2744226

On Ethnography: Storytelling or Science?
Author(s): Robert Aunger

Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 36, No. 1, Special Issue: Ethnographic Authority and
Cultural Explanation (Feb., 1995), pp. 97-130
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for
Anthropological Research
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CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number I, February I995
? I995 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved OOII-3204/95/360i-0005$2.50
On Ethnography
Storytelling or Science?'
by Robert Aunger
There are two basic analytical approaches in social research. The
first, using formal methods (e.g., standard statistical analysis), ag-
gregates over the attributes of individual cases to determine the
influence of abstract effects on events. This approach, which re-
sults in correlations between variables, is unable to provide ade-
quate causal explanations for what happens in particular cases.
The interpretive or narrative approach, in contrast, aggregates
over events to trace the causal development of a single case. This
type of analysis cannot be made reflexive (i.e., cannot account ex-
plicitly for the intersubjective nature of data collection proce-
dures in human studies). Thus each method, by itself, is problem-
atic. There have been a number of attempts to combine the two
approaches in a single theoretical framework. However, because
the constituent approaches are fundamentally different in their
ontological and epistemological stances, the proposed reconcilia-
tions remain forced. This paper outlines a strategy that sequen-
tially utilizes both approaches, preserving their independent and
complementary virtues, while providing formal links that allow
the results of one approach to inform use of the other directly.
It is hoped that practice of this two-step method will dissipate
some of the recent doubts about the value of ethnographic field-
work.
ROBERT AUNGER iS National Institute of Mental Health Postdoc-
toral Fellow in Culture and Mental Health in the Committee on
Human Development, University of Chicago (5730 S. Woodlawn
Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60637, U.S.A.). Born in I955, he was educated
at the University of South Florida (B.A., I976), the University of
Southern California (Master's in Urban Planning, i982), and the
University of California at Los Angeles (Ph.D., i992). He has
been a lecturer in the University of Chicago Department of Psy-
chology. His research interests are cultural evolution, social orga-
nization in preagricultural societies, the anthropology of religion,
cultural psychology, and ethnographic and analytical methods.
Among his publications are "The Nutritional Consequences of
Rejecting Food in the Ituri Forest of Zaire" (Human Ecology 2o:
263-9i), "Sources of Variation in Ethnographic Interview Data:
Food Avoidances in the Ituri Forest, Zaire" (Ethnology 33:65-99),
"Are Food Avoidances Maladaptive in the Ituri Forest of Zaire?"
(Journal of Anthropological Research, in press), and, with Robert
C. Bailey, "Sexuality, Infertility, and Sexually Transmitted Dis-
ease among Farmers and Foragers in Central Africa," in Sexual
Nature/Sexual Culture, edited by Paul R. Abramson and Steven
D. Pinkerton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, in press).
The present paper was submitted in final form i vi 94.
History is the study of, the explanation of, the par-
ticular as it really happened in the past. Social sci-
ence is the statement of the universal set of rules by
which human/social behavior is explained.
This is the famous distinction between idio-
graphic and nomothetic modes of analysis, which
are considered to be antithetical.... Though under-
taken separately, differently and for dissimilar (even
opposing) purposes, it would be fruitful for the
world of scholarship to combine the two modes.
IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN,
"World-Systems Analysis"
A crisis of confidence has recently arisen in ethnogra-
phy. As newer generations of anthropologists have revis-
ited sites studied earlier by other ethnographers, dis-
agreements about the interpretation of particular
cultures have begun to occur. Previously, the authority
of an ethnographic report was assumed to be, and effec-
tively was, inviolate because of the lack of alternative
viewpoints on a particular cultural group. However,
Freeman's (I983) widely publicized attack on the valid-
ity of Mead's (i928) interpretation of Samoan adolescent
sexuality vividly brought to attention the possibility
that different anthropologists could come to opposite
conclusions about the same society.
