Thick Comparison
Reviving the Ethnographic Aspiration
Published on 22. March 2010
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-90-04-18113-7 (ISBN)
Description
We have come a long way from Evans-Pritchard's famous dictum that "there is only one method in social anthropology, the comparative method - and that is impossible." Yet a good 40 years later, qualitative social inquiry still has an uneasy relationship with comparison. This volume sets out "thick comparison" as a means to revive "comparing" as a productive process in ethnographic work: a process that helps to revitalise the articulation work inherent in analytical ethnographies; to vary observer perspectives and point towards "blind spots;" to name and create "new things" and modes of empirical work and to give way to intensified dialogues between data analysis and theorizing.
Contributors are Katrin Amelang, Stefan Beck, Kati Hannken-Illjes, Alexander Kozin, Henriette Langstrup, Joerg Niewoehner, Thomas Scheffer, Robert Schmidt, Estrid Sorensen, and Britt Ross Winthereik.
Contributors are Katrin Amelang, Stefan Beck, Kati Hannken-Illjes, Alexander Kozin, Henriette Langstrup, Joerg Niewoehner, Thomas Scheffer, Robert Schmidt, Estrid Sorensen, and Britt Ross Winthereik.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Laminated cover
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
538 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-04-18113-7 (9789004181137)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Thomas Scheffer, PhD (1995) in Sociology, University of Bielefeld. Scheffer has directed the research group Comparative Micro-Sociology of Criminal Procedures at the Free University Berlin and has recently received a Heisenberg Scholarship to move to the Humboldt University Berlin.
Joerg Niewoehner, PhD (2001) in Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, works and teaches at the Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt University Berlin. His current comparative ethnographic research focuses on cardiovascular prevention practices in the everyday life of research, clinic and general practice.
Joerg Niewoehner, PhD (2001) in Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, works and teaches at the Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt University Berlin. His current comparative ethnographic research focuses on cardiovascular prevention practices in the everyday life of research, clinic and general practice.
Content
Foreword
Notes on Contributors
Introduction - Thickening Comparison: On the Multiple Facets of Comparability, Joerg Niewoehner & Thomas Scheffer
1. Comparability on Shifting Grounds: How Legal Ethnography differs from Comparative Law, Thomas Scheffer
2. Producing Multi-sited Comparability, Estrid Sorensen
3. Re-describing Social Practices: Comparison as Analytical and Explorative Tool, Robert Schmidt
4. Producing Alternative Objects of Comparison in Healthcare: Following a Web-based Technology for Asthma Treatment through the Lab and the Clinic, Henriette Langstrup & Brit Ross Winthereik
5. Contrasts and Comparisons: Three Practices of Forensic Investigations, Amade M'charek
6. Comparison in the Wild and more Disciplined Usages of an Epistemic Practice, Katrin Amelang & Stefan Beck
7. Making a Comparative Object, Kati Hannken-Illjes
8. On Positionality and its Comparability in the Legal Context, Alex Kozin
Index
Notes on Contributors
Introduction - Thickening Comparison: On the Multiple Facets of Comparability, Joerg Niewoehner & Thomas Scheffer
1. Comparability on Shifting Grounds: How Legal Ethnography differs from Comparative Law, Thomas Scheffer
2. Producing Multi-sited Comparability, Estrid Sorensen
3. Re-describing Social Practices: Comparison as Analytical and Explorative Tool, Robert Schmidt
4. Producing Alternative Objects of Comparison in Healthcare: Following a Web-based Technology for Asthma Treatment through the Lab and the Clinic, Henriette Langstrup & Brit Ross Winthereik
5. Contrasts and Comparisons: Three Practices of Forensic Investigations, Amade M'charek
6. Comparison in the Wild and more Disciplined Usages of an Epistemic Practice, Katrin Amelang & Stefan Beck
7. Making a Comparative Object, Kati Hannken-Illjes
8. On Positionality and its Comparability in the Legal Context, Alex Kozin
Index