males).
Within the four periods, the percentage of female links is relatively
constant, a good sign for data quality in that there is no memory decay
for female ancestors going back in time through these four periods (this
is not true for periods 1 and 2). Relinking and bicomponent percentages
increase in the first three of these periods, but, consistent with Hypothesis 10.5, the last period in which data are relatively complete (the 6th)
shows a drop-off not in the percentage of nodes in large (connected)
components, but in the largest bicomponent, and the index of relinking.
Table 10.2: Analysis of Kinship Cohesion in Bicomponents for Successive Historical Periods of Two-Four generations
Period, #
of nodes/
arcs
1* 10 / 5
Length of %
Nodes in
period & Fem-- Large Comdates
ales ponents
2-17851835
2* 34 / 29
3-17851860
3 75 / 82
4-17851885
4 148/172
4-18101910
5 326/401
4-18351935
6* 686/800 4-18601960
7** 876/917 4-18851985
8** 812/685 3-19101985+
Nodes in
Bicomponents
Index of
Relinking
20%
3(30%),3,3
0
n.a. 8
24%
19(56%),7,6
0
0
34%
57(76%),14
18(24%),
5,5,4
52(35%),
5,4,4
149(46%)
,4
220(32%)
,4,4
165(18%),
4,4,4,4,4
25(3%),20
,4,4,4,4
23% 6
35% 140(95%)
42% 305(94%)
42% 668(97%),3
44%
44%
810(92%),21,
8,7
368(45%),24,
17, 16,15,12,
11,10 . . .
7
28% 5
35% 4
22% 3
10%
2
2%
2
* Cohort not complete (partial data). ** Extensive emigration (after WW II), circa 50
couples, but some completed marriages are lacking in the latest generation.
Table 10.3 repeats the analysis for periods 3-6, removing those couples
known to have left the clan and to have migrated to villages. The percentages of nodes in the bicomponent and index of relinking by period
change very little with the removal of migrants, although the percentage
388
Chapter 10
of females drops (see Table 8.2 for relevant demographic changes).
Table 10.4 again repeats the analysis, this time for periods 3-8 and
the total population, with Feynman-simulated random marriages (avoiding marriages between siblings) in each generation. This allows us to test
whether the drop in cohesion in the sixth period is real, or possibly due
to females in the last generation who were so young at the time of last
fieldwork that they had not yet taken spouses. We used the controlled
simulation method described in Chapters 5 and 8 (Analysis 11). Without
comparisons of actual data to a controlled simulation, the testing of Hypothesis 10.5 would require further fieldwork to determine if there is evidence of a breakup of the social organization of the clan in terms of social cohesion in period 6 (and later, as will be explored below).
Figure 10.9: Continuity, Migration, and Fragmentation in Four History Time Periods (those marked in bold in Table 10.2)
(The color coded figure is found at http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/images/TurkishNomads)
Table 10.3: Analysis of Kinship Cohesion (with no migrants, if different) in Bicomponents for Successive Historical Periods of two-
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
389
four generations
Period, #
of nodes/
arcs
Length of %
Nodes in
period & Fem-- Large Comdates
ales ponents
Nodes in
Bicomponents
3
4 140/163
5 276/334
6 534/616
Index of
Relinking
23%
4-18101910
4-18351935
4-18601960*
41% 133(95%)
47% 255(92%)
46% 515(96%)
49(35%),5,
4,4
126(47%),
4
177(33%),
4,4
28% 5
35% 4
22% 3
Comparing the actual Table 10.2 and simulated Table 10.4 results for
period 6, the number of nodes, edges, females, and rate of relinking are
all held relatively constant by the simulation method, and the comparison shows that the simulated random marriage results do not differ for
either the size of the largest connected component or the largest bicomponent. Hence, Hypothesis 10.5 is rejected. There is in the actual data of
10.1.1 a significant drop in the rate of relinking, hence more people marrying outside, but controlling for the demographic increase of the number of single males in our genealogies after World War II (Tables 8.1
and 8.2), there is no decline in cohesion relative to a random Feynmanmodel of relinking, given the number of marriages, just more male links
to nodes that do not represent marriages. The simulation, in fact, shows
slightly higher rates of relinking in the two earlier periods. This is what
would result from random marriages as compared to actual marriages in
which there is greater self-selection among larger sibling sets and among
stayers rather than emigrants.
390
Chapter 10
Table 10.4: Analysis of Kinship Cohesion in Simulated Bicomponents for Successive Historical Periods with Comparable Data as in
10.1.1 and 10.1.2 (all results here are Feynman-simulated data)
Period, #
of nodes/
arcs
Length of %
Nodes in
period & Fem-- Large Comdates
ales ponents
3 76/83
3-17851885
4-18101910
4-18351935
4-18601960
34%
4-18851985
44%
4 148/169
5 326/399
6 686/793
7** 876/916
*
Nodes in
Bicomponents
Index of
Relinking
71(95%)
31(41%)
21%
34% 138(48%)
60(41%)
26% 5
41% 304(94%)
146(45%),
4
225(33%),
4
35% 4
42% 657(96%)
6
22% 3
828(95%),8
193(22%),
10% 2
*810(92%),21, *165(18%),
*10% 2
8,7
4,4,4,4,43
8** 812/682 3-1910
44% 496(61%),46,1 42(5%)
1% 1
*
1985+
7, 15,12,12. . .
*368(45%),24, *25(3%),20, *2% 2
17,16,15,12,11 4,4,4,4
* Reliability results given for a second simulation. Size of simulated large component has large error bound for period 8. ** Cohort not complete (partial data).
Recent Breaks in the Cohesive Relinking of the Clan
The visual results in Figure 10.9 (fourth panel, period 6) suggest factional lines of cleavage within the clan that would not have been evident to
the ethnographer even in the field situation because cleavages are not
always evident nor verbalized by informants. The graph of the fourth
panel shows a possible cleavage between two sides of the clan, in terms
of sparse connections between them. If we examine this cleavage in period 7, however, we still find thirteen marriages between the two segments. Because there are now fewer than four generations, the blood relations that connect the two segments include second cousins and closer
relatives. We can examine this potential cleavage in more detail for time
period 8, in which the older generation from period 7 (born after 1910)
has died off, and the most recent generation of marriages has only begun.
The blood relations that connect the two segments now include, because
great grandparents have been omitted, only first cousins and closer rela-
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
391
tives.
Hypothesis 10.6: There is a breakup of cohesion in the generation
born after 1985 (Period 8).
Figure 10.10 shows the four generations 5-8 in period 8, colored in the
left panel blue, red, green, and just a few yellow, with some colored light
blue in the right panel to show emigrants. Only two marriages (one each
from the two middle generations) create strong blood or affinal ties connecting the two segments of the clan in this latest period.
The 812 nodes of Figure 10.10 break up into disconnected components of sizes 368, 53, 24, 17, 16, and many smaller components, including 100 disconnected nodes. Closer examination shows that those in the
leftmost pie-shaped wedge of this graph tend to be highly disconnected
and most of those in this part of the clan (nearly 50%) have emigrated
(see Hypothesis 6.1.1). For those clusters with stronger kinship ties, the
largest connected component of 368 nodes, whose spatial dispersion represented the relatively closeness of their kinship cohesion in previous
generations, spans more than half the nodes outside the wedge of emigrants. New marriages in the next generations (beyond the last period of
fieldwork) will undoubtedly restore a good deal of the cohesive relinking
among these families. The lower wedge of about seventy-five marriages,
however, is presently connected only by two marriages to the upper right
half where the majority of the clan is located in the graph. The middle
(green) generation of children in this lower wedge are all unmarried
daughters, who at this late date in the clan’s history have the greatest
likelihood of leaving the clan for village life and a higher level of
schooling. All the unmarried male children of the clan are located with
the groups in the upper right of the figure.
At this point we are at the edge of the contemporary marriage behavior of the clan, and it is the future marriage behavior of the latest generation that will determine whether the clan will fragment or remain cohesive. We cannot evaluate the outcome until after Johansen’s next period
of fieldwork. We can, however, examine periods 7 and 8, those with still
incomplete data on completed marriage histories of the currently younger generation, in comparison to the controlled simulation data for these
generations.
392
Chapter 10
Figure 10.10: Kinship Disconnection and Migration in the Most Recent (green, yellow) Generations of Period 7
The color coded figure is found at http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/images/TurkishNomads
Table 10.5 lays out a summary, based on the results in Table 10.2
through 10.1.3, of comparisons for periods 3-8, including both actual
and simulated results. The new variable that appears in this table is the
index of relinking within the largest bicomponent or bicomponent in
each period. In period 8 the size of the actual bicomponent goes down to
59% of that which would have resulted from random marriages. In periods 5 and 6, those with the best data, the sizes of bicomponents in the
actual and simulated data are equal.
Hypothesis 10.6—decline of cohesion in the most recent periods—is
supported by the comparisons in Table 10.5. A drop-off begins in period
7 and continues in period 8. This appears to be a trend for declining marital cohesion, or marital fragmentation within the clan. If this trend continues, and less cohesive fragments of the clan choose to emigrate en
bloc, as seen in period 6, the viability of the clan as an entity may come
into jeopardy. This would raise questions of whether it will become too
small to survive, its members will join with another pastoral group, and
so forth.
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
393
Table 10.5: Simulation Analysis of Kinship Cohesion (Bicomponents) in Successive Historical Periods of Three-Four Generations
Period and
# of
nodes/arcs
Length of
period and
dates
3 75 / 83
3-17851885
4-18101910
4-18351935
4-18601960
4 147/169
5 326/399
6*686/793
Largest
Component
Ratio of
Actual/
Random
57/71 =
80%
140/138 =
101%
305/304 =
100%
668/657 =
102%
Largest
Bicomponents
Ratio of Actual/ Index of
Random
Relinking
18/ 31 = 58% 6 22%
52/ 60 = 87%
5 67%
149/146 =102%
4 74%
220/225 = 97%
3 76%
7** 876/916
4-1885810/828 =
165/193 = 85%
2 71%
1985
98%
8**812/682
3-1910368/496 =
25/ 42 = 59%
1 75%,
1985+
74%
100%
* First period to include extensive emigration (after WW II), circa 50 couples, but some completed marriages are lacking in the latest generation.
