title: Social and Spatial Networks: Kinship Distance and Dwelling Unit Proximity in Rural Thailand.
abstract: We address a long hypothesized relationship between the proximity of individuals' dwelling units and their kinship association. Better understanding this relationship is important because of its implications for contact and association among members of a society. In this paper, we use a unique dataset from Nang Rong, Thailand which contains dwelling unit locations (GPS) and saturated kinship networks of all individuals living in 51 agricultural villages. After presenting arguments for a relationship between individuals' dwelling unit locations and their kinship relations as well as the particulars of our case study, we introduce the data and describe our analytic approach. We analyze how kinship - considered as both a system linking collections of individuals in an extended kinship network and as dyadic links between pairs of individuals -patterns the proximity of dwelling units in rural villages. The results show that in general, extended kin live closer to one another than do unrelated individuals. Further, the degree of relatedness between kin correlates with the distance between their dwelling units. Close kin are more likely to co-reside, a fact which drives much of the relationship between kinship relatedness and dwelling unit proximity within villages. There is nevertheless suggestive evidence of a relationship between kinship association and dwelling unit proximity among kin who do not live together.
authors: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
authors: Ashton M
authors: AM
authors: Verdery
authors: Barbara
authors: B
authors: Entwisle
authors: Katherine
authors: K
authors: Faust
authors: Ronald R
authors: RR
authors: Rindfuss
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Sep 8;106(36):15274-8
references: 19706491
references: Geoforum. 2008 Mar;39(2):879-897
references: 25308986
references: Hist Methods. 1986;19(3):93-102
references: 11617088
references: Hum Ecol. 1982 Dec;10(4):439-54
references: 12265286
references: Am Sociol Rev. 2007 Dec 1;72(6):964-989
references: 21562613
references: Popul Stud (Camb). 2007 Mar;61(1):35-52
references: 17365872
references: Demography. 1988 Nov;25(4):521-36
references: 3077113
references: Popul Dev Rev. 2008 Jun 1;34(2):253-281
references: 21562612
references: Demography. 1996 Feb;33(1):1-11
references: 8690134