Identity and Control

In this completely revised edition of one of the foundational texts of network sociology, Harrison White refines and enlarges his theory of how social structure and culture emerge from the chaos and uncertainty of social life.

Incorporating new contributions from a group of young sociologists and many fascinating and novel case studies, Identity and Control is the only major book of social theory that links social structure with the lived experience of individuals, providing a rich perspective on the kinds of social formations that develop in the process. Going beyond traditional sociological dichotomies such as agency/structure, individual/society, or micro/macro, Identity and Control presents a toolbox of concepts that will be useful to a wide range of social scientists, as well as those working in public policy, management, or associational life and, beyond, to any reader who is interested in understanding the dynamics of social life.

WHITE, Harrison C., 2008. Identity and control: how social formations emerge. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13714-8.

FROM STUDIES of sociocultural process of interest this book distills and integrates analytic themes. “Of interest”? To whom? Use “Observer” as placeholder for the great variety of perceivers (personal or not) who may, singly or jointly, figure in and/or influence and/or unobtrusively observe:

What is going on here?

What matters, to whom?

For each ongoing sociocultural situation some implied searchlights from the different chapters of this book give us cues. We work outward from situations rather than impose boundaries.

The data-mining of Quentin Van Doosselaere (2006) will suggest how, over two centuries, a capitalist trade economy spun out in networks around medieval Genoa. And closer to home, on a smaller scale, we’ll watch Andrew Abbott (1999) tease out (as analyst, as observer, and also as participant) how a department and discipline emerged, in decades of orientings and dealings and commitments, as a robust cloud of common sensibility—the “style” discussed in chapter 4 – around a scholarly journal nested in the University of Chicago. Other studies and observation suggest that similar portrayals and themes can also apply for much smaller scopes in sociocultural time and space. Altogether, chapters 1–6 offer six distinct viewpoints (or takes or humors or framings) on sociocultural process. Metaphorically, these are “takes” on us as schools of fish in a vast river, with tributaries and shoals and yet also some great depths.