Mapping Networks in Historical Cultural Markets: Methods and Tools, session at the European Association for Urban History, Helsinki, August 24–27, 2016

This interdisciplinary session explores how networks helped to establish, expand, and sustain markets for cultural products such as books and art, as well as theatre, music and cinema productions. Although the study of social ties among market participants is by no means new, it is becoming increasingly prominent due to historiographical and methodological developments. Recent studies on cultural markets and urban creativity, for instance, testify to the importance of local and interlocal networks for innovation and market development (cf. Davids & De Munck 2014; De Marchi & Raux 2014). Moreover, analyses of historical networks have been reinforced by the spilling over of the method of 'network analysis' from the social sciences as well as the advent of computational techniques in historical research (e.g. Graham, Milligan & Weingart 2013). Despite this recent interest, there is still much ambiguity around the concept of networks. The term is often used as a catch-all denoting many different relationships in cultural markets and although most historians are by now familiar with digital network visualization and spatial mapping, their analytical potential and limitations deserve further examination. Papers are, therefore, invited to reflect on issues of methodology and digital techniques, e.g. means of collecting, analyzing, and presenting data pertaining to the relationship between networks and cultural market development. We welcome contributions on Europe and beyond, across different periods, and on miscellaneous cultural markets.

The following themes fit particularly well with the aims of the session:

• Different uses of networks by individuals and firms (promotion, information collection, subcontracting, reputation building, etc.);
• Comparisons of network structures across time, space, and cultural industries;
• Tracing cultural exchange and transmission across inter-local and cross-sectoral networks;
• Relationships between networks, affiliations and institutions in cultural markets;
• Processes of intermediation in cultural markets.

Session organizers: Claartje Rasterhoff, University of Amsterdam, Dries Lyna, Radboud University Nijmegen, and Karol Jan Borowiecki, University of Southern Denmark.