Beyond the Case The Logics and Practices of Comparative Ethnography

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.

Corey M. Abramson is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona. His most recent comparative ethnography on this topic is The End Game: How Inequality Shapes Our Final Years.

Neil Gong is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, and currently a Junior Fellow at the University of Michigan Society of Fellows.

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