The Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) is proud to welcome award-winning sociologist Mario Luis Small, expert on personal networks, social inequality, urban poverty, and field methods.

In his lecture, Small argues that the speed, breadth, and low cost with which large-scale data can be acquired promise a dramatic transformation in the questions we can answer, but this promise can be undercut by size-induced blindness, the tendency to ignore important limitations amidst a source with billions of data points. The likely consequences for what we know about the social world remain unclear.

Drinks & snacks afterwards from 17:00 to 18:00 in the CREA Music Hall.

About Mario Luis Small

Mario L. Small, Ph.D. is Quetelet Professor of Social Science in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. An elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, Small has published award-winning articles and books on social inequality, urban poverty, social networks, and the relationship between quantitative and qualitative methods.

His recent books include Someone To Talk To: How Networks Matter in Practice and Qualitative Literacy: A Guide to Evaluating Ethnographic and Interview Research.

Small is currently studying the relationship between networks and decision-making, the role of qualitative inquiry in cumulative social science, and the precursors of race differences in use of alternative financial services.