Paper short abstract:

I draw on two fieldwork experiences in Accra, Ghana, in 2022 and 2024/5, where I used social network mapping as a central tool. My contribution discusses my reflections on the approach, the shift in how I conducted the method from my first to my second research project, and what induced it.

Paper long abstract:

Generating social relationship maps is a valuable tool within qualitative and quantitative social network analysis alike. However, the approach differs depending on the utilisation of the data. I am drawing on two points of fieldwork in Accra, Ghana. First, I co-generated network maps with a group of young head-porters in 2022 intending to utilise the maps as a visualisation tool to capture their combined network embeddedness. Throughout my PhD fieldwork in 2024 and 2025, I worked with tomato traders and noticed how my approach gradually changed based on an increasing discomfort towards the rigidity of my initial understanding of the method.

Instead of trying to generate a complete map of the relationship system amongst the traders and along the value chain I became more intentional with having the participants take the lead in what the maps may look like. This came about with an increasing awareness of the dynamic nature of social networks, which cannot merely be captured by one static combination of ego networks at a certain point in time. I was able to free myself from the pre-defined form that would be necessary to visualise it.

My contribution, therefore, discusses the different ways of using network mapping with participants as part of ethnographic research. Further, I would like to delve deeper into creative ways to incorporate maps of any shape into research projects and how they can accompany conversation as well as generate a new understanding of social relations.