** Cohort not complete (partial data).
While the cohesive core (bicomponent) of the clan is shrinking and
fragmenting in the latest generation, the final column in Table 10.5 also
shows that relinking remains high (over 70%—as in all periods 5-8)
within the bicomponent. In period eight, there are two bicomponents
(one of size 25, the other of size 20), each with over 75% rate of relinking. Hence, there is a fragmented core of members of the clan who are
closely intermarrying, the larger involving lineages 1-4-5-6-9 and the
smaller lineages 2-3-4-7, with lineage #4, in which “Dede” (597) has
held clan leadership since 1980, holding the two together in a single
component, the upper right half of Figure 10.10. With further marriages,
these two bicomponents will clearly be knit together as the cohesive core
of the clan in the future.
The problems of clan cohesion and fragmentation have been discussed in relation to leadership in previous chapters. Figure 10.10 shows
once again how two sets of couples in each of the smaller bicomponents
in period 6 have left to settle in villages, and only one woman from a village has married into these bicomponents. If the emigrants are removed
394
Chapter 10
from these graphs, their departure fragments the smaller bicomponent of
which “Dede,” the latest clan leader (597), is now a member. His bicomponent, however, will remain cohesive even with these departures.
Summary
Hage and Harary (1983, 1991, 1996) were the first to go beyond the limited applications of the network approach in anthropology in the 1960s
and to implement a continuous series of projects of ethnographic reanalysis, in their case carried out on a comparative scale in Oceania that benefits from representation as networks of relations and from graph theoretic analysis. Our analysis of Aydınlı nomad genealogical networks has
benefited greatly from their example, and it is one of the few analyses
both of complete community-level networks over time and of the ethnographic data and background that puts the networks into context.9
The analysis in this chapter uses visualization of the cohesive shapes
of networks over time employing contemporary 3-D graphic rendering.
The nomad clan has a particularly strong conical pattern of cohesive topology, commensurate with the idea of a “single root” that often goes
with the concept of the root ancestor of an ordinary lineage or ambilineage, but which, in this case, is associated with the density of relinking in
a bilateral clan, in which there is also a core ancestor, Mustan, who has
80% of the subsequent generations of clan members as their descendants.
This visualization prompted further analysis into the principles of
ranking (Analysis 18), and whether Aydınlı nomads, and possibly other
societies, had a collective structure to the clan that was comparable in
some ways to the hereditary rankings of the “conical clan” (conical in
view of its strictly core-periphery rankings) and conceptualized by
Kirchoff (1955). And indeed, consistent with the loose age rankings that
give the older siblings a privileged position in the family, we found that
older brothers were much more frequently involved in the structurally
endogamous networks of the clan than their numbers alone would predict. We shall say more about this in our next and concluding chapter.
Besides our concepts and measures of cohesion, which come directly
from graph theory (Harary 1969, White and Harary 2001), another purely graphic conception that Analysis 19 explored posed the opposite question: How do we define and visualize the relative sparseness of some of
the segments of a network? Our graph-theoretic rendering of “thin” kin-
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
395
ship structures, in Figure 10.7, consisting of chains of relations with no
branchings, gave a first inkling, by virtue of their absence, of just how
important were “thick” kinship embeddings in Aydınlı nomad kinship
networks. From there he proceeded to test the hypothesis that “thin”
families tended to emigrate and “thick” ones to remain nomadic (Figure
10.8.1 and 10.8.2).
Finally, the investigation returned to cohesion itself, this time through
a scaling of cohesion in successive time periods (Analysis 20, intended
to provide moving images of changing structures of cohesion), and a retake on how cohesion related to leadership over time (Analysis 17). The
analysis confirmed the importance of cohesion in integrating the clan in
the first analysis, and in the leader’s integration across the clan in the
second; but, in both cases noting how clan wide cohesion begins to break
up in the latest period of leadership, commensurate with ethnographic
observations of a different and more town-oriented style of leadership.
Further Reading
The use of graph theory in ethnography is extensively discussed in Hage
and Harary (1983, 1991, 1996) who in their seminar work on through
ethnographic problems in Oceania have found graphic theoretic insights
and analyses to be extraordinarily useful and revealing in each of the
major topics of ethnography: exchange, marriage, politics and stratification, kinship systems, terminologies, ritual and myth, and more. Their
discussion of Kirchoff’s model of the conical clan is the best introduction to that topic but also serves as the point of discovery of one of the
underlying principles of systems of hereditary ranking. Freeman (2000)
discusses the use of visualization and provides a gallery of on-line illustrations. The ethnographic contributions to Schweizer and White (1998)
provide a wide variety of cases in which ethnography is combined with
network and other kinds of analyses of decision making and exchange.
Hèran (1995) and White and Jorion (1996), once again, may be revisited
as an inventory of diverse principles, well beyond those in this book, for
the analysis of kinship networks.
Notes
1. As described in White, Batagelj, and Mrvar (1999), the procedure for computing generational depth uses Pajek options Partitions/Depth/Genealogical,
396
Chapter 10
which creates the partition, then Draw/Draw Partitions to activate the graphics
page, then Layers/Type of Layout/3D, then Layers/In z direction, and finally
Layout/Energy/Starting Positions/Given z. This initializes the drawing to 3-D
and makes generational layers the z-coordinate. Layout Energy/FruchtermanRein-gold/2-D then scales the drawing in the x-y plane, and use of the x, y, and z
keys rotates the image.
2. The description of Figure 6.9 gives the Pajek options for 3-D drawings.
3. The 3-D image in Figure 10.1 was exported for printing in 2-D to a Windows buffer by the PrintScrn key whereby it could be inserted into a word processor document or graphics editor. Scalable vector graphics (SVG) output can
be made by Pajek for viewing and printing from the web. Complex ethnographic
data in renderings such as these can also be viewed interactively in 3-D on the
World Wide Web to explore the global structure of the network and its constituent details. A 3-D representation can be exported from Pajek into a molecular
chemistry format for viewing in the Chemscape Chime Web browser
(http://www-uk-midi.com/chemscape/chime/chime.html). It can also be exported
from Pajek for viewing using virtual reality (VRML 2.0) formats that can be
rendering by the VRML viewer in Internet Explorer or internet browser plug-ins
like Cosmo Player (http://cosmo.sgi.com/cgi-bin/download. cgi/index.html). In
the VRML browsers viewers, the viewer can click the nodes to see the names of
couples and their attributes, rotate, zoom, or walk through the 3-D image.
4. Closeness to the central z-axis of the graph can become a new spreadsheet
variable for analysis, although we skip this analysis because automatic drawings
are not a particularly good scaling procedure for this purpose.
5. We have shown that an objective tracing of common ancestors is often possible through bilateral lines of descent rather than strictly patrilineal ones. One
conceptual leap is to infer that one’s affines are probably related also by blood
given generations of intermarriage. Another is to infer that because patrilines often segment and then intermarry, those who intermarry between the lineages of
today may well be linked by patrilineal links in the remote past that have segmented into distinct lineages. Both of these conceptual leaps seem to occur with
some frequency in Middle Eastern societies with segmented lineages.
6. The rightmost model of genealogical recounting in Figure 10.3 is not the
way that Aydınlı conceive of lineage rankings, or rankings within the clan. It
does, however, reflect the way that Johansen organized her genealogies, and
could recount them when asked by the patriarchs, much to their delight. Johansen made ample use of the sibling set DFS principle in Aydınlı rankings. The
spatial arrangement that she used to record the genealogies in her scroll, and the
system she used later to number individuals (see Appendix 1), in which women
will sometimes be next to (and have numbers next to) their husbands, and sometimes next to their siblings, corresponds to either the full or partial DFS principle
shown in the figure. While the DFS recounting used in very hierarchical conical
clan systems is not directly employed in Aydınlı men’s mode of recounting ge-
Graphic Approaches to Nomad Solidarity
397
nealogies, it is not a principle with which they are unfamiliar.
7. Bates (1973:47) goes on to say: “Thus, Iron’s suggestion might have validity here in that genealogical amnesia likewise serves this function. . . . Another
positive aspect of this is that flexibility in descent group restructuring is enhanced, a feature that will be shown to be well suited to highly variable camp
groups.” This might be true for the Aydınlı but Johansen has no direct confirmation.
8. Michael Fischer notes that for Pakistani Arabs, when the eldest brother
comes back after emigrating he cannot necessarily reclaim leadership, which is
often a source of dispute. Rank is here partly a concept of priority, but largely
one worked out through actual leadership. A returning elder brother may buy his
way back into a leadership position if he has both the resources to do so and the
requisite moral as well as behavioral authority. Our “Hınalı” Mustafa (=“Quarrelsome” Mustafa, 630), who returned from town as an adult, may have been
such a man
9. Among the precursors are Brudner and White (1997) and Houseman and
White (1998a).
399
Chapter 11
Overview and Conclusions
Long-term field research has changed the face of anthropology. It has held
up both change and persistence to be regular features of human society
and has revealed the complexity of both. . . . It has brought new research
questions to our agenda and pioneered new methodologies. It has
acknowledged that such involvement over time transforms anthropologists, and so has anticipated the whole debate over the role of anthropologists and the impact of anthropology on the societies being studied. In
short, it has changed the nature of the field.
— Royce and Kemper 2002: xvi
Chronicling Cultures: Long-Term Field Research in Anthropology
Overview
Chapter 1 asked why network analysis is needed in ethnography to develop an understanding of social processes. We distinguished between
phenomena that are easily observable and require little adjustment to
normal ethnographic practices and emergent phenomena that are not easily observable and that have important consequences for understanding
social dynamics and historical change. We argued the case of cohesively
emergent groups and the need for network analysis to identify the
boundaries of such groups and to test for their consequents. We drew
upon Firth’s contribution in distinguishing social structure and social organization as partly filling the gap between structure and behavior in developing the analytic concepts of anthropology. We concluded that there
still existed an analytic gap in our ability to account for social process,
and the types of emergent phenomena that we have studied in this
book—such as structural cohesion—can be conceptualized so as to fill
that gap between social structure and social organization and provide a
link to the theory of complex phenomena that emerges through interaction. The research results of our successive chapters have amply supported the productivity of this approach.
