In this paper, we develop the idea to partition the edges of a weighted graph
in order to uncover overlapping communities of its nodes. Our approach is based
on the construction of different types of weighted line graphs, i.e. graphs
whose nodes are the links of the original graph, that encapsulate differently
the relations between the edges. Weighted line graphs are argued to provide an
alternative, valuable representation of the system's topology, and are shown to
have important applications in community detection, as the usual node partition
of a line graph naturally leads to an edge partition of the original graph.
This identification allows us to use traditional partitioning methods in order
to address the long-standing problem of the detection of overlapping
communities. We apply it to the analysis of different social and geographical
networks.