This recognition has led ethnographers to examine
their methods more closely, subjecting "anthropological
thought itself to ethnographic description and ethnolog-
ical understanding" (Scholte I974:437). In particular, a
school critical of traditional ethnography has begun
looking at ethnographies as texts to determine how
these documents create an "objective" representation of
other lifeways in the minds of readers (for examples, see
Fabian I983, Manganaro I990, Marcus and Fischer I986,
Sanjek I990, van Maanen I988). I will call these critics
"textualists" because most of them draw their inspira-
tion from the hermeneutic tradition of textual criticism
in the humanities. The general upshot of the textualist
critique has been increased attention to the way in
which the ethnographer's field experience is translated
into an ethnographic report and a new degree of aware-
ness about the way in which ethnographies are con-
structed. The textualists have argued that classic ethno-
graphies incorporate linguistic devices that tend to
obscure the uncertain and personal nature of ethno-
graphic statements regarding particular features of social
life or cultural belief in the group under study (e.g., Clif-
ford I983, Geertz I988). Because it is difficult to know
whether ethnographic statements are based on anything
more than personal impressions, many ethnographies
are convincing only to the degree that the ethnographer
has mastered rhetoric (as shown by the fact that the
most respected ethnographers tend to be the best writ-
ers). The textualists argue that once readers are aware
of the use of such linguistic devices, ethnographic au-
thority can no longer be achieved by such methods (Bak-
ker i992:40):
97
i. I thank Robert Bailey, Gillian Bentley, Robert Boyd, Malcoln
Dow, and Richard Shweder for careful readings of an earlier versioi
of the manuscript and Andrew Abbott, Gillian Bentley, Malcoln
Dow, and Anne O'Neill for reading the current one. This researcl
was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the National In
stitute of Mental Health, a National Science Foundation Doctora
Dissertation Improvement Grant, and grants from the Universit,
of California, the Institute for Humane Studies, and Sigma Xi.
98
1
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number i, February 1995
To summarize the problem of anthropological
knowledge[:] ... sociocultural reality presents itself
to the anthropologist in fragmented bits and pieces.
The outcome of fieldwork is very much dependent
on the cooperation of the participants, on many un-
controllable practical factors, and on the personal
qualities of the anthropologist, whose own sociocul-
tural framework substantially screens the knowledge
that he produces. This all implies that the knowl-
edge produced in the field is necessarily incomplete,
distorted, tentative, speculative, and thus essentially
contestable. When put down in writing, this knowl-
edge cannot be separated from the way it is pre-
sented in the text. In light of the absence of "hard"
criteria, a lack of independent information, and a
body of generally accepted anthropological knowl-
edge, this raises the question of to what extent plau-
sibility equals rhetorical and stylistic persuasion.
Many textualists therefore claim that the classic in-
terpretation of ethnographic descriptions as "objective"
representations of other ways of life must be abandoned
altogether (e.g., Marcus I986). How, then, can new gen-
erations of ethnographers report on their studies of other
cultures?
At minimum, it is clear that ethnographers can no
longer obscure whether a statement is a literal, unedited
transcription of an informant's speech, a "free indirect"
translation (Sperber I985) of what an informant said, or
the ethnographer's own opinion. The textualist critics
have suggested that ethnographic materials should
therefore be presented in the form in which they were
elicited. For example, Marcus and Fischer (i986) and Ro-
saldo (I989) advocate an "experimental ethnography"
that juxtaposes in the document autobiographical re-
counting of fieldwork experiences, multiple narrative
voices, transcriptions of historical texts, and so on. Since
the construction of the document reflects the inherently
fragmentary nature of the object it is to represent, this
pastiche of primary materials should jar the reader into
an unconscious acknowledgment of the variable condi-
tions under which such materials have been produced
(e.g., Marcus I986:I68). The ethnographer, having pub-
lished all of this material in relatively undigested form,
leaves readers to come to their own conclusions, prefera-
bly through a sympathetic emotional response inspired
by the experience of reading the ethnography (e.g., Tyler
I986). In effect, the textualists contend that because of
the intrinsically interpersonal nature of all human stud-
ies, a scientific approach to ethnography is impossible
(Clifford and Marcus I986). Is this dire conclusion really
necessary?
I argue that it is not. To bolster this argument, I de-
velop in this paper a rigorous approach to the analysis
of primary ethnographic data.2 Having examined a series
of responses to the textualist critique of "realist" eth-
nography, I argue that a particular two-step approach is
necessary and sufficient to provide a scientific explana-
tion of processes affecting cultural domains.
Reflexivity, Formal Methods,
and Methodological Situationalism
The textualist critique has substance; ethnographers
cannot simply proceed as before. Any response to this
critique which purports to result in a scientific approach
to ethnographic description must therefore meet both
the textualist challenge and the requirements of scien-
tific analysis.
First, we must acknowledge the brunt of the textualist
critique: because of the interpersonal nature of data col-
lection in human studies, ethnographic research must
be reflexive. This somewhat slippery term rose to promi-
nence in the wake of the Freeman/Mead debate over
ethnographic practice, when it was recognized that the
reader's ability to interpret the quality of ethnographic
statements must be increased by clues to the origin and
nature of ethnographic statements provided in the eth-
nographic document itself. "Reflexive knowledge, then,
contains not only messages, but also information as to
how it came into being, the process by which it was
obtained" (Meyerhoff and Ruby i982:2).
