{"id":6859,"date":"2007-12-01T15:30:38","date_gmt":"2007-12-01T15:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/01\/relation-and-as\/"},"modified":"2007-12-01T15:30:38","modified_gmt":"2007-12-01T15:30:38","slug":"relation-and-as","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/01\/relation-and-as\/","title":{"rendered":"Relation and Association"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

Aha! I catch myself being loose with these terms (and<\/i> two or three
\nothers). What is the difference between relation and association? Are they
\nequivalent? Synonymous?<\/p>\n

These are connective devices, right? They indicate a tie that can be
\nexpressed, though perhaps this is not always so for association. They do
\nnot seem to me equal in this job they do of indicating ties. Relation, as in
\nrelation-ship, is describable, identifiable, and perhaps even compulsory (cannot
\nopt out; the evidentiary ground is too firm). Association, as I think of
\nit, tends to be breezier and more speculative. Association meanders;
\nrelation takes the shortest available route. Association nods in assent;
\nrelation points its index finger. Association is spherical, maybe even
\nelliptical, curvy; relation linear by comparison. Association is possible<\/i>
\nand sometimes roundabout; relation is direct and existent, meaning it plots a
\ndifferent ontology. Relation is verifiable; association is a degree
\nremoved, hazy and faint (not equally observable; therefore, refutable,
\nenigmatic). The two terms begin to have a pact something like connotation and
\ndenotation.<\/p>\n

Could all of this be flipped around? Reversed? Well, maybe (try it and
\nyou will see whether anything happens). Yet association has become much more
\ntheoretically important for me in the past year. With Latour’s Reassembling<\/i>
\nit is the activation (and verbing) of the social that manifests in networks, and
\nso association gives off sparks, emits a different energy than it once did
\n(first in algebra, with the associative property). Every encounter with "social"
\nis interrupted with this: associative how?<\/i> The "social turn" is, when
\nmatched with network studies, an "associative turn," which, in effect, is an
\nexpansive turn outward. What are "social networks" if we take association for
\ngranted or treat it as a given?<\/p>\n

This does not quite make the point I thought it might make when I first typed
\n"Relation and Association." The point: these two have diverged (I hedge,
\nhesitate; I am also asking). I should add that I have been thinking lately about
\nvocabulary, about "speaking the same language" in the sense that Raymond
\nWilliams mentions it early in his introduction to Keywords<\/i>:<\/p>\n

"When we come to say ‘we just don’t speak the same language’ we mean
\n\tsomething more general: that we have different immediate values or different
\n\tkinds of valuation, or that we are aware, often intangibly, of different
\n\tformations and distributions of energy and interest" (11).\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>Aha! I catch myself being loose with these terms (and two or three others). What is the difference between relation and association? Are they equivalent? Synonymous? These are connective devices, right? They indicate a tie that can be expressed, though perhaps this is not always so for association. They do not seem to me equal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[169],"tags":[706,489,257,1954,1955,230],"class_list":["post-6859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-networkacy","tag-association","tag-latour","tag-networks","tag-relation","tag-sense","tag-williams"],"yoast_head":"\nRelation and Association - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/01\/relation-and-as\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Relation and Association - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: 2 minsAha! 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