Introduction

Net-Map is an empirical method for making mutually constitutive socio-instutional networks and relationships visible. Of particular importance to TTDR, Net-Map focusses on power relations as a relational reality in / of what is shaping and being shaped in formative contexts. In other words, Net-Map deals with the notion of the 'micro-physics' of power (Foucault). In both theory and praxis, it allows us to acknowledge, but not become trapped or fixated merely on centralised nodes of power. Instead it opens up a means for surfacing and navigating power in a multi-nodal (unequal) sense.

Similar to SenseMaker, Net-Map offers a means to collect, visualise and return stakeholders' shared experiences.

Features

The Net-Map process was developed by Eva Schiffer to better understand multi-stakeholder systems by gathering in-depth information about resource networks, goals of actors, and their power to influence system outcomes (Schiffer and Hauck 2010). Net-Map enables participants within a particular system to surface and explain the diverse and often obscure spectrum of actors who exert influence over the outcome of a particular objective or process within that system. Net-Map merges two existing methods, namely social network analysis and power-mapping. As a research method, it is well suited to the collection of qualitative and quantitative information in a structured and comparable way (Schiffer and Waale 2008).

Unlike systematic literature reviews and interview analyses (e.g., using Atlas TI) undertaken in other studies into knowledge and information brokerage (Kilelu et al. 2011, Klerkx et al. 2009, Geels et al. 2014), Net-Map enables an empirical cartography of the actor networks and relationships that constitute a socio-institutional landscape. These maps allow system actors to directly indicate who the relevant actors are and the ways in which they are connected to one another. A further important distinction between Net-Map and other social network analysis tools is that Net-Map allows respondents to directly overlay their perceptions of actors’ power onto their own network maps (Schiffer and Waale 2008). Being explicit about actor power and positionality is particularly important in dealing “with the subtleties present in social interaction in the developing world” (Ramos-Mejía et al. 2018:222).

Uses

Here we make the following two points on this method:

(a) Net-Map is a potentially transformative method

By providing answers to questions such as: Where are the nodes of power? Are decisions dictated through formal or informal channels? Where do pockets of knowledge exists within the system?, Net-Map in TTDR enables a clearer picture to be developed about the mechanisms, actors and relationships through which change is affected within a given context.

Developing an improved understanding these factors among the actors in a given system is in itself a form of transformative knowledge generation. It enables reflexive engagement and enhances the ability of actors to navigate the systems in which they are embedded and effect change.

Like all methods, its transformative and transdisciplinary potential rests heavily on how it is applied. However, unlike many other approaches to modelling complex systems, the primary artefacts which a Net-Map process generates are tactile, physical maps, produced by the system actors themselves. While potentially convoluted and complex to outsiders, the physical network maps are created by system actors themselves. Unlike complex computer simulations, these pen and paper maps are easy for system actors to interpret, discuss and learn form. In this sense, when applied with care, they can facilitate inclusive and democratic research processes.

(b) Net-Map is a versatile method

One of the key strengths of Net-Map is that it is exceptionally versatile and easy to modify in response to a wide range of contexts.

While the application of Net-Map has tended to focus on individual or institutional actors and their relationships with one another, substantial room exists for methodological innovation and expansion. Using actor network theory to formulate a more expansive view on actors and their relationship, opens a wide arena for mixed method experimentation. For example, when considered in parallel with the kinds of narrative clusters which emerge from SenseMaker, an argument could be build for considering these narrative clusters as 'actors' within a given system, which exert an very real and quantifiable influence over the system. Applied in this way, Net-Map could provide a subjective framework for mapping out the relationships between different types of narratives within a system, the relationships between narratives and other actors, and the relative power which actors in a system perceive a certain narratives to hold. When considered together, Net-Map and SenseMaker can bring to the fore some meaningful insights into the socio-institutional 'fabric' of formative contexts (mentioned on the home page).

Summary: End-notes:

As alluded to above, Net-Map’s ability of producing meaningful insights into the socio-institutional 'fabric' of formative contexts, is an effective way of qualitatively visualsing the micro-physics of distributive and productive knowledge/power relations (Foucault) – i.e. knowledge/power relations capable of producing knowledge in a distributed manner across multiple societal locales – rather than focusing on power merely as a destructive force whose sole function it is to suppress or negate knowledge production via some or other highly centralized / dominant power regimes.

When used synergically with SM – by, e.g., connecting / over-laying narrative patterns with power nodes (as per the visualisations below) – it can certainly help us to engage more meaningfully with the challenges involved in social change at both the theoretical and practical levels: at the theoretical level, assisting us in developing and visualising new epistemic objects (problem statements & research questions) - and at the practical level, assisting us in our strategic engagements with communities for figuring out a sense of direction in which social change processes are to be embarked upon.