ABSTRACT
The need for network analytical tools emerged from the application of normative analyses to concrete social systems, where ties cut across the framework of bounded institutionalized groups. In order to study these ties, several anthropologists have shifted attention away from cultural systems towards structural systems of concrete ties and networks. Jewish dispersion – Werner Mosse has pointed out – ethnic solidarity, social cohesion, and commercial institutions had consistently favoured mobility over a wider area and, with it, the geographic extension of kinship ties. In turn, this had contributed to the internationalization of Jewish economic relations and, with it, international mobility. Networks tend to be most common in work settings in which participants have some kind of common background – be it ethnic, geographic, ideological, or professional. The more homogeneous the group, the greater the trust, hence the easier it is to sustain network-like arrangements.
