Articulaciones transfronterizas de la violencia: relatos femeninos en la Triple Frontera del Paraná

Analizamos los relatos de 30 mujeres paraguayas sobre sus experiencias de violencia entre Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) y Foz de Iguazú (Brasil). El objetivo es caracterizar multidimensionalmente estas experiencias y su impacto en la presencia femenina en el espacio público. Presentaremos los debates teóricos sobre el concepto de violencia, estableciendo sus vinculaciones con los mandatos de género y con los territorios fronterizos latinoamericanos. Luego, definiremos la metodología de la investigación, desarrollada a partir del Extended Case Method y de la etnografía multisituada y caracterizaremos el perfil de las entrevistadas. Los apartados cuatro, cinco y seis constituyen la aportación original del artículo: adentran al análisis de los relatos de las mujeres sobre la violencia en Ciudad del Este, en el cruce fronterizo y en Foz de Iguazú. Finalizamos presentando los hallazgos del estudio, mostrando que las estrategias de movilidad femeninas se estructuran a partir del imperativo de sortear las experiencias violentas.

Indians, Blacks and Morochos: Trajectories, Intersectionalities, and Class Frictions in a Neighborhood of Buenos Aires

This book addresses the relationships between stratification and social mobilities in Argentina today, using an ethnographic study on class relations in the San Telmo neighborhood (located in the country’s capital, Buenos Aires). Relying on the extended case method, we narrate Ramiro’s life history. He is a worker who has lived in the neighborhood for forty years, striving to carve out his career through a network of micro- and macrosocial relationships that frame his daily conflicts. We start by synthesizing the debates on class internationally and in Argentina, establishing the study’s initial theoretical frameworks, and describing the methodology used. We then reconstruct Ramiro’s life, starting from his experiences in his home province of Tucumán and narrating his migration to and arrival in Buenos Aires, his settling in San Telmo, his labor insertion, and the class conflicts that he currently experiences. We conclude by presenting a tentative anthropological conceptualization of class.

Extended Case Method (ECM) in Social and Cultural Research

This article aims to introduce the Extended Case Method (ECM) as an approach to qualitative social research. As an approach, the ECM rooted in the ethnography approach in the anthropological tradition and developed in the sociological tradition research. With reference to Michael Buroway (1998) as a developer of ECM and some articles that used ECM as a method, this paper outlines the basic concepts of ECM, their advantages and infirmity, and the application of theories in social research by using ECM. As an extended case, there are four aspects that extend on ECM, namely intervention, processes, structuration, and reconstruction (theory). The advantage of ECM is their four extending. Rather than the infirmity of ECM rooted from their advantage, namely domination, silencing, objectification, and normalization. The use of theory in ECM was carried out from the beginning to the end of the study. Base on their characteristics, ECM very feasible to use to understanding borderless society and ambiguity of case study on research of social science in general, and ethnography especially.

Living Sociology: On Being in the World One Studies

Living sociology refers to the life of sociology, seen as a field of competing scientific research programs. The dynamism of each program requires, on the one hand, engaging internal contradictions and external anomalies and, on the other hand, extended dialogue among the programs themselves. Living sociology also refers to the life of sociologists as they participate in the society they study. My understanding of these two dimensions of reflexive science—the scientific and the hermeneutic—developed through the interaction of teaching and research. I trace the way I learned the extended case method in Zambia and reformulated it through collaborations with students at Berkeley, arriving at the idea of the scientific research program. I show how I tried to contribute to the Marxist research program by wrestling with anomalies that sprung from my experiences working in factories in the United States, Hungary, and Russia. Finally, I describe how teaching social theory led me to Marxist conversations with structural functionalism and with the work of Pierre Bourdieu as well as prefiguring an extended conversation between W.E.B. Du Bois and the sociological canon. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Stakeholder Experiences With Gender Identity Data Capture in Electronic Health Records: Implementation Effectiveness and a Visibility Paradox

Background Advocates have endorsed transgender visibility via gender identity (GI) data capture with the advent of the Affordable Care Act and electronic health record (EHR) requirements. Visibility in data in order to enumerate a population contrasts with ways in which other LGBT and public health scholars have deployed these concepts. Aims The article aims to assess the effectiveness of GI data capture in EHRs and implications for trans health care quality improvements and research. Method Semistructured interviews were conducted with 27 stakeholders from prominent gender-affirming care providers across the United States. A range of informants shared their experiences with GI data capture. Interviews were coded, themes were identified, and the extended case method was used to contextualize data in relation to key concepts. Results Data capture is effective for increasing patient counts and making quality improvements but limited in terms of enhancing gender-affirming care depending on provider size, type, and competencies. Many challenges were highlighted regarding use of GI data for research, sharing GI data across systems, as well the ways data capture erases the dynamism of GI. These issues create conditions for limited kinds of disclosure, capture of particular categories, and care and treatment barriers. Discussion Stakeholders exposed a visibility paradox emerging from GI data capture. While data fields are created to increase the visibility of trans persons in medical settings and in health research, they work to increase the visibility of some while reducing the visibility of other gender diverse persons, including trans, nonbinary, and cisgender. Conclusion New approaches are needed to explore implications of GI data standardization and the logics of health care in the face of gender expansiveness.

