Posted on October 24, 2008 by Eva Schiffer
Dr Eva Schiffer recently took us (a group of researchers from the International Livestock Research Institute, ILRI) through an introductory session to Social Network Analysis – the concept, the methodologies, its application. Most of us were from the innovation side of the research world where qualitative constructs and processes in systems are easily appreciated. But [...]
Filed under: Other people's work, fine-tuning implementation, technical details, theoretical considerations | 2 Comments »
Posted on October 22, 2008 by Eva Schiffer
This was one question that my participants at the ILRI Net-Map workshop chose to map out in a group activity to learn how the method works. I must admit, they didn’t find a simple answer in their one hour speed mapping session. Maybe because we were pressed for time and I didn’t allow them to [...]
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Posted on October 17, 2008 by Eva Schiffer
I have just finished teaching my first 5 day “General Introduction to Social Network Analysis” course at the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya. I must say, I was a bit nervous before I arrived, because I knew I would interact with a group of researchers interested to be trained in a method and (maybe) [...]
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Posted on October 10, 2008 by Eva Schiffer
Strange, how the use of certain phrases might send people to your blog, who are definitely not here because of the network analysis. For weeks now I observe that the most common search term that sends people to my blog is “different kinds of animals”, just because some weeks back I said that different kinds [...]
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Posted on October 10, 2008 by Eva Schiffer
Tomorrow I will start another one of these crazy trips around the world, carrying my Net-Map toolbox to places as far apart as Kenya (to give a training in Social Network Analysis at the International Lifestock Research Institute, ILRI), India (to be part of a team evaluating the impact of World Bank activities on agricultural [...]
Filed under: upcoming events | 3 Comments »
Posted on October 8, 2008 by Eva Schiffer
My younger sister once said that one thing she admires in men (well, most of them) is that when it comes to solving a technical problem, they are like pitbulls, once they have sunk their teeth in this problem, they won’t let go until they are done with it. My partner showed this pitbull like [...]
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Posted on October 7, 2008 by Eva Schiffer
One comment on my post about messy realities was that the role of ethnicity might be crucial to understand the power mix within and between institutions. While thinking about different (methodological) ways of including ethnicity into Net-Maps while drawing them (for example using differently colored post-its), I suddenly think of an old post of mine [...]
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Posted on October 4, 2008 by Eva Schiffer
After pre-testing Net-Map to apply it to Bolivian policy processes, one troubling learning experience followed me for some days. Imagine a political system (and I am not necessarily talking about Bolivia here, because I have seen similar systems all over the world) where the power of different actors is determined by a mix of their [...]
Filed under: case studies, notes from the field | 2 Comments »