However, because my goal is to develop a scientific
approach to ethnographic research, I use the term some-
what differently from the textualists, who have tended
to believe that recognition of the variable quality of pri-
mary data requires an abandonment of analysis in favor
of the "honest" (i.e., unmanipulated) presentation of ba-
sic materials. Reflexivity for them consists in the pre-
sentation of "raw" ethnographic material, which in-
volves the reader more closely in the ethnographic
experience. However, a reader lacking firsthand experi-
ence with the group under study cannot supply the eth-
nographer's insight. Therefore, the ethnographer cannot
simply leave the reader to contribute the analysis but
has the obligation to interpret ethnographic materials.3
As a consequence, I emphasize reflexivity as an aspect of
2. Wolcott (I994) argues that there are three stages in the research
process: description, analysis, and interpretation. But there is also
a previous step of research design, during which the researcher
defines a domain of research, a goal or research question, and deter-
mines what concepts are relevant to that domain (Miles and Huber-
man I994:i6). In ethnography this requires that the set of emic
categories (including linguistically unmarked ones) relevant to that
domain be elicited. Ethnoscientific methods (Weller and Romney
i987) can be used for this purpose. I am not concerned here with
the research design step or with the final step in research, interpre-
tation, which is necessarily individualized.
3. Textualists often include firsthand narratives as some portion of
their ethnographic account, placed side by side with other textual
material, in order not to privilege the ethnographer's viewpoint. I
argue, on the contrary, that the ethnographer's interpretations are
privileged because of firsthand acquaintance with the subject mat-
ter of the report. If a reflexive approach is used, readers are never-
theless able to determine independently on what basis interpreta-
tions are made and hence to what degree they will concede those
interpretations. As a result, the ethnographer's point of view does
not preclude or preempt those of readers.
AUNGER Ethnography: Storytelling or Science? I 99
analysis rather than of presentation in the ethnographic
documents.4
In particular, I argue that analysis can be undertaken
in ethnography as long as analytic methods explicitly
take into account the means by which the data were
collected. Thus, analysis must allow for the fact that the
data elicitation process itself, as well as circumstantial
aspects of the data collection situation, can influence
what informants say or do. The fact that social action
is intersubjective requires a consideration of many inter-
personal influences as well as other aspects of the situa-
tion at the time of observation. I therefore maintain that
it is necessary to specify fully the context of the data
collection event in the analysis through methodological
situationalism (Knorr-Cetina I98I). This second crite-
rion for an acceptable ethnographic approach, a situa-
tionalist perspective, acknowledges that human social
behavior is contextualized both in time and space and
with respect to the simultaneous action of other individ-
uals. Methodological situationalism can be distin-
guished from methodological individualism, which
holds that no phenomena emerge in the context of a
social interaction that cannot be reduced to the charac-
teristics of the individuals who partook in that interac-
tion (Rhoads I 99 I: I I 8). It is also distinct from method-
ological collectivism, which argues that reference to
individual mental constructs or behaviors is superfluous
because humans are merely the passive instruments of
social-structural processes (Ritzer I992:79). Where
methodological individualism allows only for human
agency and methodological collectivism only for social
institutional determination, methodological situation-
alism allows for both. It "locates knowledge neither in
someone's head, as solipsists do, nor in an external and
observer-independent universe .. . as objectivists or nat-
ural scientists . .. insist on, nor in text, as many herme-
neuticians and discourse analysts argue, but in an essen-
tially circular social practice involving perceiving,
thinking and acting (including languaging) beings"
(Krippendorff I99I:II5-I6).
My requirement that an approach be scientific places
additional constraints on ethnographic practice. A scien-
tific study must meet two methodological criteria: the
researcher must use (and report) an explicit method for
making inferences from primary data and a means of
assessing the nature and quality of data prior to the in-
ference step.5 Otherwise, inferences are made from a
flimsy foundation that may affect the conclusions
reached. Unless such steps are taken in the presentation
of ethnographic materials, it becomes extremely diffi-
cult for readers to compare alternative claims about cul-
tural facts, a problem made obvious by the Freeman/
Mead debate (for overviews see Holmes I987, Caton
I990, Foerstel and Gilliam i992).
Data quality is typically measured in terms of its reli-
ability. I will adopt White's (I990: i o) definition of reli-
ability here: "Reliability concerns what is repeatable in
measurement, such as different measures of an attribute,
or different repetitions of the same measure of an attri-
bute. It is a generic concept, referring to the accuracy
(equivalence and stability) of measurement within a par-
ticular context of replication, including both the popula-
tion studied and those engaged in doing the study."