The paradox of community involvement: rebuilding Minamisanriku

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers to community participation in post-disaster reconstruction in Minamisanriku, Japan.Design/methodology/approachThis paper utilizes the extended case method. 31 in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with local residents as well as 15 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with professionals working on reconstruction efforts. Multiple site visits were made to conduct participant observation and ethnographic research. The data from these interviews and fieldwork were triangulated with archival research.FindingsThe results from this research show that at least six major barriers to community participation in post-disaster reconstruction were present in Minamisanriku. These barriers were: predetermined tsunami risk levels, a disaster reconstruction menu, existing patterns of government, construction of seawalls, an existing lack of participation and administrative mergers. These barriers were not a product of the disaster event itself, but rather of the pre-existing conditions in Minamisanriku, and Japan in general.Originality/valueThis study pinpoints the actually existing barriers to the worldwide call for participatory measures and community involvement in post-disaster reconstruction.

Narrar la Jornada. Aplicaciones de la Metodología de Caso Extendido en una etnografía sobre territorios fronterizos

El artículo aborda la propuesta narrativa etnográfica del Extended Case Method (Método de Caso Extendido) desarrollada por Max Gluckman. Tras discutir los lineamientos teóricos de esta propuesta, presento un ejemplo de su aplicación en el valle de Azapa (Arica, Chile). Para ello, describiré el contexto y desarrollaré la narración extensa de una jornada vivida en este valle, recuperando los encuentros con cinco actores sociales que allí habitan. Finalizo identificando los nudos analíticos que emergen de la jornada, discutiendo las configuraciones locales de las fronteras identitarias.

Fostering Civil Society Through Community Empowerment: An Extended Case of the Sichuan Earthquake in China

How nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) enhance civil society development in China is underresearched while the extant literature centers on the government–NGO relationship. Applying the extended case method, this study explores how an NGO-facilitated community reconstruction program followed the community empowerment approach to foster local civil society in the wake of the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. We argue that community reconstruction opened space for NGOs to nurture public spheres and residents’ civic engagement, foster community organizing, and support community participation in local governance. The dynamics reveals the functioning and limitations of the community empowerment approach for civil society development in contemporary China.

Critical Realism and Contrastive Ethnography

Though critical realism has been featured in sociological debates about the philosophy of science, its relevance to methodological considerations, and especially to ethnographic scholarship, is quite limited. This chapter combines an extended case method approach to ethnography with a critical realist approach to comparison. Critical realism augments ethnographic comparison in two ways: 1) by showing that one can compare across both events and causal mechanisms due to ontological stratification; and 2) by considering the conjunctural and contingent nature of causality. However, critical realism’s emphasis on causality is also complicated by ethnographic research, which sheds light on the mutual causal relationship between structures and actors. This chapter, therefore, considers what critical realism has to offer ethnography and what ethnography, in turn, offers critical realism. It does so by comparing the experiences and beliefs of Somali refugee communities in Minneapolis and Toronto, who are contending with high rates of autism spectrum disorder and have forged epistemic communities united around an etiology, ontology, and treatment protocol that challenges mainstream science.

Beyond the Case

The social sciences have seen a substantial increase in comparative and multisited ethnographic projects over the last three decades, yet field research often remains associated with small-scale, in-depth, and singular case studies. The growth of comparative ethnography underscores the need to carefully consider the process, logics, and consequences of comparison. This need is intensified by the fact that ethnography has long encompassed a wide range of traditions with different approaches toward comparative social science. At present, researchers seeking to design comparative field projects have many studies to emulate but few scholarly works detailing the process of comparison in divergent ethnographic approaches. Beyond the Case addresses this by showing how practitioners in contemporary iterations of traditions such as phenomenology, the extended case method, grounded theory, positivism, and interpretivism approach this in their works. It connects the long history of comparative (and anti-comparative) ethnographic approaches to their contemporary uses. Each chapter allows influential scholars to 1) unpack the methodological logics that shape how they use comparison; 2) connect these precepts to the concrete techniques they employ; and 3) articulate the utility of their approach. By honing in on how ethnographers render sites or cases analytically commensurable and comparable, these contributions offer a new lens for examining the assumptions, payoffs, and potential drawbacks of different forms of comparative ethnography. Beyond the Case provides a resource that allows both new and experienced ethnographers to critically evaluate the intellectual merits of various approaches and to strengthen their own research in the process.