Networks as Personal Communities

Reprinted August 1986 Note: This revision of the 1983 paper contains minor changes in the tables and other statistics consistent with the project's redefinition of Activities.The personal networks of East Yorkers provide many resources which enable them to cope with routine and extraordinary opportunities, pressures and contingencies, give them ladders to change their personal situations, and give them levers to change their social situations. We use both quantitative and qualitative information from our in-depth study of thirtythree East Yorkers to describe such social networks and to show how they function in the contemporary Canadian division of labour. We show that while most "intimate" ties are with immediate kin and friends, most routinely-seen ties are with neighbours and coworkers. We describe the lumpy structure of most networks, consisting of both densely-knit clusters and more disconnected isolates and two-person ties. We describe the kinds of resources which network members give to each other, the extent to which their ties are specialized, and the extent to which they reciprocate aid. In addition to discussing broad trends, we show how the networks of specific East Yorkers are related to their structural location in larger-scale social systems. While several East Yorkers are "loners," many have quite densely-knit and solidary networks, while a few others move between thinly-connected multiple social circles