Social networks in 1796

Posted on 14 April 2012 by Peter Prevos

Social networks are considered the latest development in how humans interact with each other. This is, however, not correct as a social network is based on relationships and not electronic communication.

Before modernity social life was defined by kinship, which was mainly based on genetic connections between people. Kinship is, however more than a network of genetic relationships as it is predominately a social phenomenon and is in effect the language in which society is described. In pre-modern collective societies kinship defined the boundaries of society. Research has been undertaken to determine kinship boundaries for the Southern Dutch agricultural hamlet of Heugem, combining the 1796 census and local church records.1

In 1796 the hamlet consisted of 39 houses with 172 inhabitants, of which 54 below the age of 12. Almost 90% of the population was born in Heugem. Kinship relations have been been graphically displayed using p-graphs.2 The analysis shows a high level of interrelatedness within the community, with the priest as the only person without relatives. As such, a high correlation between geographic and kinship boundaries was found. At the one-generation level, the hamlet can be divided in several kinship clusters.

Kinship structure of the hamlet of Heugem in 1796

Kinship diagram of Heugem in 1796. Cick to enlarge.

Kinship does, however, transcend death. When taking relationships with deceased family members into consideration almost the whole hamlet, excluding the priest who arrived from outside town, is connected through kinship relations. This research ads to the existing information on historical kin relations.

The results of this research will be presented at the XXXth Frontiers in Genealogy and Heraldry conference in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

  1. The research is currently being finalised, current status is collated in Dutch on www.prevos.net/heugem. [↩]
  2. Kinship has been analysed using Pajek, software for the analysis of large networks. [↩]
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Science of Magic: Asking the right questions

Posted on 10 December 2011 by Peter Prevos

Science in its broadest definition contains a wide range of disciplines. Social scientists seek to understand humanity while in the exact or natural sciences, researchers seek to understand nature. In the applied sciences these theories are brought to practical use. To fully understand the world a multidisciplinary view is required, no one science can provide us with a full understanding.

This is also the case in the specialist research regarding theatrical magic. Researchers from a wide range of disciplines view magic shows in many different ways, each seeking to understand this quaint performance art in their own perspectives. View the The Science of Magic slideshow below for an overview.

For an overview of the different answers scientists have provided to these questions, read the online annotated bibliography.

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Non Sum Qualis Eram

Posted on 14 August 2011 by Peter Prevos

Non sum qualis eram, I am not who I once was, wrote Horace two millennia ago, acknowledging that our identities are ever changing. My journey towards undertaking PhD research in marketing is long and seemingly punctuated by contradictions. As an engineer I am wrapped in stereotypes of socially inept professionals, highly focused on the technical task at hand while lacking people skills. Undertaking research in customer service, investigating the dynamics of human interaction, does not seem to match the social identity of an engineer. However, in its purest essence, marketing is after all, in the words of Philip Kotler and Sidney Levy “customer satisfaction engineering”.1

Upon completing a degree in civil engineering in the Netherlands, I started my career with a dredging company, reclaiming land in Europe and Asia. Working in a highly competitive industry instilled strong values of productivity and efficiency, seeded during my student years when I worked weekends in the family construction business. After several years of dredging overseas I returned to the Netherlands where I accepted a position with the government organisation responsible for major water infrastructure. The transition from a profit-motivated industry in hyper-competition to a government controlled public organisation was in some ways a bigger culture shock than I had previously experienced working in Africa and Asia.

As a career in public service allows for a well balanced personal life, I commenced an Arts Degree. Studying humanities at an academic level sparked an interest in corporate culture and more specifically the differences between private and government organisations.

After I finally completed a Bachelor of Arts, it was time to focus on my career again and deepen my knowledge of management by undertaking an MBA at the Bendigo campus of La Trobe University. The vocational nature of business administration did not, however, provide much of the intellectual depth I was accustomed to in my philosophy studies. The choice to continue towards a PhD was thus born in a desire to deepen my understanding of the science of management, combining my extensive experience in managing complex situations and knowledge of human dynamics.

My interest in customer service is as varied as my professional biography. As a manager working for a water and sanitation service provider I am interested in how the theory of services marketing can be applied to this industry. As a philosopher I am interested in the intricacies of human interaction, specifically the non-rational dimensions of behaviour. The combination of these two should make for an interesting journey.

  1. Kotler, Philip and Levy, Sidney J. (1969) Broadening the Concept of Marketing. Journal of Marketing 33(1): 10–15. [↩]
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One frosty morning on my way to work

Posted on 27 July 2011 by Peter Prevos

Click on the map to view photos.

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Catholicism is a pagan religion

Posted on 25 June 2011 by Peter Prevos

For hundreds of years Catholics converted tribal people from all over the globe to Christianity. This conversion was often combined with violence and conquest in a zealous quest to drive out the “false gods” of paganism.

