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From an “Impossible” Translation to an Ontological Essay Cover

From an “Impossible” Translation to an Ontological Essay

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|May 2025

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From an “Impossible” Translation to an Ontological Essay

In 1997, I defended a “habilitation à diriger des recherches,” a kind of second thesis that, in the French academic system, allows one to apply for positions as a professor or a research director. Alain Degenne, who was a member of the committee, felt that, for some of the questions I was tackling, I could benefit greatly from an in-depth reading of Harrison White’s works, and of “Identity and Control” in particular. I followed his advice, met Harrison in 1998, and immersed myself in his writings. As Alain predicted, this helped me a great deal. Even if I didn’t feel that I understood everything (and I still don’t), I was seduced by his overall vision of the social world. It seemed to me that his concepts made it possible to avoid the reductionism of individualist theories, the often too rigid character of more holistic approaches, and to combine a processual vision like that of interactionist approaches with an analysis of structures. The book I ended up publishing based on my habilitation dissertation (“Sociologie de l’imprévisible,” Presses Universitaires de France, 2004) incorporates some of Harrison’s ideas, particularly on the question of decoupling.

Translation

It then struck me that it might be useful to translate Harrison’s book into French in a reworked version to make it easier to read. I contacted Harrison, and we were able to benefit from a regional “Chair of Excellence” funding program so that he could come and spend several months in Toulouse over several years.

I also knew that I was embarking on a perilous enterprise. Indeed, translating a text by Harrison poses very specific problems that go far beyond the differences between English and French. When I mentioned my plans to translate Identity and Control to colleagues who were familiar with the book, many of them suggested that I “get it translated into English first.” Indeed, Harrison’s highly abstract style, sometimes closer to mathematical statements than to ordinary language, the fact that he uses unusual terms and the often allusive nature of his developments make reading his book very difficult. He was aware of all of these, not least because close collaborators (Scott Boorman, in particular) had suggested clarifications. He therefore undertook both to recast his text, with the help of various collaborators, and to work with me on the French version.

But he still had quite a few difficulties, and one morning he suggested that I co-write the book. I refused, considering that it was his work and that I could only help him clarify certain aspects of it. I also had some minor theoretical differences with him. While I was convinced by his developments on identities and shared his criticism of individualist approaches, I felt it was necessary to keep a category for human individuals, even if it is not essential to include a theory of action. I also fully understood his desire to move away from notions such as the group, but thought it necessary to have a category for persons sharing resources and creating boundaries, however porous, fluctuating, and disputed. On this subject, I recall a discussion with him on the physicists’ notion of the membrane. Finally, I had read the work of Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, and others in the same vein and thought it necessary to be able to conceptualize nonhuman entities (objects, animals, elements of language, etc.). So, it was a very pleasant and fruitful dialogue, but it could not have led to joint writing.

At the end of 2005, I began translating the chapters of the new version that were already available. But Harrison was constantly changing his text. He frequently moved a sentence from one section to another, or even from one chapter to another. Each sentence, or at least some of them, seemed to function as an autonomous mathematical proposition. As a result, the translation did not progress very quickly. Fortunately, in 2006, I met Frédéric Godart, then a PhD student at Columbia University, who had co-authored an article with Harrison. I asked him to join me in the translation and was fortunate enough to have him accept. The book was eventually published by Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

In France, the book had a certain resonance with the sociologists most interested in the theory and introduced Harrison as a major theorist to persons unfamiliar with his work. In fact, the book is one of the 101 reference books chosen by Cyrile Lemieux to form a kind of ideal social science library. (1)

In 2007, Harrison was awarded an Honoris Causa doctorate from the Université de Toulouse le Mirail, and in September 2008, he took part in the first French-speaking summer school on social networks, in Cargèse, Corsica.

Ontology

The work on Identity and Control confirmed my interest in ontologies. In fact, Harrison’s book is much more of an ontology than a theory. I, therefore, set out to develop an ontology for the social sciences, making choices that were in some respects close to Harrison’s (focus on emerging social forms, distance from individualist approaches as well as from theories presenting a fixed and determining social structure), but I retained the few divergences made explicit above and sought more common terms and maximum compatibility with the most common ontologies. My aim was not to create a new paradigm, but rather to integrate the contributions of network analysis and certain ideas of Harrison and other authors in this community into the general corpus of the social sciences. The result was published in French in 2022 (Matière Sociale. Esquisse d’une ontologie pour les sciences sociales, Hermann) and the English version is in press as I write. My book begins with a quotation from Harrison on social organization and incorporates along the way many developments inspired by his work, on the three forms of uncertainty (contingency, ambiguity, and ambage), on disciplines, and on markets. I was mainly inspired by his “emergentist” conception of social forms, particularly his concept of decoupling, which complements that of embedding. But I’ve obviously reinterpreted his ideas to integrate them into my own conceptual framework, which has many other sources. The influence is therefore important, but not overwhelming, and that is what makes his book so valuable.

A Memorable Encounter

I’m very happy to have helped introduce Harrison’s work to French speakers, but I’m even happier to have spent several years with the person (and some of his identities from that period). In addition to all the friends on our research team, he met my family (I even once asked him to help one of my sons work on his English, which made Barry Wellman laugh out loud when I told him this anecdote), and I showed him around the city and the region. Despite my limited English (which has not improved much since), we understood each other very well, so much so that often I’d barely start a sentence before he’d finish it, and the same would happen the other way round. And we laughed a lot during those years. While I had a high regard for his work, of course, I think I was most impressed by his person and his intelligence. I have met many talented social scientists, but beyond the prejudices we may have about this type of label, which is very difficult to define, Harrison is one of the few for whom the word “genius” came to mind.

Cyril Lemieux (dir.), Pour les sciences sociales. 101 livres, Paris, EHESS, coll. « En temps et lieux », 2017.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/connections-2019.046 | Journal eISSN: 2816-4245 | Journal ISSN: 0226-1766
Language: English
Page range: 34 - 35
Published on: May 30, 2025
Published by: International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA)
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 1 times per year

© 2025 Michel Grossetti, published by International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA)
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.