Family networks and sustainability of power: comparative analysis of two nineteenth-century merchants in Castile and Prussia

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Published 30-01-2015
Jorge Luengo

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze familial networks regarding the strategies for power reproduction. By comparing the familial reconstruction of two merchants, who in the second third of the nineteenth century headed the urban society in Valladolid and Magdeburg, I argue that familial networks are one of the main mechanisms for acquiring and maintaining power. Furthermore, elements such as profession, gender, or geographical origin play a crucial role in this process. In spite of differences in the spatial scope of the network, as well as in the inner cohesion of merchants groups, similarities between the two case studies will be underscored. Structural differences in religion, culture, politics or the economic sphere did not involve a different development of the kin strategies used by local elites.

 
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Keywords

Social networks, kinship, family, bourgeoisie, power

Section
Articles