Abstract:
In this paper, I explore the problem of representation and reasoning in social network analysis. Drawing on the work of de Certeau, I detail how quantitative representations of the social currently lack reference to the mundane and tactical aspects of everyday life that leave impressions on the network but are rarely represented by it. I draw on ten years of education social media research, including a current collaboration with a big data analytical team, to explain how I use heuristic approaches to hypothesise about outliers in representations of education networks. In this paper, I specifically consider the changes in meaning that occur when reasoning shifts from the inductive to the abductive.