Harrison White’s Impact on the Field and the Hungarian Sociology, in a Personal Light

I got acquainted with the works of Harrison White sometime at the turn of the eighties and nineties. The year 1995 emerges as a certain date when I delivered a presentation on some issues of the network paradigm at a jubilee conference of the Budapest University of Economics which was then followed by a publication at the Hungarian Review of Sociology. It was on this account that I expressed my view on his distinguished role related to the appearance of Identity and Control (White, 1992) “it may seem to formulate the questions and hypotheses for the sociology of the 21st century” (Tardos, 1996, p. 5). The esoteric style of the author was also noted as an actual barrier to the reception of his ideas. Reading I & C was my day-to-day business at those times, grappling with various enigmatic spots of the whole design to get a clearer sight of the new vistas the work promised for several terrains of social science.

This event of recollection presents, however, a challenge too, to assess the validity of the above prognosis on the relevance of White’s ideas for the social science of our days. On one hand, as far as the scope of his impact may be assessed in terms of scientometric indicators, his positions are no doubt less prevalent than those of master figures of the last century. The feature of indirect impact via his school, nevertheless, especially argues for the radiation of his contributions to sociology, social network analysis, and further fields of social research.

This is not the occasion to detail aspects of White’s works (either with regard to their complexity or their avoidance of any label along the mainstream theoretical currents) having been dealt with by several commentators that could be considered as putting the brakes on his citation “popularity”. I would highlight, however, another feature of his presence in the scientific community as worthy of special attention.

In spite of White’s obvious preoccupation with the originality of his conceptual ideas, he was not only apt to resonate with other streams of thoughts but also got down to deeper scrutiny of related major conceptions of the contemporary field, a rare practice by scholars of his calibre. His approach to the works of Luhmann and Bourdieu, aided by European sociologists (see Godart & White, 2010; White et al., 2007) also had the gain of clarifying some points in White’s terminological apparatus. The edition of the special issue by the Italian journal Sociologica (2008) with his active participation on the genesis and relevance of the pivotal concept of catnet also presented a significant step in putting his ideas more accessible for the larger research field. The symposium organized by Fuhse and Mützel (2010) and the volume in their edition around the focal concept relationality also delivered a substantial service in gathering those receptive to the new current with a cultural edge.

These developments have certainly affected the issue of age-old criticism regarding the theoretical deficit of the social network approach beyond its methodological achievements. These arguments have lost much of their validity at least from the appearance of White’s grand works, especially the two versions of Identity and Control (1992, 2008). Some topics high on the agenda of embedded social research such as class and stratification, or historical-evolutionary perspectives have also obtained new perspectives from the background of an extended network approach. White’s ideas, from the topic of pecking orders to his multistranded style concept, or the focus of getting action versus blocking it, have doubtless relevance in the latter respects. The consecutive waves of scholarship in the wake of White’s initiatives have exhibited a number of contributions with more immediate implications too, just in a shorthand way, by authors like Breiger or Erickson regarding class boundaries, identification, and mobility, or with respect to historical dynamics by Tilly or Padgett. These lines of thought may take several decades to be put into wider research practice.

Turning to my immediate terrain, the sociological scene in Hungary, White’s impact cannot be considered pervasive but insignificant either. What can be certainly stated, college courses, even the ones including elementary aspects of social network analysis have remained basically untouched by his works. The attention of some leading theoreticians may result in some change. So, Hungarian top scholar of the history of sociological theory, Dénes Némedi initially inspired by Latour’s ideas on science and technology became interested in various aspects of the social network approach in the later stages of his career. He came to discover White’s analogy of Indian castes and units of university organization. When he included a chapter on the social network approach in his comprehensive review of contemporary sociological paradigms, he noted (Némedi, 2008, p. 284) the lack of White’s two books from an influential list of prominent publications in the field (referring thereby to Identity and Control and the early work Anatomy of Kinship for their innovative ideas).

It also occurred in the wake of the second edition of I & C that a special number (2011/75) of the periodical Replika was issued (with Attila V. Varga and Domonkos Sik as editors) aiming to introduce White’s oeuvre for a wider public of social research in Hungary. In translation, it contained the introductory chapter of the magnum opus (White, 2008), the abovementioned studies on Bourdieu and Luhmann, and a highly informative interview with the author as well (White, 2011). ⁽¹⁾ An introduction by Varga (2011) gave a brief account of the main stages of White’s career and conceptual foci with an emphasis on uncertainties and change. But the issue also included a paper by the latter editor Sik (2011), a leading representative of a younger generation of Hungarian sociologists seeking to outline a network-based synthesis, beyond some European classics relying on the initiatives by Harrison White and Latour. Highlighting White’s bottom-up approach to social integration, in later works (so Sik, 2020) he extended this emphasis toward contexts of anxiety and solidarity. Also coming from this generation with a theoretical interest, Viktor Berger (2020) exploits White’s terminology of netdom switching with regard to processes of space constitution with some AI (GPS) applications.

The parallel events of the second edition of I & C and the special issue of Sociologica on catnet gave me a new stimulus to turn to White’s works. A memorial conference devoted to the late Némedi was an occasion when I presented (Tardos, 2011) an outline of his concerns with the network paradigm and contrasted his engagement with White, respectively Latour. In featuring his application of the idea of disciplines I also referred to a typology of knowledge types developed with my long-time colleague and co-author Róbert Angelusz (Angelusz & Tardos 1995). The emphasis on knowledge styles was carried on but added by the catnet concept with a comparative survey on international stereotypes conducted in Hungary and Greece with ELTE Peripato Research Group colleagues Nikos Fokas and Gabor Jelenfi (with adoption of the classical Buchanan—Cantril approach by the employment of a two-mode network methodology).

The formation of stereotypes is a topic with particular potential for insights into the interplay of categorical and network dynamics. With some publications recently issued (the one that appeared in Comparative Sociology, see Fokas et al., 2022, explicitly relies on the catnet approach), I regret not having had the occasion to communicate on this extended application with the originator of the conception. In fact, a personal meeting of ours occurred rather late regarding Harrison White’s active career, during the 2009 CEU Conference on Network Science organized by Balázs Vedres (of interest in these regards, with a doctoral record distinguished by White’s committee participation). In spite of his fame for somewhat rude professional communication, my personal experiences were quite different on that event (during our brief talk that touched on the issue of theoretical ties with European scholarship, he already complained about health problems and commuting among convenient sites on two continents). Actually, he was very cordial when later commenting via email on a study of mine published in those days. Unfortunately from the present angle, the paper on some issues of social capital had been conceived prior to my closer involvement with some of the related conceptual devices. Anyway, I hope, with this commemoration also as a chance, to be a part of the wider diffusion of Harrison White’s ideas in the research community.