From this perspective, reliability is a measure of how
likely it is that similar conditions will give rise to the
same observation. White argues that this is a function
not just of the phenomenon being observed but of the
effect observation itself has on the nature of what is
observed. This is similar to the textualist criterion that
ethnographic representation reflect the interpersonal na-
ture of fieldwork.
Since most ethical observations of people involve sub-
jects' being aware of probes for information, observa-
tions on such subjects are likely to reflect the fact that
they themselves have at least partial control over what
is observed. The methodological problem in the human
sciences therefore consists in isolating the effect of the
observer from what is observed within the situational
context defined above. For this purpose, an "impartial"
intermediary is required. This is a function that formal
analytical methods are designed to handle. A third crite-
rion is therefore that formal methods be used to analyze
data. Such methods include any procedure which looks
for patterns in data and has an outcome not predeter-
mined by the investigator. Fulfillment of these criteria
almost always involves some form of reduction of the
original complexity of the data. Mere management of
data is thus not a formal method by this definition. A
dominant type of formal method is quantitative analysis
using standard statistical models. However, this defini-
tion would also include a variety of exploratory data
analysis and some data presentation methods (e.g.,
graphic displays of spatially represented data). All such
methods are analytic in the etymological sense: cases
are broken into their constituent parts but only in order
to explain the ways in which they fit together; interpre-
tation is required to understand why only certain among
the possible configurations of parts are realized in the
world.
Formal methods based on an explicit treatment of the
situation in which data collection occurs can actually
take advantage of the intersubjective nature of social
events. As long as the collection protocol features a vari-
ety of relationships between observers and subjects, sim-
ilar (i.e., replicated) events can be compared. This allows
the analytical procedure to distinguish those aspects of
events due to social interactions themselves from those
due to background conditions (i.e., nonsocial causes
such as physical aspects of the world at the time and
the private motivations of the participants). Since the
4. Another aspect of reflexivity-heightened consciousness about
personal experience through self-reflection prior to writing the eth-
nographic account-is not excluded either by my interpretation or
by that of the textualists.
5. "Primary data" will be taken as any information directly elicited
from informants, whether responses to questions (which may in-
clude reports of behavior at other times and places) or direct obser-
vation of informants' behavior. I mean to exclude from this defini-
tion any first-order inference that might be contained in fieldnotes,
as well as the notion that primary data are themselves "text."
IOO
I
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number I, February 1995
way in which the elicitation process itself biases obser-
vations is ascertained, the observed phenomenon is ef-
fectively divided into its observer- or situation-derived
and subject-based aspects.6
Through the use of such methods, ethnographers
(much less readers) need not infer significant patterns
and processes directly from undigested data. Formal
methods can assist in the interpretation of data through
their ability to discriminate patterns in complex data-
sets. Such methods force researchers to deal with the
output of a determinant procedure and to bring about
some conformity between what the procedures tell them
and what their expectations suggested prior to the analy-
sis, although the types of patterns to be sought are deter-
mined by the researcher, guided by theoretical expec-
tations and the ethnographic insight gained through
personal experience in the field.
Thus, at minimum three criteria must be met by any
approach to ethnographic research that is consistent
with both textualist concerns and scientific standards:
analytical methods must be both reflexive and formal,
and the framework for analysis must be situationalist.
Science: The Reflexive Analytical Approach
What I call the "reflexive analytical" approach, because
of its emphasis on reflexivity in an analytical approach
to ethnographic description, is based on the concept of
a "data collection situation." This concept provides a
situationalist focus for the development of appropriate
data collection methods and analysis. For example, in
the case of interviewing, the data collection situation
involves a recognition that there are two active partici-
pants, the interviewer and the informant (each of whom
has a number of relevant characteristics), nonrandom
contextual factors such as emotional holdovers from
previous social encounters between the interviewer and
informant, and more random factors such as the weather
(Briggs I986, Mishler I986). Responses to questions can
then be modeled as the result of a wide variety of factors,
ranging from informants' private beliefs to their strate-
gic decision making about whether to reveal their "true"
opinions, miscommunicated meanings, and more spuri-
ous influences such as distracting events in the vicinity
of the interview.
