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SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH and RECEPTION: ‘Someone to Talk to’ – ‘Lonelin
 ess\, social isolation and public policy’. - Mario Luis Small\, Harvard 
 University
DTSTART:20181105T173000Z
DTEND:20181105T190000Z
UID:TALK114574@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Adam Coutts
DESCRIPTION:Tuesday 6th November 2018 | 5.30pm | Seminar Room 4\, Judge Bu
 siness School\, Simon Sainsbury Centre\n\nProfessor Mario Luis Small (Harv
 ard University\, Department of Sociology)\n\nChair: Professor Michael Wool
 cock is Lead Social Scientist with the World Bank's Development Research G
 roup\, and a (part-time) Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University's
  Kennedy School of Government\n\nMario L. Small\, Ph.D.\, Grafstein Family
  Professor at Harvard University\, is the author of award-winning books an
 d articles on networks\, poverty\, organizations\, culture\, methods\, nei
 ghborhoods\, institutions\, and other topics. He is currently using large-
 scale administrative data to understand isolation in cities\, studying how
  people use their networks to meet their needs\, and exploring the epistem
 ological foundations of qualitative research. His latest book is Someone T
 o Talk To (Oxford). A study of how people decide whom to approach when see
 king support\, the book is an inquiry into human nature\, a critique of ne
 twork analysis\, and a discourse on the role of qualitative research in th
 e big-data era.\n\nomeone to Talk to: Overview\n\nWhen people are facing d
 ifficulties\, they often feel the need for a confidant-a person to vent to
  or a sympathetic ear with whom to talk things through. How do they decide
  on whom to rely? In theory\, the answer seems obvious: if the matter is p
 ersonal\, they will turn to a spouse\, a family member\, or someone close.
  In practice\, what people actually do often belies these expectations. In
  Someone To Talk To\, Mario L. Small follows a group of graduate students 
 as they cope with stress\, overwork\, self-doubt\, failure\, relationships
 \, children\, health care\, and poverty. He unravels how they decide whom 
 to turn to for support. And he then confirms his findings based on represe
 ntative national data on adult Americans. Small shows that rather than con
 sistently rely on their "strong ties\," Americans often take pains to avoi
 d close friends and family\, as these relationships are both complex and f
 raught with expectations. In contrast\, they often confide in "weak ties\,
 " as the need for understanding or empathy trumps their fear of misplaced 
 trust. In fact\, people may find themselves confiding in acquaintances and
  even strangers unexpectedly\, without having reflected on the consequence
 s. Someone To Talk To reveals the often counter-intuitive nature of social
  support\, helping us understand questions as varied as why a doctor may h
 ide her depression from friends\, how a teacher may come out of the closet
  unintentionally\, why people may willingly share with others their strugg
 le to pay the rent\, and why even competitors can be among a person's best
  confidants. Amid a growing wave of big data and large-scale network analy
 sis\, Small returns to the basic questions of who we connect with\, how\, 
 and why\, upending decades of conventional wisdom on how we should think a
 bout and analyze social networks.
LOCATION:simon sainsbury centre seminar room 4
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