Our goal has been not to present a full ethnography based on years of
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fieldwork with the Aydınlı nomad clan but to present sufficient ethnographic data to place in an ethnographic context what we learn from a
specific, extended genealogical network analysis, and to evaluate what
we have learned. Placed in a processual framework for analysis, this includes our concern with the processes of ethnogenesis, transformation,
and dissolution of a community or society. It also includes how we identify the various levels of cohesive social groupings that provide a principled theoretical approach to understanding segmentary and cohesive dynamics in societies in which social relations are highly mediated by
multiple kinship ties. It is this very multiplicity of interactive levels and
variables that provides a conceptual foundation for the study of social
cohesion through the formal definitions and analysis of marital relinking
(Chapters 2 and 5), structural endogamy (analyzed in Chapter 6), and
changes in bicomponent or exocohesive structure (Chapters 9 and 10)
over time. We show how to use the study of changing practices to investigate emergent or changing rules, groups, and norms.
The nomad clan is a particularly relevant case for this analysis because kinship and networks of marriages alliances (Chapter 7) underlie
many of the facets of its social and political organization. Figures 2.2 to
2.5, introduced in Chapter 2, build on our identification of the clan
founders to form a detailed computer-drawn genealogy that locates all
the relinking marriages in the clan by their lineage. Those figures have
been annotated to show links between lineages through the wives. The
genealogies corroborate what older informants had said about the early
histories of the clan, as also confirmed by independent historical
sources. Our argument that the relinking marriages knit together the entire nomad clan as an alliance network is supported by evidence in subsequent chapters—Table 6.4 and tests of Hypotheses 6.1-6.5 and of successive refinements of Hypothesis 9.1, 9.3, 9.7, 9.8, 9.11—that central
leadership positions within the clan are established by the strength of
their position within the relinking network (Chapter 9).
This case study has also been fruitful because societies with “Arab”
type FBD marriage rights have been problematic in studies of the Middle
East and have posed theoretical challenges both to theories of lineage
structure and to theories of exchange and marriage alliance. Chapter 4
introduced the theoretical problems of FBD and segmentary lineages,
Chapter 7 led to the discovery of some new principles, consistent with
complexity theory, for studying and understanding segmentary lineages,
and Chapter 10 developed a model of a flexibly ranked clan system with
segmentary endogamy (“endoconical”) that may help to raise new prob-
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401
lems about Middle Eastern social organization. Chapter 8 showed how
we might study processes of social change more profitably with data
from long-term fieldwork.
One of the fundamental advantages of a computerized social analysis
of genealogical data is that the structure of the entire genealogical network can be examined both in toto and in its respective parts. One of our
first uses of the genealogy was to locate the leading known-persons
whose influential personalities provided informal leadership to the clan
during succeeding generations. All of these men, it turns out, had relinking marriages and so could be located on the reduced genealogy of relinking marriages (Figures 2.2-2.5).
The first part of this concluding chapter will discuss the advantages
of long-term field research and the problems engendered by the enormous amount of data that may result from such fieldwork. We will indicate how these problems can be solved at least partly by network analysis. We also summarize some of the ways the deepening of the
ethnographic results have been achieved by the study of networks in relation to other data and evaluate the methodological and theoretical approach of network analysis.
Dynamics: The Long-Term Findings
Long-Term Ethnography versus Longitudinal Analysis
Long-term field studies (Royce and Kemper 2002, Foster, Scudder, Colson and Kemper 1979) are carried out by many anthropologists, if we
take as our criterion systematic returns to a field site to collect data.
They usually involve rethinking how data that were initially collected in
one time frame begin to look very different, even with a lapse of one to
two years of fieldwork, with a multiple time perspective on social
change. Longitudinal research takes a further step, and it is not synonymous with but rather builds upon long-term field research (Johansen and
White 2002:81). It entails the capacity to track samples of cases through
time, and to link families from one time period to those in the next. This
places our understanding of people’s lives within the framework of genealogical and often migratory succession, in which the new generations
that follow the old are not simply a new set of autochthonous individuals, as a Western perspective might have it. People’s embedding in a cultural mesh of kinship and culture is rooted in concrete networks, and
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these are themselves deserving of study if we are to understand the strategies of cooperation and competition—and the results of interactive encounters and contexts upon their opportunity spaces—as people seek to
strengthen the place of their families, groups, and ways of living within
larger societal and changing global frameworks. While we might achieve
an understanding of people in a given context in terms of the choices
they are likely to make in that context, when they move out of it we
know far less about them. For that, we need to follow migrants and
movements, only some of which we have been able to do here.
Long-term field research has often been associated with the rise of
new methodologies. Many long-term field research projects attempt to
collect what has been termed minimum core data, including “detailed
maps, censuses, and regular surveys to update the situation of households and their members” (Royce and Kemper 2002:xx). These in turn
produce enormous data sets. This allows for the periodization of the data
into time spans that can be compared and contrasted to facilitate analysis
of change as well as of stability in networks. Such data bases can also be
compared with various informant reports at different time periods. The
potential richness of the database and the very specific long-term field
experience of the researcher in capturing or at least discussing aspects of
the data in great detail can also, in turn, stimulate new questions, give
rise to puzzles, and ultimately new methodological practice and
measures.
Our argument, as elsewhere (Johansen and White 2002), is that most
anthropologists who conduct long-term research, as a necessary mode of
knowing the people with whom they work and the contexts of their lives,
also collect systematic genealogies and personal histories. Such collections of qualitative data can provide the basis for systematic network research, and the reverse. These data, including biographies and genealogies, are in fact a central part of the record of a particular social group’s
history. The need for such an approach is consistent with the emphasis in
anthropology on understanding the history of social groups in their relationships to nation-states, streams of migration, colonialism, and globalization, and with the histories of ethnic groups and their interrelations.
Lévi-Strauss (1949:#-#) argued that the kinship networks were so impossibly complex that the only way human beings could conceive of
them was through normative abstraction. Norms, rules, and roles were
what people carried in their heads and how they organized their behavior, so goes the argument, and the analyst was in no better position than
people themselves to understand in detail how such abstractions related
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403
to the complexity of networks.
Today, far from being intractable, data on kinship and social networks constitute a viable analytical object—an entire network being a
veritable new object—for the study of marriage practices and how behavioral contexts are situated in terms of networks. The emergent forms
of social organization that result from social practices in their concrete
form—who marries whom, the formation of families, who stays or migrates, and so forth—give us keys to understanding, through network
analysis, a whole bundle of social processes. Kinship networks constitute a central element in social organization. The ability to analyze kinship via longitudinal network analysis benefits significantly from longterm field study. The longitudinal element of tracking individuals over
time, when coupled with tracking a genealogical network, and, often,
connections to land or property, allows us to study processes crucial to
understanding change and transformation, or conversely, stability
through time.
Ethnogenesis of the Clan: Understanding Dynamic Complexity
In tracing the process of clan amalgamation we have seen the principles
of adaptive radiation of nomadic tribes, the fusion, differentiation, and
manipulation of tribal identities, the segmentation of lineages and their
amalgamation into clans, the attachment to villages or return again to
nomadic life. How are these divergent pathways stabilized to reproduce
a socially and spatially organized clan?
Aydınlı nomads do not fit easily into the standard concept of an endogamous clan, technically called a deme: “communities revealing a
marked tendency toward local endogamy but not segmented into [exogamous] barrios” (Murdock 1967:48). The concept of clan as putative descent group is somewhat misleading. The nomad clan is as much based
upon affinity—or, to be precise, structural endogamy or marital relinking—as upon putative descent. Putative descent, here as elsewhere, is
often the normative expression for structural endogamy as registered in
local discourse. Hence, the anthropological concept for this type of clan
has been embraced under an emic rubric of “from a single root” or a putative ancestor, a definition that may have local salience but is not a defining characteristic unless we also take marital relinking into account.
What we have seen for the Aydınlı nomads, with structural endogamy
in the context of a clan that lacks exogamous segments, is that dense cy-
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cles of intermarriage produce in subsequent generations an increasingly
greater density of common ancestry or ancestries (Hypothesis 6.3). If the
clan is an entity with a single leadership or corporate existence, as we
have seen, the genealogical morphology is likely to take a conical form,
with one or a very few densely intermarried ancestors as its discursive
“single root” (Figures 6.10 and 10.1).
Simulations of population dynamics by B. Derrida et al. (1999) clarify some of the fundamental emergent properties of kinship networks.
Endogamous populations with random variations in number of offspring,
normally develop “common single ancestors” that are statistically dominant over other candidates (following an exponential decay distribution)
for a majority of a population at intermediate genealogical depths (5-9
generations) and modest population sizes (two to twenty thousand).
Beyond the fact that the marital practice of endogamy itself helps to
create “root ancestors” in a population that keeps track of genealogies,
the role of salient ancestors in helping to bridge the lineages by brokering marriage is particularly interesting in terms of clan identification
with a “common root.” There is no literal single founder of the clan, but
the clan cohesion created by Koca Mustan (716) in generation 3 of lineage #2 gives the clan its ancestral unification. Examining the genealogical data on the number of current descendants left by each founder
(Analysis 4) yielded Mustan as a close approximation to a “single root”
of the clan. Hence, informants’ statements of a single root of the clan,
when distinguished from the concept of a single founder, are basically
correct. Mustan played the role of a relinking broker in establishing clan
cohesiveness. His ability to create marital relinking through his children’s cohort (along with their allies in lineages #1 and #3) provided the
coalescence of the clan as it migrated to and amalgamated in its new pastures to the east. By so doing, Mustan and his wife became an ancestral
root for a great majority of the clan. Their respective parents are two of
the identified founders (#2, #3), and their daughters link through their
marriages to lineages #1 (98, the founder son of Hacı Dolaşıklı, 28), #3
(1169), #5 (343, grandson of founder Koca bey), #7 (1230), and #1
(630—a grandson of the founder). Mustan’s lineage became the largest
and the only one that intermarried with each of the other main lineages
in the clan. The decisive alliance and relinking of lineages #1-#2-#3-#5#6 takes place among the children of Mustan’s children’s generation and
the next (adding lineage #4).1 Among the types of marital relinking occurring in this epoch of clan consolidation, the exchange of sisters and
recurrent wife-giving from one lineage to another were key to the con-
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405
solidation of clan cohesion and subsequent ancestral “rootedness.” This
is an ethnogenesis where endogamy was present at the start and grew
with the growth of the clan.2
Clan Cohesion, Segmentation, Expulsion, and Transformation
Computer analysis of the properties of genealogical networks helps to
identify the boundaries of cohesive groups in a society, and to measure
the degree and structure of cohesion in various subgroups. The frequency of marriage ties among lineages is one aspect of subgroup structure
that generates overall cohesion.
