The perspective of the Analysis of Social Networks, also known as structural analysis, is nowadays a space to which various disciplines and intellectual traditions converge, with different theoretical approaches, bringing together authors and institutions with much diversified interests. Considered as a specific methodology for the study of social relations, the paper examines its scope and limits for the analysis of social classes as well as the pertinence of its relation with the Marxist theory. With base on a bibliographic revision and using results of his own empirical researches on bank executives in Latin America, the author argues in favor of a promising path in the relation between the analysis based on the Marxism and the approach of the social networks, especially conceived as a methodology for examining relational data, a tradition so valued by the Marxist conception.
Social network analysis; Social classes; Marxism; Structural analysis; Bank owners in Latin America