But Catholicism itself is more like a pagan religion than it wishes to admit. During Eucharist, believers eat the actual body of Christ – not symbolic, but the real flesh as dictated by Papal dogma. This is pure magic and no different to the tribal rituals they once abolished. In Lisbon I got caught up in a large procession, Corpo de Deus, where this miracle was celebrated.

This morning we visited the catheral in Faro, on the southern tip of Portugal. Also here more evidence of paganism in the Catholic. They display a nice collection of relics of unnamed saints. Relics are a form if magic, hoping that the power of the original Saint still resides in the body fragments. Whether most relics are genuine is doubtful. There are enough spliters of Jesus’s cross to rebuild Noah’s ark!

image

Another fine example of catholic paganism in Faro is the Capela dos Ossos, the chapel of the bones. An alter built from the bones of monks as a reminder of the temporal nature of our existence.

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If anything all this makes Catholic religion a lot more interesting than the austerity in Protestant churches. The ability of catholicism to incorporate ancient local customs has been its secret to success over the world.

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Ethiquable trade?

Posted on 31 May 2011 by Peter Prevos

Ethiquable trade

Ethiquable trade

Spotted this sign in a supermarket at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. It advertises the fact that this supermarket sells a lot of fair Trade certified goods, branded with the strange sounding ‘ethiquable‘.

Fair trade is a great cause, the Western world has abused the people of South America, Asia and Africa for too long. However, to use the ugly portmanteau ‘ethiquable’ should either be excused as an attente to sound sophisticated in English or a failed attempt at branding something inherently good.

Ethiquable is hard enough as it is to pronounce for native English speakers, let alone the people from a miriad of countries around the world visiting this shop.

A brand should be recognisable, simple and sound good. Ethiquable will most likely be doomed for the marketing scrapheap.

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How to make airline food taste good

Posted on 29 May 2011 by Peter Prevos
Dinner on board CX134 from Melbourne to Hong Kong

Dinner on board CX134 from Melbourne to Hong Kong

Just arrived in Hong Kong and had a great flight with Cathay Pacific. Even the food tasted great. This might, however, not necessarily because it objectively did taste very nice, but because I was wearing noise cancelling headphones.

In a recent paper in the Food Quality and Preference journal it was shown that background sounds unrelated to the food diminish the taste qualities.1 Eating in an aeroplane, engulfed by the sounds of jets, makes it hard for the chef to please passengers’ taste buds. The research also showed a positive effect of pleasant noises. I thus enjoyed my meal, bopping away at the sweet sounds of Miles Davis on my noise cancelling headphones.

  1. A.T. Woods et al. (2011) Effects of background noise on food perception, Food Quality and Preference 22(1): 42-47. [↩]
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Magic marketing

Posted on 21 May 2011 by Peter Prevos

imageThis morning, as I was aimlessly walking around a cheap shop, I came across the Magic Mop Set, a mop so good that it will clean the floors like magic.

Conjuring and marketing have a lot in common. One of the overlaps between the two is the use of the word magic.

A search in the American trademark register reveals more than three thousand entries that use the word magic. A company producing herbal nutricional supplements uses Jungle Magic to communicate the idea that their herbs have properties beyond the regular garden herbs, prepaid telephone cards are marketed with the term It’s Magic to express their ease of use and a series of cooking appliances sell under the name of Cook Magic which seems to suggest that cooking with these products becomes an effortless activity.

Using the word magic in branding of goods and services taps directly into the almost universal human desire for a magical world where mundane activities can be undertaken almost effortlessly.

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The Myth of Sustainability

Posted on 3 April 2011 by Peter Prevos
Proposed Perpetual Motion Machine

Proposed Perpetual Motion Machine

The most ubiquitous buzzword of the past decade is sustainability. It has replaced value laden words such as environmental, ecological or green. Sustainability moves the environmental movement from a ideological driven movement to a scientifically driven endeavour.

Achieving full sustainability is, however, not possible. The idea of renewable energy is fundamentally flawed as it would imply the discovery of a perpetuum mobile, which is not possible following the immutable laws of thermodynamics.

It has always dawned on me that if all the world’s energy would be produced by wind power or solar that eventually less energy will be available in the atmosphere, which will lead to unpredictable climate change.

My intuition has recently been confirmed by Miller, Gans and Kleidon of the Max Planck Institute. They convincingly argue that also wind and solar energy are not limitless sources. The sun will keep on burning for several billions of years to come, but the amount of energy available to us at any time is limited.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not environmentally insensitive. I am convinced that anthropogenic global warming is a threat to civilisation as we know it and that there is a urgent need to find alternative source of energy. I have never owned a car in my life and am a happier person because of it. Cars are evil, but that is for another post.

We live in a time of unprecedented wealth which allows a large proportion of the global population to consume. As a lecturer in consumer behaviour I know that there are very powerful psychological forces that drive us to this behaviour. I have no solutions, but will end with quoting Jonny Rotten:

There is no solution to the problems, so enjoy the chaos.

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Earth Hour

Posted on 25 March 2011 by Peter Prevos

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