Clan cohesion involves a continual balancing in each generation of
processes of segmentation and amalgamation. As we saw in the Chapter
4 background to understanding variations in FBD marriage practices and
the analyses in Chapters 5-8, there are strong pressures in both directions. The smallest lineage segments (3-generation patrilineages) are the
effective production units that compete for survival, the fertility of nomads in healthy conditions is high, and excess population is sloughed
off, with those units unable to meet their production needs from herding
being more likely to emigrate to villages (Bates 1973: Ch. 7, Barth 1964,
Bell 2002). There is also, as we saw in the demographics of Chapters 6
and 8, a small but significant differential probability for those with fewer
agnates (sons and brothers) to emigrate to the villages. Because minimal
lineage segments are the units that must be sloughed off, segmentation of
patrilineal groups over time into cascades of descending sublineages is a
continual process.
Allies within the larger segments and maximal lineages are important
in the competitive process, as are marital allies in other segments: access
to pastures and allocation of herding rights depends critically upon negotiations carried out at the level of such larger segments and, at the level
of the clan itself, on decisions taken at the meetings in the large tent of
the tanıdık kişi.
Segmentation is illustrated by the accounts of a segment of lineage #1
leaving the clan, continual fissioning of families as couples or individuals leave for settled village life or marry into another nomad tribe, and
the tendency for some of the lineages to dwindle in size or die out. Analysis 5 shows a further segmentary principle, namely, that in the competition for leadership between the larger lineages there was a slight tendency to reinforce claims to leadership and perhaps to heighten one’s own
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lineage ranking by not giving daughters to other lineages and by greaterthan-chance endogamy within the larger lineages (Hypothesis 6.5). In the
competition for survival one of the means by which lineage segments at
various levels are selected against, besides economic competition, is by
the social exclusion of others not being willing to ally through marriage.
Hence, those who are excluded and who settle in villages (and we have
seen several examples) are also more easily culled from the genealogies
by selective processes.
Relinking behavior is thus a kinship practice that instantiates cohesion as the opposing force to exclusion and segmentation. Analysis 16
(Table 9.6) shows that the frequency of relinking by leaders and their
offspring is much greater than expected by chance. This is compensated
on the integrative side, however, by near-random distribution of marriage between the larger lineages and by the tendency of smaller lineages
to ally more frequently with larger lineages within which they become in
a sense amalgamated. Further analysis of intermarriage among relinked
tribes (Table 6.5) shows something of a larger structurally endogamous
network (Hypothesis 6.2). The marriage of women into the clan from
other tribes, including more socially distant tribes not relinked by marriage (Analysis 3), provided a source of recirculating personnel familiar
with nomadic ways of life.
The clan amalgamated members not only of one dominant tribal identity but also occasional members of outside tribes, mostly village shepherds adopted by a nomad sublineage. The formative links among clan
members prior to the eastward migration incorporated a series of new
lineages through (or perhaps just continued existing patterns of) marital
relinking (Figure 6.7).
In our evaluation of Barth’s hypothesis (Chapter 6), both fissive and
integrative elements are seen to operate at the level of competitive leadership: FBD marriage reinforces close family support but keeps the core
kinship support group tight (Figure 7.1). The need for highly capable
leadership under nomadism serves to stress competition and personal
characteristics. Wider network recognition—as well as core factional
support—is broadly integrative but without a coercive basis of social
control. This can also lead to factionalism and feuding (sometimes with
struggles between tanıdık kişi as their focus), which a good Hacı (older
and pious pilgrims to Mecca) or at other times an established tanıdık kişi
as a peacemaker can help to mediate through lengthy negotiations in
which everyone involved gets an opportunity to express their frustrations. While the raw frequency of FBD or patrilateral parallel cousin
Overview and Conclusions
407
marriage declines in prevalence over generations, its selective percentage with available relatives in this category does not decline (Hypothesis
8.2.3, Figure 8.3). This is one of the most significant differences of our
computer analysis from the conventional forms of frequency analysis of
cousin marriages. For the period 1875-1965, the period with adequate
statistical data, the percentage of kin in the FBD category who are taken
in marriage actually rises from 25-28% in the earlier period to 30-33% in
the later. The drop in absolute numbers, then, is because there is a greater proportion of persons resettling in villages and perhaps because of
smaller families and sibling group sizes (Hammel’s Principle of Demographic Bias). This drop is compensated for by a marked rise in the percentage rates of patrilateral parallel second cousins, which are also lineage mates. The much higher numbers of male linking relatives in
consanguineal marriages (table on request: a standard output of the
Ego2Cpl analysis) also supports the pattern of favored marriages within
the paternal line.
Enlarging the Concepts Concerning Clans
We explored the question of whether the Aydınlı clan system constituted
a variety of what Kirchoff (1955) and others have called a conical clan,
but which lacks exogamy as a salient characteristic. The conical clan
systems described in the ethnographic literature (Hage and Harary
1996), often associated with politically hierarchical societies, have coreperiphery structures clearly demarcated within genealogical rankings
that are ordered from top to bottom by relatively strict ranking systems
of primogeniture or ultimogeniture, often with wife-taker versus wifegiver inequalities playing the role of a more dynamical status-altering
element.
Instead of Kirchoff’s conical clan, we developed in Chapter 10 the
idea of another type of clan which we named endoconical: one with a
ranking dynamic based on marital relinking in which leadership and other forms of participation in the life of the clan co-vary with a looser conception of age or status ranking. The gradients of endogamic cohesion
within the group are elements of loose relinking (along with relative age
among siblings, number of spouses and affines, etc.) that follow from the
cohesive behavioral practice of an individual’s marital relinking. Compared to Kirchoff’s conical clan, the endoconical clan has greater gender
equality, given that it is based on bilateral descent and a lesser degree of
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inequality because rank is a partly achieved characteristic rather than a
strictly prescribed one.
Decline: Demographic Changes through Outmigration and
Continued Viability of Nomad Social Forms
Tribal labels, while recognized, have less political significance in the
twentieth century than they did up through the nineteenth. Political positions that had once been occupied by organized tribes ceased to be recognized by the Turkish after World War II (Chapter 4). Clan and lineage,
however, have continued as important organizing principles, although
only among nomads. Still common is the preference for FBD marriage
by young men as well as their fathers, who still tend to arrange marriages. In addition to expressed norms, however, our study has emphasized
social practices in marriage choices.
From the decline in prevalence of FBD marriages one would conclude that the agnatic lineage is in decline. We consider it a mistake,
however, to take changes in the prevalence of FBD marriage as an index
of the viability of a lineage system in a Near Eastern society. Having a
computer-based method of analysis makes available a more precise analysis of behavioral choices in marriage, that is, by selective baseline analysis of available relatives of different types, the numbers of which will
change under different demographic regimes. There are several advantages of this type of measurement, which we use to examine the rates
of different types of blood marriages and affinal relinkings.
Nomads are adapting to changing demography and outmigration
pressure, partly as a result of population growth in Turkey generally and
within the clan itself. Declines in prevalence of FBD marriage in the late
twentieth century are partly a result of fewer co-resident father’s brothers’ sons and daughters, whether from increased migration or smaller
family size.
The selective percentage rate used in our computer analysis of marriage choices has a great advantage in that it controls for the significant
demographic factors confounding the raw frequency or prevalence rates
of marriage choices. Because the selective percentage rates of FBD marriages do not decline (normed on the number of FBD relatives available
for marriage), it follows that the strength of the preference for FBD marriage may not have declined either. From our results one would not infer
that the traditional lineage system was in decline (Hypothesis 8.2.1,
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409
8.2.3). Indeed it is as if to compensate for the loss in absolute numbers
of available FBD relatives that the selective rate of marriage with patrilateral second cousins has risen in the last two generations (Table 8.4).
Far from demise, the nomad clan repopulates sedentary villages with
its offspring as the core population grows for its given region, but it has
managed to keep a relatively stable population in the ecological niche to
which nomadism is adapted and to keep its social institutions viable.
Barth (1964) makes similar observations for the Basseri goat- and
sheepherders of Iran.
One of the fundamental elements in the continued viability of nomadic clan is the health and associated fecundity of the lifestyle: almost all
of its members (except the very poorest, who may be eventual emigrants) have many children and bring them to maturity given the quality
of their diet—with many dairy products, including yogurt in summer and
cheese in winter, considerable protein, the collection of plants, mushrooms, peppermint for teas, and the easy availability of mulberries,
grapes, and raisins by purchase. There are few miscarriages and relatively little difference in the survival of babies among different families, all
being born in tents and generally receiving two years of maternal care
and milk before the next child is born. Women bear children between 16
and 36, and 10 children per woman are not atypical, 8 being considered
normal. Even the considerable walking (but not overwork) that women
do as part of the nomadic way of life is good for averting stillbirths during pregnancy and keeping mothers healthy.
There are quantitative indications, however, of changes in clan and
lineage organization. A shift from an agnatic lineage-based pattern of
cohesion supporting political leadership (Hypothesis 10.6) is underway
in the latest political period (post-1985: Table 10.2) and evidence for a
breakup in clan cohesion (Table 10.5), although further fieldwork would
be required to see if patterns of relinking will continue to replenish a cohesive core of the clan or continue to allow further segmentation to occur in the cohesion structure (Figures 10.9 and 10.10).