If ethnographic data analysis is to rely on formal
methods, then data collection procedures must in most
cases themselves change to reflect the requirements of
such methods. Unfortunately, during the recent bout of
self-examination by ethnographers, little attention has
been directed to data collection methods. The textual-
ists' solutions involve "not . . . better ways of doing
fieldwork, but different (better?) ways of writing eth-
aographies" (Wolf I992:I36). Their argument has pro-
zeeded on the implicit assumption that ethnographers
3hould continue to rely on participant observation and
the interviewing of key informants. As a result, the
3earch for solutions to the problem of ethnographic rep-
resentation has been unnecessarily limited. But if, for
=xample, standard statistical models are to be used, sam-
ple sizes sufficient to allow the statistical isolation of
the various factors assumed to cause the phenomenon
:f interest must be collected. Variability in each of the
Eactors identified by the particular specification of the
lata collection situation must also be introduced into
the data collection protocol in order to isolate the influ-
:nce of those factors. In the case of interview-based data,
this means, for example, the use of multiple interview-
-rs. Thus, the reflexive analytical approach combines (i)
the introduction of variability into each aspect of the
data collection protocol, (2) multivariate statistical anal-
ysis (to isolate the many aspects of the data collection
3ituation that can influence observations), and (3) the
[ncorporation of elicitation effects into the analysis (i.e.,
reflexivity).
An example will make the qualities of the reflexive
analytical approach clearer. In a study of food-related
beliefs among horticulturalists and foragers living in the
[turi Forest of northeastern Zaire (Aunger I994a), inter-
views were repeated on 65 informants using different
:ombinations of interviewers, in all cases employing the
3ame structured interview format. Some of the inter-
viewers were members of the local population. Infor-
mnants
were questioned with respect to their food avoid-
ances concerning I40 different animals. I used the
reflexive analytical approach to develop a multivariate
model that was then estimated using logistic regression.
rhis allowed me to partition the likelihood that an in-
Eormant would make different responses to the same
luestion
(which happened in about 2o% of cases) to the
Eollowing factors: I4% to interviewer effects, I3% to
interactions between informant and interviewer charac-
teristics, and 73% to aspects of informant cognitive vari-
ition (53% to knowledge-based cognitive variability,
r9%
to reasoning or ability-based differences between
informants, and i % to memory or recall effects).7 A par-
ticularly intriguing result was that, despite language
luency and a year of previous field experience, I per-
Eormed less reliably than the native interviewers, sug-
gesting
that cultural background is an important deter-
minant of the ability to elicit replicable responses from
informants. I also found that the reliability of different
luestions
was the single most important determinant
Df
variability in ethnographic interview responses (36%,
:onsidered to reflect variability in informant knowl-
-dge). Finally, the overall significance of the statistical
models indicated that a considerable proportion of the
variability observed in responses was not explained.by,
the model. This suggests that unspecified situational
6. Some will argue that this division is an abstract one, that events-
in-the-world cannot be disaggregated along such lines except
through such artificial means as a statistical test. This is true
enough, but, as I will argue later, it is a necessary first step in the
process of isolating the causal processes of real interest.
7. Values quoted here are averaged for the two types of differences
in responses distinguished in Aunger (I994a).
AUNGER Ethnography: Storytelling or Science?
I
IO
factors were also important influences on informant re
sponses. In fact, every situational factor considered b'
the reflexive analytical approach was clearly indicates
as being significant in this study.8
Basing the reflexive analytical approach on a data col
lection situation makes it easily generalizable to a vari
ety of data collection techniques. For example, responses
to a written questionnaire can be seen as formally equiv
alent to a social interaction with a "passive" inter
viewer, since the researcher effectively serves as ai
"interviewer-once-removed" when devising the ques
tionnaire. Further, little modification of the approacl
would be necessary to deal with ethological behavio.
observations (Tinbergen I 9 5 I, Lorenz I 9 5 O) or time allo
cation studies (Gross I984, Johnson I975), since sucl
procedures involve direct observation and hence socia
interaction between the researcher and the subject al
the time of sampling. The only kind of data collectiot
procedure not readily amenable to treatment using th(
reflexive analytical approach is ad hoc methods such a,
participant observation which do not involve replication
of at least some aspects of observations.
Data collected using a given regime must then be ana
lyzed in a fashion that discriminates between the
purel,
methodological variability in observations and those as
pects that are representative of the subject. This wil
generally require use of statistical methods for data re
duction. Qualitative analytical methods which
simpll
represent data-including taxonomic trees, sociograms
and other diagrammatic forms-cannot characterize th(
context in which the data were collected as a constrain,
on the outcome of the analysis. While there are rigorous
rules for producing such representations, neither th(
identities of observers nor other aspects of the data col
lection situation can be made to appear as representa
tional elements.
As in the example mentioned above, the reflexive ana
lytical approach can be formalized using generalized lin.
ear models (see McCullagh and Nelder I989). These
models extend well-known linear regression technique!
and analysis of variance to logistic regression and log-
linear models, as well as multivariate dummy-variable
regression (Del Pino I989). The reflexive analytical
approach can also be easily implemented using hierar.
chical linear models (Bryk and Raudenbush i992,
Goldstein I987, Hox and Kreft I994) and less familiai
data reduction techniques for categorical variables such
as loglinear models and optimal scaling (see Agrest:
I990, Gifi I990, Weller and Romney I990).
