White, Harrison

Harrison Colyar White (b. 1930), American sociologist, structuralist thinker, network phenomenologist, and mathematical modeler, contributes theory, models, and [Page 885]conceptualization that focus on concrete, interconnected sets of actors beyond the level of the individual person or group but below the level of total cultures or societies. Having earned doctorates in theoretical physics (at MIT) and in sociology (at Princeton), White addresses problems of social structure that cut across the range of the social sciences. Most notably, he has contributed (1) theories of role structures encompassing classificatory kinship systems of native Australian peoples and institutions of the contemporary West; (2) models based on equivalences of actors across networks of multiple types of social relation; (3) theorization of social mobility in systems of organizations; (4) a structural ...