Hypergraph Representations: A Study of Carib Attacks on Colonial Forces, 1509-1700

• Main Authors: Termeh Shafie, David Schoch, Jimmy Mans, Corinne Hofman, Ulrik Brandes
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH) 2017-10-01
• Series: Journal of Historical Network Research
• Subjects: network analysis; directed hypergraph; centrality; colonization; caribbean ethnohistory
• Online Access: https://jhnr.uni.lu/index.php/jhnr/article/view/6

Network data consisting of recorded historical events can be represented as hyper-graphs where the ties or events can connect any number of nodes or event related attributes. In this paper, we perform a centrality analysis of a directed hypergraph representing attacks by indigenous peoples from the Lesser Antilles on European colonial settlements, 1509–1700. The results of central attacks with respect to at- tacked colonial force, member of attack alliances, and year and location of attack are discussed and compared to a non-relational exploratory analysis of the data. This comparison points to the importance of a mixed methods approach to enhance the analysis and to obtain a complementary understanding of a network study.