The evidence on leadership patterns and social cohesion point to
changes that begin in the 1980s. This corresponds to the period of leadership under Mustafa (597 “Dede”, lineage #4) when the basis of political support was also seen to change. “Dede” himself was shown to lack
membership in a cohesive giant bicomponent but instead was embedded
only within one of two factionalized bicomponents (see Figure 6.5).
There is a triangulation of results on our inferences about social change
in the basis of leadership support in that “Dede” also lacked a basis of
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wider support throughout the clan through the distributed cohesion of his
lineage (Analysis 17). The 1980s was also the period in which feuding
ended, suggesting again social structural changes, from quasi-corporate
factional groupings such as lineages to the personal basis of leadership
support that we saw in Dede’s leadership (Hypothesis 9.13). “Dede” was
a transitional figure and was also highly respected by the outside world,
called by the sedentary population of the neighborhood also by the special term of “patron.” He was at the same time official mayor of the village located at the edge of the summer pastures, head of a transport union in the town of Kozan, and an owner of a citrus tree plantation.
The Anthropology of Relations
Norms and Behavior: What People Do and What People Say
Computer analysis of the intricate patterns and levels of contextual embedding in which individuals make their choices is capable of making a
precise evaluation of the relation between expected norms and actual social behavior in marriage choices as can be identified from genealogically recorded data individual by individual. Informants, for example, reported that spouses are generally chosen of the same age. Although age
data are lacking, Analysis 8 examined the statistical tendencies toward
or away from consanguineal marriage of the same generation and found
strong evidence of generational symmetry (Table 7.5 and Table 7.6)
commensurate with the stated norms and those of the Qur’an (Hypothesis 7.10). A closer look, however, showed that norm compliance was
mainly within lineages, although one lineage constituted an exception
even to this.3
A more general conclusion lies at the base of our FBD example,
however, as regards norms and behavior, namely, that conventional
analyses of marriage preferences are inadequate without properly
normed percentage data for observed marriage choices (see, for example,
Hypothesis 8.2.3). Given demographic constraints on relatives available
for marriage, inferences from frequencies alone as to marriage preferences of rules are likely to be invalid. We have found common variance
between prevalence and selective rates for different types of marriage
across a range of societies (see, for example, Table 8.3). In this light the
entire field of analysis of marriage systems may benefit from reanalysis
with newer methodologies.
Overview and Conclusions
411
The analysis of different types of marriage, marital relinking and exchange marriages can be based, as in the present case, on rates or comparisons that do control many of the confounding demographic variables
that make solid conclusions from such analyses so difficult. Hence, this
book may provide a more fundamental theoretical reorientation as to
how we norm behaviors in a statistical sense before comparing them
with verbal norms. Because marriage systems have been at the center of
a great deal of work in anthropology, how we measure behavioral orientations makes a great difference to our results.
As an example of this fundamental change in orientation we may
contrast our approach with that of Barth (1953:72). His model of the
processes that linked the resource base in nomadic societies to egalitarian leadership began at the level of small, tight, kin groups such as the
lineage, conceived of feuding as the expression of political power and of
local leadership as based on support through kinship alliance, including
FBD marriage. We extended his argument to another level in our study
to show that higher-order clan endogamy and relinking marriages are the
basis for informal leadership, factionalism, and mediation in feuding.
Barth, who spent only a short time in the field for his study, could not
have perceived the complexity of network structure above the level of
the local group.
Structural Endogamy as Exocohesive Connectivity Reproduced
in the Practice of Marital Relinking:
Social Inclusion and Exclusion
Using the concept of structural endogamy, the large-scale social boundaries of self-reproducing groups can be identified by means of computer
analysis. Structural endogamy is the empirical phenomenon in which the
intermarriages of an arbitrarily large set of individuals—arranged in
couples—form a set of marriage cycles that are self-enfolding. Every
couple is connected to every other by one or more circles of kinship and
marriage relationships. The index of relinking used to evaluate these
overlapping circles is an index of the social redundancies by which
members of a community cohere through multiple paths of connectedness. The maximal boundary encompassing those couples included within these overlapping circles is the region in which endogamy is extended
within the social group, a boundary that is self-defining or emergent
through marriage behavior.
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What we demonstrated at a societal level commensurate with the nomad clan are fundamental principles of social inclusion and exclusion
that operate jointly through the practice of marital relinking, which in its
absence constitutes a basis of social exclusion. We showed empirical
support (Analysis 2) for structural Hypothesis 6.1 that clan membership
is based on relinking. Those couples who stay with the clan are relinked
through marriage, while those who are not relinked are those who tend to
decide for settled life (Hypothesis 6.1 and Table 6.4). Those who are not
relinked are vulnerable to exclusion from the social life of the group,
lacking a spouse with access to and knowledge of nomadic ways of life,
and in consequence they are typically not taken into consideration in invitations to weddings, funerals, and so forth. What is striking about the
concept of relinking is that large-scale but definitively bounded social
groups may be formed that lack a unifying descent principle but are
linked through affinity.
Thus a principal argument for our use of p-graphs and computer
analysis of marital relinking has been that the relinking marriages knit
together the entire nomad clan as an alliance network. Not only are central positions within the clan established by relinking but the emergence
of the clan itself and the varying cohesion of its subgroups is a function
of the cohesion provided by marital relinking. This theory works particularly well for the egalitarian nomad clan, in which intensive cooperation
is required at multiple levels, but cohesiveness is poised in opposition
against continual segmentary and factional tendencies because there is
no centrally binding authority to mediate disputes.
Network analysis and the study of relinking as a dynamical basis of
cohesion is potentially a better fit to seize on such social groups and
their shifting social boundaries than are conventional structural models.
Every marriage that creates a new relinking creates a locally cohesive
subgroup. This can be in terms of either a consanguineal marriage, in
which relinking adds a new connection between relatives who already
have a common ancestor, or a relinking affinal marriage. The latter adds
a new connection between already affinally connected relatives.
Subgroup Analysis
One of the most fascinating set of findings of the computer analysis results from applying new concepts about social cohesion (White and Harary 2001) to subgroups within the structurally endogamous boundaries
Overview and Conclusions
413
of the clan. Analysis 15 gave the following findings:
 Cohesion between pairs of couples within the clan as measured by the
number of independent paths between them is hierarchically structured
in terms of a series of embedded units of increasing cohesion.
 Social units identified with different levels of cohesion created by relinking within the last 150 years are associated with either a particular
tanıdık kişi (=known-person) or a failed aspirant to tanıdık kişi status.
In one case such a unit is associated with a religious notable who is a
son of a founder and father of a tanıdık kişi).
 All but one of the seven tanıdık kişiler (=known-persons) from four of
the five main lineages4 and the one aspiring tanıdık kişi are within the
N=110 couples who occupy different positions in these structured cohesion levels (p=.003).
 The salient characteristic of the cohesive units is that they are not
clumped at close distances like cliques. Rather, each of them spans the
other subgroups of the entire clan. They differ and are detectable via
eigenvectors analysis, because they have a uniform number of independent paths between members, which also implies characteristic differences in density.
 The structure of these cohesive units is concentric, by differing intensities or characteristic number of independent paths between members.
 Over time, it appears that the characteristic levels of cohesion that distinguish each successive tanıdık kişi coming to occupy the principal
role of leadership in the clan are decreasing. However, this is a function of the greater size of sibling sets as we go back in time and the
fact that the larger sets have a slight tendency as well to remain nomads rather than to emigrate.
 The size of cohesive sets and the number of independent paths that
give them cohesion are by definition in complementary distribution. A
successful candidate for tanıdık kişi can have a small but intense following whose members span the clan, or a large and less intense following, or somewhere in between. In any case the members of the cohesive set must span the clan and cannot simply occupy a solidarity
group with very close ties that exclude other subsets in the clan.
 Simultaneous and competing aspirants to the role of tanıdık kişi do appear, each associated with a cohesion group, sometimes at the same
level. The limitation to a single occupant of the role is not by exclu-
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sion but by the fact that people will tend to throng to a single tent, constructed so as to hold sufficient occupants, that serves as the site for a
discourse among the majority of men. While an aspirant can hold
smaller meetings in another tent of sufficient size, if and when the
number of attendees dwindles to very few, the aspirant will desist and
sometimes deign to attend the meetings of his contender.
 The concentric structure is not perfectly unidimensional; rather, there
are oscillating sides of the concentric structure that appear to compete
and take turns in terms of emerging leadership.
A static image of clan structure in terms of cohesion and leadership is
shown in Figure 11.1. The eccentric circles represent levels of cohesion
and the letters represent leadership positions (not in any particular historical order, but see Figure 9.4). They center around the highest cohesive core but also differentiate into opposing factions each of which tries
to span through multiple independent connections the whole reach of the
clan.
Figure 11.1: Embedding of Successive Exocohesive Groups in Clan
Structure and Support for Exocohesively Embedded Leadership
e
c
a
b
d
f
(The nonsequentiality of lettering is intended to call attention to oppositional segments)
All of these aspects of how cohesion is related to leadership were hypothesized and tested prior to our construction of attribute-level variables to test predictions about which of all the potential candidates for
emergent leader (the single tanıdık kişi in each generation). Those tests
(Analysis 16) showed a multigenerational process in which an entrepreneurial father and a mother from a well-off family may emerge as one of
the richest families in their generation and their sons become candidates
Overview and Conclusions
415
for tanıdık kişi provided that they are sufficiently numerous, retain nomadism, and practice relinking marriages. The son must have the character, economic success, and respect associated with achievement within
the contemporary economic setting to become the tanıdık kişi and should
be viewed as experienced and intelligent. Ideally he should be the eldest
of the sons who have not emigrated. As Johansen (1999) has written,
however, the principle of seniority could survive in the fragile nomadic
societies only because it was employed in a flexible way. Only Kozan
Mahmut was an eldest son but not Veli Kahya, Hasan bey, Erkek Mustafa, Fındıklı Hacı, or “Dede.”
