Martin Stark & Michael Kronenwett

Visualising Transnational Networks: Connecting History and Space with VennMaker

Martin Stark & Michael Kronenwett (University of Trier & Hamburg)

The aim of this workshop is to demonstrate how a visual network research approach can support and enhance research in transnational, global and spatial history. The digital tool for this workshop will be the software VennMaker. This software supports the triangulation of qualitative, participatory and quantitative methods and can be used as a heuristic tool to back up the historical research process. VennMaker was developed by a trans-disciplinary team, including historians and geographers. The software aims to make the process of coding, visualizing and analyzing social networks simpler and faster. While traditional software requires users to enter relational data in a database before they are able to produce network visualization, VennMaker generates this data while the researcher draws nodes and creates a network map. Prefabricated data matrices are thus no longer necessary. In this way, the program inverts the process of data collection and can easily be used by historians and other scholars lacking training in the social sciences. Special features of VennMaker allow the visual exploration and analysis of spatial patterns, e.g. via expressing geographical distances by concentric circles, using digital maps to underlay the network visualisations or by adding historical maps from external sources. This workshop is appropriate for 90 or 120 minutes. There are no prerequisite skill requirements for participation. The participants should bring their own laptop with the latest java version, the software will be provided. The participants will learn how to use the software VennMaker (http://www.vennmaker.com) to perform a visual orientated research on spatial networks.

Biographical note

Martin Stark received his Magister Artium in Social- and Economic History in 2003 at the University of Hamburg. From 2005-2011 he was junior researcher at the research cluster “Societal Dependencies and Social Networks” at the University of Trier. In July 2012 he finished his dissertation on “Social embeddedness of a rural credit market in the 19th Century”. Since August 2012 he´s working as the scientific coordinator for a research initiative on “Networkdynamics and Networked Governance” at the University of Hamburg. He is one of the main developers of the Software VennMaker.

Michael Kronenwett was from 2008 – 2013 a research assistant at the research cluster “Societal Dependencies and Social Networks” at the University of Trier. Since 2014 he is a research assistant at the Research Centre for Europe at the University of Trier and the coordinator for the VennMaker Hist plugin development. He is also one of the main developers of the Software VennMaker.

VennMaker (http://www.vennmaker.com/en/ 80€) – network mapping software