In many cases, however, ethnographers have not col.
lected large samples (i.e., over ioo observations) of repre.
sentative data that would be amenable to treatmeni
with standard multivariate statistical methods. This
may suggest that implementation of the reflexive ana.
lytical approach is restricted in its applicability and
much more "expensive" than traditional ethnographic
research. It is true that the approach includes some
novel elements (e.g., use of multiple observers) that can-
not be avoided. However, larger samples become neces-
sary only as the number of factors to be analyzed simul-
taneously increases, and random sampling is necessary
only if the ethnographer wants to generalize results to
a larger population (represented by the sample) or to use
methods which assume an underlying distribution (i.e.,
parametric statistical techniques such as generalized
linear models). Ethnographers may simply wish to deter-
mine what can be said about the sample itself, in which
case nonparametric statistical techniques (i.e., tests not
based on restrictive assumptions concerning variable
distributions) can be used. These techniques make the
reflexive analytical approach more readily applicable to
the kinds of data traditionally collected by ethnogra-
phers.
Further, the power and variety of available nonpara-
metric techniques have recently increased significantly
with the development of computer-intensive random-
ization procedures (Edgington I987). These methods pro-
vide significance tests for data that were collected with-
out reference to particular sampling methods (although
the resulting test values are specific to the sample). Be-
cause no reference is made to specific generating pro-
cesses for the variable of interest, the distribution of val-
ues must be found empirically. Computers are generally
used to permute data values randomly in order to gener-
ate a new dataset of equal size. The relevant test value
is calculated for this new dataset. These steps are then
repeated a sufficiently large number of times to produce
an adequate sample of test values. Finally, the signifi-
cance of the test variable can be calculated as the propor-
tion of generated values that fall to one or the other side
of that measured in the dataset actually observed.
Randomization procedures are a fundamental aspect
of combinatorial assignment methods, an integrative
framework for nonparametric data analysis that consti-
tutes an alternative to standard statistical analysis (Hu-
bert I987). The simplest formulation in this suite of
techniques, the linear assignment model, can be used to
compare data vectors (i.e., strings of data values). The
classic vector comparison problem is determining the
correlation or covariation between variables (as in analy-
sis of variance or the nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis test)
or between samples of the same variable (e.g., the t test
or the Mann-Whitney test). The linear assignment
model thus covers much of the same ground as standard
nonparametric tests and generalized linear models.
The quadratic assignment model is an exciting devel-
opment because it provides significance tests for the
structural similarity between different two-dimensional
data matrices (fully satisfactory parametric methods for
comparing matrices have not been developed). This
method provides a measure of the degree of similarity
between the association patterns seen in two or more
distance matrices. Quadratic assignment can thus be
seen as a generalization of the chi-square test, which
looks for nonrandom patterns within a data matrix (i.e.,
8. It is important to treat these factors together in order to deter-
mine their relative significance in a given case. For more substan-
tive analyses using the reflexive analytical approach, see Aunger
(I994a, b; n.d.).
I021
an association between categories of two variables).
Methods for finding similarity between the structural
patterns in higher-dimensioned matrices are also avail-
able. In general, these combinatorial assignment meth-
ods use the resampling procedures described above to
generate multiple derived datasets on which the rele-
vant statistical test is performed. This will produce an
empirical distribution of test values from which the
likelihood of the observed value can be determined.
These computer-intensive approaches-made feasible
by recent increases in affordable computer power-are
both more general and more realistic for most ethno-
graphic data than the generalized linear model because
they allow the rigorous analysis of complex problems
that would be difficult or inappropriate to treat under
standard distributional assumptions. Further, an impor-
tant virtue of these "permutation" approaches is that,
unlike nonlinear techniques such as cluster analysis or
scaling, they provide a means to assess the likelihood of
observed outcomes.
Any such statistical modeling has several virtues
when applied to ethnographic research. First, a natural
interpretation of reliability is built into such procedures.
Reliability can be measured as the likelihood that an
observation will be repeated, which, in turn, is a func-
tion of the probability that the observation was correct
the first time (i.e., not due to measurement error). Since
specifying the criteria for repeatability of the recorded
event is what permits assessment of the probability of
measurement error, the estimation of an appropriate sta-
tistical model, when reflexive, accomplishes the goal of
determining data reliability. Second, through the use of
reflexive statistical models, a form of validation of the
research can be achieved. Validation is a question not of
measurement but of appropriateness: does the variable
in question measure what theory suggests is the factor
of interest? By excluding confounding factors, the con-
text of assessment is constrained, and questions about
the legitimacy of the variable measured are reduced.