Ambitions for leadership were greatest in the families of former
tanıdık kişi. The candidate must be able to equip one of the larger tents
associated with large and wealthy families; he must be able to afford
several wives, which are an asset in producing more married sons, endowing daughters with bride payments for further marriage alliances,
and providing the labor needed to host large groups in a large tent for
discussions. It was an outcome of competition but not a preference or
stated rule that the tanıdık kişi come from a lineage not having had a recent turn in the rotation of leadership among competing lineages, as in
the opposing segment structure envisaged in Figure 11.1. The attributes
and the network variables of kinship cohesion fit together in a fundamentally social process that involves an intricate competitive and cooperative pattern of emergence and synchronization, in which behavioral
practices and goal-driven choices interact with societal values and the
judgment and respect of others. An apt label for this kind of emergent
process is cohesive social practice, which includes the perceived personality and character critical for leadership.
Leadership and the Political System
A more dynamic account of how nomad politics operates would shift the
focus from a static model such as shown in Figure 11.1 and the attribute
models of Analysis 16 to a moving image that is suggestive of the processes that operate across generations. What follows is an attempt to depict a more dynamic model, diagrammatically, in Figure 11.2.
Through successive generations emergent loci of leadership slowly
rotate around the clan center as different segments of the clan are articulated to the center. Given a clan with a relatively stable center, each successive leadership faction after the obtaining eastern pastures after 1875
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Chapter 11
is focused on a different lineage but also links both to the center of the
clan and reaches out to other subgroups. Rotating around a central axis
of clan cohesion, then, as in the figure, shifts of leadership over time
sweep through different segments or factions of the clan to augment
overall political cohesion of each successive lineage group and their
closer allies with both the clan center and its peripheries. The operation
of this political system is dependent upon multiconnectivity as the basis
of a form of social cohesion that is distributed throughout the clan, linking most clan members both to the current but changing leadership and
to the relatively more permanent central social figures of the clan. The
triangular wedge in Figure 11.2 show by double dotted lines represents
the lineage or faction of the current leader, which may include links to
central clan figures by lineage brothers or sisters. A larger political faction of the leader is shown in the figure as the off-center oval that contains lineage members plus close allies. The arrows represent high inclusive multiconnectivity out of the larger leadership faction into other
sectors of the clan. The sweeping arrow represents change of leadership
from sector to sector and lineage to lineage over successive generations.
Figure 11.2: Dynamics of Clan Reproduction in Terms of Cohesion,
Social Embeddedness, and Leadership
Clan
allies
center leadership
faction
Key:
designates
omnidirectional or diffuse
cohesion through multiple
pathways of connection
throughout the clan
A central concern in our search to understand emergent leadership has
Overview and Conclusions
417
involved the measure and importance of different types of connectivity.
There are, of course, two tendencies as concern leadership. A tanıdık kişi
tries to keep leadership in his extended family but competing lineages try
to support the striving of another able man to become tanıdık kişi as
soon as the current incumbent shows inability or weakness. Hypotheses
9.1 through 9.11 speak to different aspects of these two entwined processes within this general model. The special role of multiconnectivity in
distributed but interpenetrating cohesive groups is identified in Hypotheses 9.2, 9.3, 9.7, and 9.11.
The theory we advanced about marital relinking in relation to leadership is that multiconnectivity is essential to large-scale social cohesion,
which can include the basis for social formations not only of kinship
groups and clans but of social class as well, as Brudner and White
(1997) have noted. Where the multiple connectivities of a social group
extend into central political positions, this theory can also provide an account of the association of political power in relation to cohesive social
groups with boundaries delimited by the limits of multiconnectivity. In
the present case political positions are themselves emergent out of the
cohesiveness structure along with rules of turn-taking between social
segments.
There are still pieces of our analysis of emergent leadership in Chapter 9 that need to be put together. Figure 9.4 showed how it was likely, in
spite of missing data from the early generations, that the cohesive embedding of leadership groups declined in succeeding generations as the
clan grew in size and differentiated into looser networks. Cohesiveness
of nodes in the structurally endogamous core declines over time both for
the whole population (tau-b=-.302, p<.001) and for leaders. Our multiple
regression analysis attempted to predict emergent leaders from both attributes and network variables such as cohesive embedding. There we
found that when cohesive blocks are taken into account, network centralities (variables for degree, flow, betweenness, and closeness), which are
often taken to predict leadership (Hypothesis 9.8.3), had little or no additional predictive value. But level of cohesion of leaders was only above
average and, while statistically significant, was a poor predictor in terms
of variance accounted for, especially after controlling for the attribute
variables. Failure of global cohesion variables to predict emergent leaders more precisely may be due to missing data, failure to measure cohesion within the relevant generations rather than globally, or misspecification of our hypotheses.
Still, the attribute variables that did predict emergent leadership were
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Chapter 11
the very attributes that translate from the individual level—more brothers, more married sons, more wives, a particularly well-connected mother and father, and so forth—into a successful local practice of behavioral
cohesiveness within the specific time horizon. Given these local attributes it is virtually certain that within their own generation each emergent
leader would be a highly cohesive member of their cohort. This is an effective demonstration of our thesis about cohesive practice and it obviated the need for breaking the datasets into different time periods and
measuring node cohesion in each segment, an approach that can suffer
from misspecification of the generational boundary conditions that are
associated with the position of leaders in terms of cohesiveness. Were
we to use this approach it would have to be a fractal analysis such as we
used for the study of marriage alliances between lineages and cascading
lineage segments, namely, to create all possible generational time-units
and measure the effects of cohesiveness for each unit that leaders are
members of to see how such units differ. But because the leadership dependent variable consisted of only six cases it is probable that even that
method would not be efficient in testing further hypotheses.
In the analysis of time-segments of the dataset in Chapter 10, as
shown in Figures 10.9, 10.10, and Tables 10.2-10.5, we also saw that the
cohesiveness of support for the most recent leader appears to be unraveling with the change in style toward a more village- and town- oriented
leadership, partly due to the increase in outmigration that makes a village orientation all the more important. Whether the social cohesiveness
that was traditionally endogenous within the clan and adjacent tribal
segments will now reconfigure to embrace a broader community that
spans also the villages where nomads have settled is something that only
future fieldwork can resolve. It is also possible that if more of the larger
sibling sets remain nomadic, while the small ones are sloughed off, the
original concentric cohesion pattern could reassert itself, but that again
would require continuing the long-term research project into the future.
Measuring Relinking Density and the Porousness of Structural
Endogamy
When the quantity of marriage circles reaches its maximum of 100%
within a social group as measured by the index of relinking, the group is
fully endogamous in the canonical sense of a caste: everyone marries
within the group. When the relinking density is less than 100% there are
Overview and Conclusions
419
still clear-cut boundaries of the largest structurally endogamous unit of a
society but the group may be open to a greater or lesser extent to marriages with outsiders.
In the case of the nomad clan, the index of relinking within the largest structurally endogamous unit is 75%, which is extremely high in
comparison with other studies (see for example, Houseman and White
1998b). The largest structurally endogamous unit spans all of the lineages of the clan and includes all the ancestors and significant descendants who have contributed to the social reproduction of the clan. By this
measure the nomad clan is enormously cohesive. When we take out the
more peripheral couples of the structurally endogamous unit—those with
the bare nodal degree of 2 necessary to have multiconnectivity—the index of endogamy falls to 57%. This is still high but does not imply that
the remaining 43% will be married or linked to outsiders because some
of these links are with peripheral couples. The porousness of structural
endogamy is an evident characteristic not only for the Aydınlı but for all
noncaste societies.
Identification of Emergent Forms
Some of the principles of nomad social organization that are now evident
relate to our discussion of the polysemy of terms such as kabile (clan,
lineage, sometimes tribe or aşiret) and aile (wife, also used for small
families). The sliding terms of kabile and aile are not a result of a weaker sense of logical definitions among the Aydınlı in comparison to scientific logic as might have been thought; rather, they are seen as precise
terms for emergent phenomena that themselves have sliding boundaries,
such as the segmentation over time of patrilineal groups into cascades of
descending sublineages.
The network basis for the formation of shifting kabile and aile groupings involves principles that apply from the extended family up to the
tribal level (Hypothesis 6.2). Flexible principles of marital relinkings
provide a means for asserting group membership at the broadest level
through structural endogamy, at middle levels through connectivity sets,
and at the most intensive and local level through consanguineal, intralineage, and two-family relinking marriages.
To reiterate some examples of these patterns, we found structural endogamy at the intertribal level (Hypothesis 6.2) and at the level of the
clan, and relinking as the basis for cohesive subgroup formation at many
different levels. Having discussed some examples of these principles of
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emergent cohesive groupings at higher and middle levels or social organization, the formation of cohesive units at the lower level remains to be
reviewed.
Intralineage and Blood Marriages as Exocohesive Relinking
Analysis 11 of consanguineal marriages and historical change builds, as
we have seen, on a unique feature of kinship analysis by computer. The
latter gives the possibility of analyzing the occurrence of different kinds
of marriage in terms not only of prevalence but also their selective rate
(i.e., compared to the maximum possible number of such marriages) given the demographic structure of the population. Prevalence or raw frequencies (Table 5.1) are a poor guide to changing patterns and preferences. While there are only sixteen MBD marriages among the 414
recorded nomad marriages (a relative rate of 4% of all marriages), for
example, the selective rate of MBD marriages is 16% (Figure 8.6: i.e.,
among men who have a recorded MBD available for marriage). Thus
MBD is much more often selected as a mate than would appear from its
raw frequency.
MBD marriage is one of several types of cousin marriages that LéviStrauss (1969) examined as an object of study by examining their consequences for social integration. MBD marriage is a generator of “generalized” exchange or open-ended cycles of marriage. Hammel’s (1976)
principle for the antecedents of differential frequencies of cousin marriages establishes that inequalities of age or status characteristics at marriage favor a significantly greater number of MBD cousins of an appropriate age for marriage than other cousins such as FZD.
Among Aydınlı, MBD selective rates of marriage declined in the
most recent generation to zero frequency. This cannot be explained by
Hammel’s principle because, other things being equal, this would predict
equal rates for all four types of cousin marriages.
The method of calculating selective rates of marriage is also important because it compensates for gaps in the genealogical data due to
memory loss, bias, and missing data. There is much more extensive
memory data for males in the early generations, for example, than for
females (Table 6.2, Figures 6.1 and 6.2).
