Social Network Analysis—Identifying Women’s Socio-Political Roles

Strategic marriages were a key alliance formation tactic throughout the early modern world, and Algeria was no exception. Therefore, this chapter examines local women’s roles in Ottoman-Algerian society and politics. Through text mining to identify both named and unnamed individuals and data visualization to illustrate their relationships, unnamed women appear in the socio-political network despite their absence in the archival record. Quantitative measures of the social network reveal women’s positions within the structure of Ottoman-Algerian society. Analyzing individual lives, relationships, and the underlying structures that made up the Ottoman-Algerian network in Constantine between 1567 and 1837, highlights the ways in which Algerian women were essential intercultural mediators and conduits to power.