Full Description
The social sciences have seen a substantial increase in comparative and multi-sited ethnographic projects over the last three decades. Yet, at present, researchers seeking to design comparative field projects have few scholarly works detailing how comparison is conducted in divergent ethnographic approaches. In Beyond the Case, Corey M. Abramson and Neil Gong have gathered together several experts in field research to address these issues by showing how practitioners employing contemporary iterations of ethnographic traditions such as phenomenology, grounded theory, positivism, and interpretivism, use comparison in their works. The contributors connect the long history of comparative (and anti-comparative) ethnographic approaches to their contemporary uses. By honing in on how ethnographers render sites, groups, or cases analytically commensurable and comparable, Beyond the Case offers a new lens for examining the assumptions, payoffs, and potential drawbacks of different forms of comparative ethnography.
Contents
Introduction: The Promise, Pitfalls, and Practicalities of Comparative Ethnography
Corey M. Abramson and Neil Gong
Section I: The Evolution of Classic Approaches to Comparison
Chapter 1: Foundations of the Behavioralist Approach to Comparative Participant Observation
Martín Sánchez-Jankowski and Corey M. Abramson
Chapter 2: Conducting Comparative Participant Observation: Behavioralist Procedures and Techniques
Corey M. Abramson and Martín Sánchez-Jankowski
Chapter 3: The Thematic Lens: A Formal and Cultural Framework for Comparative Ethnographic Analysis
Thomas DeGloma and Max Papadantonakis
Chapter 4: Comparative Ethnographic Views of Social Structure: The Challenge of Linking Micro and Macro Levels of Analysis
Aaron V. Cicourel
Section II: New and Existing Critical Approaches to Comparison
Chapter 5: An Ethnography of Comparative Ethnography: Pathways to Three Logics of Comparison
Ching Kwan Lee
Chapter 6: Critical Realism and Contrastive Ethnography: The Curious Case of Autism in Somali Refugee Communities
Claire Laurier Decoteau
Chapter 7: Sequential Comparisons and the Comparative Imagination
Iddo Tavory and Stefan Timmermans
Section III: Contextualizing Comparison
Chapter 8: Using Computational Tools to Enhance Comparative Ethnography: Lessons from Scaling Ethnography for Biomedicine
Daniel Dohan and Alissa Bernstein
Chapter 9: Elite Ethnography: Studying Up Or Down In US And French Sociology
Lynn S. Chancer
Chapter 10: A Dialog With Aaron Cicourel On Comparative Ethnography
Aaron V. Cicourel with Corey M. Abramson
Conclusion: A Comparative Analysis of Comparative Ethnographies
Neil Gong and Corey M. Abramson
