Mapping Cultural Diversity through Personal Networks

The measurement of cultural diversity can be classified into three different approaches: ethnographic, cross-cultural surveys, and social media analysis.
The ethnographic approach offers a comprehensive, bottom-up perspective on a group's culture by immersing the ethnographer in their everyday life for extended periods of fieldwork. Detailed ethnographies have been compiled since 1949 and are stored by the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF, https://hraf.yale.edu). HRAF staff have coded these ethnographies making it possible to conduct cross-cultural data analysis and test fundamental questions about cultural similarities and differences. HRAF also makes it possible to compare cultures across different regions by searching for relevant excerpts that meet specific queries, such as examples of polyandric marriage and land inheritance rules. This approach helps identify transcultural associations and patterns (Murdock, 1940).