In relation to group boundaries and cohesive subgroups, the point is
that each consanguineal marriage reinforces a specific social boundary
within the kinship network. Because regions of higher cohesion may
Overview and Conclusions
421
emerge within the network, each kind of consanguineal marriage helps,
in proportion to its prevalence, to create certain systematic types of cohesive groups within the society. The idea here is closely related to the
Axiom of Choice (Chap. 5, Section 2, on Deepening the Foundations for
a Network Theory of Kinship) and the importance of prevalence for the
consequences of marriage choices, while selective rates are useful in
comparisons across time and between societies, and measures of choice
are the most relevant to determining preferences.
One way that reinforcement of kinship cohesion occurs within the
clan is through marriage with blood relatives. The way in which this occurs, however, is through preferences for marriage with closer rather
than more distant relatives (Hypotheses 8.2.2, 8.4, and Figure 7.11), ones
who are also of the same generation (Hypothesis 7.10). Thus the emphasis is on extended family relinkings. With multiple types of marriage to
relatives connected through females as well as through males, the effect
of both is to densify relinkings within moderate-sized subsets of nodes
but also, through overlap, to create broader relinking and cohesion in a
distributed fashion throughout the clan (Hypothesis 6.1).
FBD marriage, for example, reinforces lineage cohesion, as do second, third, or more distant cousin patrilateral parallel marriages (but see
Hypothesis 8.5). While its prevalence fell dramatically in the twentieth
century (Figure 8.3), its selective rate rose from about 25% in the late
nineteenth century to 30-33% in the twentieth, and that of FFBSD marriage rose to 50%. Hence, what would seem by crude rates to be a custom in decline is discovered to be highly resilient in terms of selective
rates into the contemporary era. The declining prevalence of FBD marriage is linked to smaller sibling sets via outmigration. Measures of
choice in comparison to random marriages also show FBD to be highly
preferential (Table 8.5). Although the decline in prevalence of FBD marriage is accompanied by an absolute and selective rise in FFBSD marriage (a greater dependence of intralineage marriage ties on more distant
kinship connections), measures of choice in comparison to random marriages do not show FFBSD or FFFBSSD to be preferential (Hypothesis
8.5).
Matrilateral parallel (first, second, third) cousin marriages (Tables
8.3 through 8.5), while lower in selective rate than its patrilateral counterpart, might be seen to reinforce cohesion within the uterine line. According to Barry (2000), the absence or diminution of such marriages
might indicate higher identification with a female principle in which inheritance of a substantive identify leads to avoidance of marriage, except
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Chapter 11
that among Aydınlı nomads there is no concept of inheritance of the female contribution (“flesh” or nurturance). Given the lack of a concept of
a female “line” of identity, Barry’s argument would not explain why the
selective rates of MZD and MMZDD marriages rise together (Figure
8.8: table on request). Johansen’s argument about changes in visiting
with female relatives that accompany sedentization (Hypothesis 8.3)
does provide an explanation. Her argument does not explain, however,
why there would be statistical evidence for MZD as a preferential marriage (Table 8.5; the small numbers for MMZDD pointing in the direction of marriage preference are mute on this question because of lack of
statistical significance). Hypothesis 8.2.2 would provide the answer: presented with the opportunity to interact with relatives (as argued, for example, in Johansen’s Hypothesis 8.3) the preference is for marriage with
closer relatives rather than distant ones. Presumably this is because the
prospective couple has a better chance to know more about one another’s
character and personality the closer the relationship.
The bulk of our evidence points to contemporary consanguineal marriages continuing to play a major role in reinforcing extended family cohesion. As lineages are thinned by outmigration the complexity and diversity in marriage choices takes a somewhat different shape. While
parallel cousin marriages, which reinforce patrilineage principles, are
increasing in terms of selective rates and preferential choice in the most
recent generation, they are decreasing in prevalence. A comparison with
simulation results confirms that cousin marriage preferences are not
generalized through lineage principles or second or third cousins (Hypothesis 8.5) but they are instead restricted to first cousins.
Among first cousin marriages, because only MBD marriage has declined up to the present, and FZD (associated by Hammel’s principle
with same-age marriages and direct exchange between lineages in successive generations) has been stable throughout the twentieth century
(table on request), the sum total of evidence about marriage exchanges
and relinking via cousin marriages points to a trend toward reinforcing
shallow agnatically extended families and shallow matrilines by parallel
cousin marriage.
Graphic Approaches
Certain of our graphic images, such as Figure 6.1 and Figure 6.2 (patrilines and matrilines, respectively) are partial views of the nomad clan
Overview and Conclusions
423
genealogy, organized so as to bring out only certain aspects of the network structure.
More generally, the ability to use computerized genealogical data to
draw accurate, well-organized, and informatively labeled genealogies, as
in Figures 2.2 to 2.5, is of obvious use to ethnography in the presentation
of data. It is also a means of visualization to provide both the ethnographer and the reader with a source of intuitions and insights about social structure. We have used the genealogies themselves, elicited from
informants, to form a skeleton from which to give a detailed historical
narration of the nomad clan’s formation, growth, and change up to the
present. Nowadays, as a majority of those born into the clan turn to village life as adults, there remains a structurally endogamous core who
continue to adapt the nomadic way of life to new challenges.
In our Chapter 10 on Graphic Approaches we used automatic drawings (see Glossary) that minimize line length to show something of the
overall structure of the clan. Figure 10.1 showed a three-dimensional
graphic of the entire nomad genealogy in which the conical structure of
the clan is made visual. Within it we can see both the fusion of the descendants of separate founding ancestors through intermarriage and the
dense relinkings that occur within the core of the clan.
Magnifying the relinked core of the nomad clan, Figure 10.2 showed
a 3-D graphic of the relinking marriages among nomad kin. The density
of the core, as we have seen, reaches the incredibly high index of relinking of 75%. Among the more striking images of this book, these figures
may help the reader to grasp how the clan is organized as a conical structure. To understand the density of the nomad clan genealogies generally
we also examined (Hypothesis 10.3) cases in which a given kinship link
from an ego did not subsequently branch out to reach multiple alters but
continued along a single path of successively more weakly or distantly
linked relatives. What we found is that there are no paths of this sort
(homeomorphic segments) greater than length 2 (length 2: node u links
to v links to w with no branching at v) that we could consider stable, that
is, other than ones involving a newly married couple.
Focusing on the data in Figure 10.2 for the maritally relinked core of
the clan, the computer analyses of cohesion (Tables 10.1 through 10.2,
Figures 10.4 and 10.5) led to results that could be diagramed more abstractly in Figure 11.2. The figure shows clan structure in terms of hierarchical levels of cohesion, favoring the higher cohesion of couples
whose marriage links back to highly cohesive ancestors and whose
grown children have married so as to also become core members of the
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Chapter 11
clan. These cohesive subsets give rise to positions of leadership and to a
certain degree of competition between overlapping but opposing broad
segments of the clan. Here leaders compete from relatively distant positions for overall cohesive backing of relatives distributed throughout the
conical structure of the clan.
Our ability to bring out a distributed structure of cohesive subsets
within the clan, from which leaders draw their support, is novel within
the sociology of small groups and subgroup cohesion. It is dependent on
the computer’s ability to compute multiple independent paths of connection as well as to scale their structure, which turns out to be hierarchical.
These results are very different from the identification of subgroups
based on cliques as clusters of persons densely linked by direct ties. The
salient feature of the nomad cohesive subgroups is that they are based on
indirect ties, and they bring together, through the multiplicity of independent paths, people who may be quite distantly connected and who are
dispersed throughout the nomad network.
General Methodological Conclusions
This concluding chapter has provided a summary of our specific findings
on the Aydınlı nomads and has evaluated the degree to which computer
analysis has enabled obtained a more precise representation of social
structure and individual strategy as compared to usual fieldwork. A
fuller ethnographic background (see Johansen 1965, 1994, 1995; Johansen and White 2001) is not summarized because the choice of facts is
already limited to a minimum necessary to illustrate the introduction into
the methods explained here.
Instead, in a relatively short compass, we have tried to use computer
methods to visualize data and test hypotheses, to explain the methods for
others to use, and to demonstrate the advantages of such methods. The
benefits of this approach include expanding our tools for representing
basic ethnographic data, the precision of the statistical and structural
analysis, and the usefulness of graph theoretical analysis and concrete
visualization of more abstract properties of social structure. Such studies
can serve as a formal basis for the comparison of ethnographic cases.
The methods used gave rise to hypotheses and results many of which
would be virtually impossible either to formulate or to evaluation using
standard approaches (Analysis 11). Because our approach is based on
graph theoretic concepts implemented for analysis via computer pro-
Overview and Conclusions
425
grams, the formal concepts used in the analysis have been explicated and
details have been given as to how to use the Pajek programs for largenetwork analysis that will allow the researcher to move through a variety
of analyses of social network structure and dynamics.
A fundamental contribution to network ethnography made by the approach taken in this book has been to surmount a twofold problem: 1)
the separation between synchronic or structural and diachronic or historical study (discussed in the introduction to Schweizer and White 1998),
and 2) the separation between stated norms and data on actual practices
as can be collected from genealogical data individual by individual and
then assembled over time. Basically, we have looked at networkembedded behaviors that form the basis of social structure as to whether
they change over time or they remain constant. We were able to control
for the changing demographic contexts of marriage behaviors and the
social cohesion created by structural endogamy on a large scale and cohesive subgroups on a smaller scale. By doing so we have been able to
identify the existence of preferences, avoidances, and social rules regarding marriage behaviors, and of specific historical turning points at
which rules or social structures change. Because we can study the emergence of cohesive social subgroups within the larger network, we can
examine how leadership emerges out of different aspects of social cohesion. The analysis showed how to use multiple network methods and
measures for assessing convergent evidence for hypotheses about social
structure, social strategies, leadership, and change in decision making
processes.5
The measurement basis for many of the hypotheses in this book derives from the idea of a language of behavior put forward in the Preface
and expanded in the technical vocabularies of Chapters 2, 5 and the
Glossary. Our findings, derived from testing hypotheses concerning languages of behavior, support the idea that in certain contexts a language
of behavior can be read and understood, especially if we utilize new
forms of network analysis combined with an ethnographic understanding
of indigenous knowledge systems. It is from actual choices or behaviors,
especially as compared with the network background of possible choices
as a system of constraints, that preferences and social rules can be inferred and cultural systems can be more accurately understood.