Thus, specifying the experimental conditions for repli-
cation can provide the basis for validation of measure-
ment as well. The investment required to complete a
reflexive analytical ethnography is not trivial. The re-
flexive analytical approach certainly requires more de-
tailed data than usual in traditional ethnographic prac-
tice, and fieldwork is reformulated to some extent.
Nevertheless, the results of the empirical study on food
avoidances mentioned above suggest that the complete
specification of the data collection situation is necessary
to determine the quality of primary ethnographic data.
Because this approach is reflexive, it satisfies the ex-
plicit demands of the textualist critique of traditional
ethnographic practice and therefore represents an ad-
vance over earlier practice.9 As a result, the abandon-
ment of scientific approaches to the description of cul-
tural groups cannot be taken as a necessary consequence
of the demise of "objective" ethnography. However, the
widespread flight of many cultural anthropologists from
formal methods suggests that a more profound but un-
stated criticism of scientific approaches exists which the
reflexive analytical approach may not address. Are there
other characteristics of standard scientific practice be-
9. Doubts may remain about whether reflexivity as treated in this
paper is what the textualists originally meant in their use of this
term. Denzin and Lincoln (I994:480), following Hammersley
(i992), would probably characterize the reflexivity notion here as
"postpositivist" because only "internally reflexive in terms of tak-
ing account of the effects of the researcher and the research strategy
on the findings that have been produced." In their view, the only
difference between postpositivism and its progenitor, positivism,
is its acknowledgment that the reality "out there" cannot be com-
pletely apprehended or understood, so that the researcher should
become sensitive to observation effects. Marcus (I994:569) argues
that this conception of reflexivity as observer bias is inadequate
because it is merely a confessionalist frame for standard ethno-
graphies; although experiential, it is not properly contextualized.
Although reflexivity has been expressed here as a form of bias, it
is quite different from the reflexivity-as-personal-bias associated
with postpositivism. That sort of bias is consciously recognized
and reported by the researcher as a kind of caveat with respect to
results reached prior to or independently of the reflexive act. The
reflexive analytical measure of bias, in
contrast, is found by a for-
mal modeling technique, not by introspection, and is fully inte-
grated into the analysis rather than remaining a subjective or expe-
riential overlay to the quasi-objective treatment of data. The
reflexive analytical approach can contextualize events in a variety
of ways (depending on what factors are identified in the model), so
that the researcher can determine how individual cases deviate
from expected outcomes because of the influence of each effect
impinging on the observed situation. For example, the nature of
the interpersonal "chemistry" which lies at the foundation of in-
tersubjectivity in the human sciences can be elucidated.
Marcus (I994:572) himself prefers a reflexivity that is "positional
and locational." "Locational" means that the ethnographer's ap-
proach is located with respect to alternative interpretations based
on different sociopolitical agendas. This contextualization is
achieved "through a keen sensitivity to the complex overlay of
related, but different, accounts of almost any object of ethnographic
interest" (Marcus I 994:5 7 I)-in particular, previous ethnographic
accounts of a particular cultural group or the topic's disciplinary
history. In feminist research, positioning is associated with stand-
point epistemologies (e.g., Hartsock I983, Smith I989). Although
in practice positioning is often reduced to essentialistic confessions
(e.g., "I am a white, Jewish, middle-class, heterosexual female"),
the ideal is to describe individuated personal experience within a
particular material and social situation (often as part of or leading
to a marxist social critique). Standpoint feminist research is lo-
cated, but only "locally," since it is impossible to encompass the
universe of context; all knowledge is necessarily situated and par-
tial (Marcus I994:572). I would argue that the analytical reflexivity
advocated here provides the positional and locational information
associated with the qualitative approaches favored by many femi-
nists, critical theorists, and advocates of cultural studies.
Further, Marcus (I994:572) argues that Haraway's (i988) intellec-
tual program is particularly bold and laudable because it aspires to
more-than-local positioning by defining "a space of juxtapositions
and unexpected associations formed by a nomadic, embedded ana-
lytic vision constantly monitoring its location and partiality of
perspective in relation to others." This seems an accurate if poetic
description of the reflexive analytical approach as well: embedded,
analytic, located, partial. Not only does the reflexive analytical
approach capture the experimentalist ethnographers' multivocality
through the use of many observer-observed pairings, but these dif-
ferent "partialities" are themselves situated: each voice is posi-
tioned relative to the others in an overall space defined by a set
of biases. This provides the reflexive analytical approach with an
overarching frame similar to Haraway's juxtapositioning, although
not dependent on the researcher's conscious organizing abilities.
I
I03
sides lack of attention to reflexivity which undercut its
utility? Indeed there are.
