Dynamic Cooperation
Networks….and beyond
Ana Crespo Solana
Spanish National Research Council
(CSIC)
Brussels, Friday 26th November 2010
 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:
Primary
Assumptions
Hypothesis
Hypothesis
- Cooperation and Self-Organizing
Commercial Networks
- World Economy in the First Global
Age (consolidated as a Historic
System) (1400-1800)
- Connected World History: History
to move away from its traditional
teleological framework
- Scientific and Post-nationalistic
History
 OBJECTIVES:
objectives
New theoretical
framework
Use of GIS:
methodology
 New theoretical framework
in evolutionary human
behaviour in History:
networks and
communications between
different social environments
 Latest frontier about
methodology: SpatioTemporal GIS …. historic
data architecture on human
cooperation
 Digital Humanities: Spatial
Data Infraestructure
• Creation of data sets to support analysis of cooperation
•
among merchants and others to create and sustain the
trading networks of the first global age:
DIGITAL HUMANITIES: What History can contribute to the
study of Human Cooperation?
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: internet publication of
data sets, documents and tools to further
research
TIPOLOGIES OF ANALYSES
• economic, social, and
cultural factors that
sustain cooperation in
commercial relationships
• analysis of the impact of
such cooperation on
economic and social
development and …
• how did cooperation
influence historical
evolution of social
environments?
• http://digital.csic.es/handle/10
261/28394
(Atlantic Trade Database)
• http://digital.csic.es/handle/10
261/29215
(Data model: contains information
on cooperative relationships
established by the agents in
specific geographic locations).
Historical Based Research: new analysis
• Historical Analysis:
– study the XVI, XVII & XVIII
centuries.
– sociological and economic
analyses
– archival data and metadata
collection
• Topics:
– individual cooperators
– forms of altruism
– micro-institutions to solve
problems within the sphere
of collective actions
 PUBLICATION ON FINAL REPORT:
• preliminary conclusions and analyses:
•
•
•
•
•
MODELS
evolutionary process of the system’s
networks
spatial organization of collaborative
networks
models of cooperation among agents
system’s areas/economic regions
spatial perception and influence of
cartography
Atlantic Trade Data Base
• connected place: granularity on dense areas
• merchant networks of comunication
• cooperation in long-distance trade areas: this
topic needs more interdisciplinary analyses
Develop a unified space-time representation for modelling
cooperative interactions (behaviour), trade-flows, and network
dynamics within an open-source GIS:
• comparison among systems around
trade routes
• comparison between the commercial
activities
• merchants’ behaviour
• spaces for social interaction and
exchange: houses, market places,
ports…
•
visualization:
• given a representation of
• network dynamics
• trade flows
• cooperative
interactions
• Model the rules governing change which account for the
observed
 structures
• relationships in data
• features
anomalies and
trends
patterns
Visualization: representation of networks as
Complex Systems: a small and a dense world
DynCoopNet Spatio-Temporal GIS
An experimental prototype
GIS Data Model
http://digital.csic.es/handle/10261/29215
Analyses
• identifying cooperator in historical
sources / and a tipology of
behaviour
Data about:
. shipping
. geographic space
. trade and routes
. market areas
Ship spectrum:
-implies all data in reference
to every geographic scale,
along a ship’s journey,
with the different kinds of
social and economic exchanges
in every port and/or place.
- agents in different connected
places.
A journey of the ship: “El Amable”: Social agents ……… interactions in each scale!
Thank you very much for your
attention
Interdisciplinary cooperation in
the near future will be much
appreciated by historians