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Chapter 11
Complexity Theory
The relevance of complexity as a theoretical framework for kinship
analysis constituted one of the last of our analyses. It emerged as one of
the unexpected results to come out of our collaborative study. White had
been using the language of complexity analysis informally in our descriptions but the predictive hypotheses about the power-law distributions (Chapter 7), as a signature of self-organizing systems came as a
true surprise. This provides a new avenue of research that will not be followed up here but elsewhere. One of the most interesting conclusions
that can be drawn concerns the type of distribution data that form powerlaw as opposed to exponential distributions. It is the raw behaviors that
constitute the experienced social world that form the power-law distributions (Figures 7.11 to 7.14). The indicators of cognitive preferences such
as the normed selective rates of different types do not form power-law
distributions but are exponentially distributed. The implication is that
behavior is not formed strictly in the mind by internal models and preference gradients as Lévi-Strauss and cognitive anthropology would have
it but as Leach and Murdock have argued in raw frequencies of interactions in the social world itself. One does not exclude the other. The work
undertaken by White and Houseman that informs this study is not improperly called by French reviewers the théorie de la pratique (praxis
theory) in contrast but also complementary to cognitive structuralism
and we continue to consider this to be an interesting avenue of investigation.
Looking to the Future of Longitudinal Studies
The particular results of this case study have been worth the effort to
construct a systematic database, given the related capacity to formulate
and test with it a variety of hypotheses against a rich body of ethnographic and potentially available network data. The hypotheses incorporate and develop network concepts appropriate to anthropological studies
and enable us to test older structural formulations about kinship as well
as newer ones. To provide guidance for comparable studies we have left
the student of social structure with a vocabulary for analysis that is well
grounded and equipped for deployment in other case studies.6 Comparisons between case studies will enlarge a new theoretical foundation for
the network study of social organization and dynamics. Such study in
Overview and Conclusions
427
many societies is extremely important for sociopolitical and historical
research.
We hope that this detailed example will stimulate others to undertake
a deeper analysis of the societies or social groups that they study. Accordingly, we have detailed throughout our footnotes and in the appendix where to find (e.g., on the Internet) and how to use the data on which
our analysis is based, where to find the analytic programs that we have
used, and how to use the software for purposes of analysis.
We hope the variables constructed in this process, according to the
ethnographer’s and analyst’s intuitions, both prove to be of lasting value
in that they can be revisited for the explorations of further ideas. 7 This is
also true for other long-term field research projects (see examples in
Royce and Kemper (2002) and of those of anthropologists dedicated to
recording and preserving data and examining hypotheses through time as
societies change).
A dialogue in which the experience and understanding of a long-term
ethnographer—formulating questions and giving descriptions, explanations, and narratives—is balanced against a research analyst’s proactive
formulation of hypotheses is fairly rare. Such a dialogue can be very
productive, however, especially in developing and testing hypotheses
against a systematic database. This kind of dialogue in a collaborative
model of anthropology may become increasingly important when researchers acknowledge that both continuity and change, similarity and
difference in individual and group choices are potentially highly significant from one time period to another and that these in turn are the basic
characterizations of the societies, groups, and individuals that we study
and live among as anthropologists. Seriously considered, this acknowledgment about the complexity of cultural formations and social histories
may provoke the rise of deeper and more various methods of analysis
equal to the task. Longitudinal analysis of field data enables anthropology and social science generally to continue to deepen their contributions
to understanding the richness and complexity of human society and experience, even as the effects of globalization continue to complexify the
societies that we study. These, as we have seen, already pose a considerable challenge to comprehending the protean and often simple principles
concerning social processes that can be gleaned from the wealth of empirical detail available from long term ethnographic studies.
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Further Reading
The April/September 2000 special issue of l’Homme (154-155) on the
theme of “Questions of Kinship (Parenté)” contains several extensive
reviews of the approach taken in this book.8 Collard (2000:638,640,
646,651) reviews and identifies the work of White and Jorion (1992),
Houseman and White (1998a, 1998b; including contributions to the volume by Godelier, Trautmann, and Tjon Sie Fat 1998), and Schweizer
and White (1998)—using the p-graph approach—as one of the main contributions to la théorie de la pratique approach to kinship today. Jamard
(2000:735-736) devotes a long exposition to the methodological and
theoretical importance of this approach.9
Augustin (2000a), in the same volume, reviews the network approaches taken in Schweizer and White (eds. 1998).
While the Pul Eliya and Amazonian analyses are concerned with a
structural logic of dual organization entirely different from the structural
themes of the present book, the extent to which the vocabulary of network analysis, adapted to the concerns of social structure, has entered
the canon of social and structural anthropology in France. In the “Glossary of Kinship (Parenté),” Barry et al. 2000) devote entries to dividedness (724), sidedness (731), matrimonial network (730), and pratique
matrimonial (729) as opposed to matrimonial norms. Hence, a network
approach to kinship and matrimonial practices is firmly established within the French intellectual terrain of social anthropology, if not within the
dominant paradigms of English-language paradigms (but see reviews of
Schweizer and White (1998) by Dow (1999) and Gregory (2000)). Further, White’s (1997) definition for “structural endogamy” has entered
the canon in several recent publications (see Augustin 2000b: 594). As
Augustin notes therein:
One finds such clusters [of endogamy in bilateral society] in abundance in
the majority of European societies in the form of matrimonial enfolding
among a set of persons linked in a manner more or less distant. . . . [The]
structural endogamy discussed by Douglas White [1997, Brudner and
White (1997)] is the matrimonial concomitant of this same phenomenon.10
The theme of structural endogamy, along with the concepts of structural
(and regular) equivalence now commonly used in network analysis
(White and Reitz 1983) is a prime focus of our study of Turkish nomads.
Notes
Overview and Conclusions
429
1. As told in the ancestral narratives, the grandchild-generation intermarriage
with the Karahacılı lineages (Kırbaşı #4) was an alliance of amalgamation between the new lineage and the existing clan: “after becoming rich off” exchanges
with #1 and #2 (at this point #3 was also allied with #2 as relinking wife-giver
while #1 was allied by sister exchange), Koca Oğlan’s (#4) offspring agreed to
intermarriage. In this generation that the other Karahacılı lineage #5 becomes
relinked to both lineage #4 and the central lineage 3. Karahacılı Dazkırlı lineage
#6 does not intermarry into the main lineages until three generations later.
2. There were obviously also many endogamic ties in Kurşun, but we do not
know if a break in cohesion led to the migration of Mustan’s family, for example, or whether all of the founder lines were already cohesive back in Kurşun,
given the loss of genealogical knowledge over intervenint generations.
3. In refinement of our earlier observations, the numerouus off-generation
marriages of lineage #2 may have been due to considerable age differences between brothers in early periods and the long time period involved.
4. Lineages #1 Dolaşıklı, #2 Ecevitli A, #4 Kırbaşı oğulları, and #5 Koca bey
oğulları, but not #3 Ecevitli B)
5. A rational choice framework is also closely incorporated within our approach. The network approach allows an analysis of individual roles, biographies, activities, and social choices as to cooperative, competitive, and selfinterested behaviors. We have seen how social choices and roles such as those of
Mustan and early founders contributed to the cooperative establishment of a
network of cohesive families that was critical to the ethnogenesis of the clan. We
have shown the costs (in social and economic support) and the benefits of marital choices such as whether or not to choose a spouse who relinks with others in
the clan, and how such choices correlate with decisions to stay or leave the nomadic lifeway (Hypothesis 4.4 and Hypothesis 4.4.1). We have shown how specific kinds of marital relinkings contribute to the formation or reinforcement of
cohesion in larger or smaller social groupings, and, in the recent period, how the
increasing frequency of emigration and consequent reduction in the size of sibling sets has created potential problems involving the shrinkages of lineages and
fragmentation of social cohesion. As outlined by Schweizer and White (1998:
Introduction) , the integration of a rational choice and actor-oriented perspective
has been one of the goals of the network approach to ethnography. Building on
the base of network analysis, a great deal of further work can be done in this direction.
6. Including in the simplest case documented collections of genealogical data,
but hopefully also rich ethnographic field data. Genealogical data are commonly
available as *.GED files that may be accessed using Pajek and are often built using commercial programs such as Family Origins or Family Tree Maker.
7. Equally, we would be thankful if others contributed suggestions for deepening our analyses.
8. We call attention once more to the support for development of this approach
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Chapter 11
in France, through the auspices of Clemens Heller, Jean-Luc Lory, the Maison
des Sciences de l’Homme, Maison Suger, and the Ministry of Research and
Technology.
9. Jamard (2000:735-736) states, translated from the French:
Methods and techniques [of kinship analysis] have strong implications on
the theoretical side. For that reason, their use pertains to the reexamination of kinship nomenclatures. [In the Godelier et al., edited volume,
1998] One article vigorously distinguishes itself in the domain of precise
procedures. In contrast with Tjon Sie Fat, who presents a meticulous algebraic treatment of purely terminological kinship, Michael Houseman
and Douglas R. White, using a variety of computer tools, collaborate to
show the emergent properties of a network of marriages that are effective
through their dynamic aspect in the pratique—behavioral practices—of
matrimonial alliances, where they find observed regularities that are not a
simple effect of a terminological logic and rules of marriage. These constitute, at the level of practice, a sort of primary behavioral regularity [encodage], of a complex order. This is precisely demonstrated in that the
two researchers, in the course of their analysis, are able to detect a structure of sidedness [structure à coté], or bipartite network where a pair of
supersets of marriages, connected by agnatic and uterine decent links, operate so as to organize network configurations of marriage alliances
across a range of societies in lowland Amazonia. The authors succeed in
creating an empirical sociology of high quality that takes the first steps
toward a conceptual and theoretical advance toward a sort of grounded
theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) based on facts established methodologically through carefully controlled working hypotheses [and precise analytic definitions].
10. Translation from the French.