Relational and ‘Big Data’ Approaches to Representation in Understanding Illness

This chapter traces a path for the reader through recent historical analyses which use large-scale data sets. The chapter offers a review of studies which have been influenced by ‘big data’ approaches in historical contexts and considers the impact of the availability of digitalised archives and digitalisation on the framing of historical research. The chapter outlines distinctions between big data approaches and those using relational data analysis. The work concluded with a consideration of the usefulness of large-scale data approaches in historical periodical archives, arguing that the project of periodical digitalisation presents the potential for biases in pattern recognition.