ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces Harrison White's relational sociology as a radically non-essentialist and communication centered analytic framework that can help to overcome four biases and allow for a revision of organization-stakeholder-relationships and network dynamics in public relations research. These biases are essentialist bias, instrumental bias, affirmative bias, and dyadic bias. The chapter outlines the evolution, analytic framework, core concepts, and criticism of White's sociology. White analytically distinguishes five senses of identity. The first sense, footing, represents attempts to find relational positioning in an unknown context. The second sense, face, describes the social dynamics that lead to relational order and shared identity on the network level. The third sense, switching, describes the traces that identities leave when changing relational contexts. The fourth sense, interpretation, refers to self-descriptions of identities observing and prospecting their own traces of switching. Ultimately, the fifth sense, style, describes an amalgam of the first four senses of identity.
