The Extended Case Method

Burawoy, Michael. 2009. The Extended Case Method. Four Countries, Four Decades, Four Great Transformations. Berkeley: University of California Press. 338 pp. Pb.: $21.95 / £14.95. ISBN: 9780520259010. This book’s central argument is to demonstrate the symbiotic relationship between knowledge production and methodology in sociological research. It is articulated through Prof. Burawoy’s reflections on his 40-year career as a social researcher and as a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley. Each chapter deals with a particular methodology that he has deployed during his career. The ‘extended case method’ is exemplified by his examination of changing race relations in Zambia after independence. The ‘ethnographic revisit’ is examined through various cases, but it is exemplified more clearly by the author’s comparative findings of worker/management relations in a factory in the USA. The ‘research program vs. induction’ is assessed by comparing the explanatory theories of the Soviet revolution of Trotsky and Skocpol. Finally, the ‘multicase ethnography’ is examined by looking at the collapse of socialism in the USSR and in Hungary. Burawoy’s intention is to promote the ‘extended case method’ as a methodology for understanding the connections between micro/ethnographic events with macro/historical processes. The basic tenements of the extended case method rest on the methodological principles of writing a reflexive ethnography, based on participant observation, in order to establish relational connections between quotidian events and global processes. In its ideal form, the researcher brings into the field a theoretical tradition that is self-consciously deployed and, through an inter-subjective contact with informants, the theory is elaborated and taken in new directions. Early in the book, Burawoy references Max Weber’s call for bringing methodology to the level of “explicit consciousness”, where the sociologist is self-consciously aware of the lenses that are being used to bring the world into focus. Burawoy also references Polanyi’s suggestion that the capacity to assess the social world consistently and ethically is preconditioned by the need to be aware of one’s ‘tacit skills’ and ‘personal knowledge’, which ultimately stems from ‘dwelling in’ a research tradition. This kind of language suggests the inevitable conflation between methodology, researcher’s subjectivity, and knowledge production. In this sense, methodology is not understood as a technical process, but more as a conceptual tool - a way of collecting and thinking through data. Some recurrent themes in Burawoy’s methodological reflections revolve around questions of participation vs. observation (degree of engagement in the context), local vs. global, the location and role of theory in the research process (ie. deduction vs. induction), the uses and abuses of multi-sited ethnography, and the functional role of social science in society. Burawoy’s writing further suggests two opposing methodological paradigms – qualitative/reflexive/subjective vs. quantitative/positive/objective –, which the social scientists must confront and recognise the gap they represent. In each chapter, Burawoy offers clear typologies – relying to tables to illustrate his point – of how he negotiated these paradoxes in his own research. Burawoy’s proposal may seem familiar to a readership that is knowledgeable of the general issues and concepts that have characterised methodology debates in anthropology for the past 20 years. Nevertheless, Burawoy acknowledges the anthropological pedigree of the term that he bases his book on by referencing the Manchester School of Anthropology - where the term ‘extended case method’ was first coined and disseminated. Yet, at times I felt that the tidy tables and binaries used to illustrate the complexities of fieldwork, sweep away the messier, disorienting, and the more anthropologically interesting side of the inter-subjective encounter. If the methodological discussions may seem too tidy (they can also be characterised as elegant depending on the persuasion of the reader), I found the ethnographic examples and theoretical debates fascinating. Burawoy has a capacity to address complex social transformations and paradigm shifts with clarity and elegance, free of cant and technicalities. His arguments seem to be the product of caring about people and paying attention to what it is that they actually do, rather than have people’s agency narrativized by broad sociological theories. On this level, I found the book extremely engaging and would enthusiastically recommend chapters to undergraduate students that are writing dissertations and essays on revolutionary processes. However, it can be argued that Burawoy’s depth of analysis comes out of his sophistication as a scientist in tune with the major debates in history and sociology rather than of the virtues of the methodology he is advocating. His argument for theoretical self-awareness made me wonder to what degree can sociologists be genuinely aware of the subjectivities that carry their research. To be aware of one’s theoretical baggage strikes as superficial when there are deeper subjectivities involved in participant observation. For example, Burawoy chose to be hired as a machinist in the factories where he did fieldwork. However, he does not delve into what kind of specific insights he expected to gain by working on the factory floors, other than gaining access to his informants. It seems to me that working in the factory is not the only way to participate or to gain access to informants. It would seem to me that the type of knowledge one would derive from learning how to work a factory machine would be more corporeal rather than political and historical. In general, I failed to see the connection between operating a machine and understanding the transformations of Hungarian socialism. If knowledge and method were genuinely folded into each other, then one would expect the ethnographic account to speak directly to the methodology. This brings me to my central question regarding the argument of the book. I did not get a sense of the inextricable link between methodology and theory that I interpreted to be sign-posted in the first chapters. After finishing the book, I still got a sense that methodology stands as a conceptual tool for the generation of knowledge rather than being part of the knowledge itself. It seemed to me that in Burawoy’s narratives there was more of a dialectical relationship between theory and method, which did not always fit neatly with claims regarding their seamless union. I was also struck by possible inconsistencies concerning the use of specific binary typologies. Granted that Prof. Burawoy uses solid typologies for the sake of clarity and consistency, there are some lingering issues left unresolved for me. For example, I was particularly interested in the effects of the drawing of strict binaries such as subjective/objective, participate/observe, reflexive/positive, and induction/deduction as if they were mutually exclusive. In practice and in Burawoy’s narrative, the relationship between these typologies seemed more complex and interactive. My concern may strike as a post-modern, perhaps naïve, stance that embraces the open-ended complexities of fieldwork as positive. Nevertheless, in the spirit of academic argument, I would like to suggest that during the actual research process, particularly when participant observation and ethnographic writing are involved, binaries such as these are moot. These are paradoxes that anthropologists anguish over as part of the enterprise of understanding the social world and are not necessarily sought to be resolved. The task, it seems to me, is to be aware of such paradoxes and confront them in the spirit of articulating an ethical, convincing, and believable narrative. The final chapter suggests a further global transformation that is well sector. The success of grassroots political movements coupled with the profit sector suggests novel ways of democratisation and production of that sociology should not conform itself to merely understanding under way – the third growth of the non-forvalue. Burawoy argues the complexities and reconfigurations of power relations that movements such as experimental cooperativism suggest. He emphasises that sociologists should take an active role in participating in these processes. The book will be of interest for students and researchers looking for conceptual examples of fieldwork methods and want more than the average handbook of social science research methods. The examples are rich and provocative. I found the sociological explanations of global transformations particularly interesting, especially in these days when the economic crisis has provoked a reassessing of old divisions and expectations for capitalism, especially in Eastern Europe. Likewise, the complexities of post-independence Africa still resonate at the turn of the century, with forums such as the G8 and the UN addressing the West’s responsibility towards Africa. Carlo A. Cubero, PhD University of Tallinn