Contra Science
In the late I98os, a number of sociologists (Abbott I988,
Abell I987, Ragin i987) developed a profound critique
of standard statistical modeling which identified serious
deficiencies underlying any approach based on the use
of abstract variables. In particular, the use of typical sta-
tistical procedures like the generalized linear model
leads to a viewpoint which Abbott (i988) calls "general
linear reality," characterized by a number of largely un-
recognized but unrealistic assumptions (Abbott i992:
433-34):
i. The social world is made up of fixed entities
with varying attributes (demographic assump-
tion)....
2. What happens to one case [e.g., individual]
doesn't constrain what happens to others, tempo-
rally or spatially (casewise independence assump-
tion).
3. Attributes have one and only one causal mean-
ing within a given study (univocal meaning assump-
tion).
4. Attributes determine each other principally as
independent scales rather than as constellations of at-
tributes ... (main effects assumption)....
5. Things happen in discrete bits [of time] of uni-
form length and are not aggregated into overlapping
"events" of varying length (continuity or uniform
time-horizon assumption)....
6. The order in which attributes change does not
influence what changes occur; all cases follow the
same "causal narrative" or model (nonnarrative as-
sumption).
In essence, general linear reality assumes that individ-
ual cases can be disaggregated into sets of attributes,
each of which can be treated independently. These attri-
bute sets are placed in an abstract, artificial alignment
with one another, move in lockstep through a "space"
without time or distance, are subjected to similar pro-
cesses of alteration, and react to these processes in ex-
actly the same way. Since cases with particular combi-
nations of attributes do not exist in this conceptual
space, the units of analysis cannot transform into quali-
tatively different things during the analytical process,
nor are any units added to or subtracted from the model.
Outcomes cannot be sequence-dependent, because there
are no temporal steps in the analysis: a case's value after
having jumped to the next analytical time frame is com-
pletely determined by its previous state.
Abbott (i988:i8i) also argues that the now long-term
use of standard statistical methods in the social sciences
has led to changes in researchers' theoretical views.
Many classical social theories hold that social processes
occur to persons with bundled, uniquely interrelated
sets of characteristics. These persons are subject to indi-
vidualized histories of transformation: they can change
qualitatively by dying, getting married, or giving birth;
they can also have interactions with other such individ-
uals that happen in time and space. None of this is possi-
ble in analyses based on the general linear model that
dominates the social sciences. However, many forms of
social theory have now come into conformity with prac-
tice: the issues considered important by theory have
come to be those which statistical methods are capable
of addressing; those aspects of reality not amenable to
quantification are now discounted by social theory (see
also Ragin I987:67; Sayer i984:i60).
As a consequence, for these sociologists, the ontology
of general-linear-reality-based science is depauperate:
there are no identifiable individuals acting in a material
world. An important consequence is that the notion of
causation derived from general linear reality is also im-
poverished. Abell (i987:IO, citing Harre I970) argues
that, in effect, variables are granted ontological status
as causal forces even though they may be indices con-
structed from disembodied attributes. General-linear-
reality-style models "attribute causality to the vari-
ables-hypostatized social characteristics-rather than
to agents; variables do things, not social actors" (Abbott
I992:428). Thus general linear reality ensures that most
models of social processes allow no interactions be-
tween individuals: they are, in effect, asocial and ide-
alized.
Perhaps an even more important problem for general
linear reality is its inability to deal with multivalent
meanings within a single analytic framework (assump-
tion 3 from Abbott's list quoted above). Ragin (i989:
374-75) argues that this violates a number of aspects of
social reality: (i) "causal conjunctures" (combinations
of causes result in qualitatively different outcomes than
the constituent causes produce when acting alone), (2)
"causal heterogeneity" ("different causes combine in
different and sometimes contradictory ways to produce
roughly similar outcomes"), and (3) "outcome complex-
ity" (outcomes themselves can be substantively similar
yet have differently related internal aspects that make
them unique). In quantitative research, concepts take
the form of distinct variables rather than themes or
motifs as in interpretive ethnography. Because each
variable is a unidimensional construct, relationships
between variables cannot be complex (e.g.., can be sum-
marized as simple correlations). Advocates of qualitative
approaches believe that in the process of transforming
informant responses or behavior into variable codes for
statistical analysis, something intangible but important
is lost: "context" and "meaning." This failing forms the
foundation of many critiques of quantitative methods in
general (Abbott I988:I76). Where the general-linear-
reality approach sees in the social world "causal forces
that push on other forces in a terrain removed from hu-
man activity" (Abbott I992:432), any researcher con-
cerned with history or narrative sees social processes
as the result of interactions among complex intentional
agents taking place in an environment of time and space.
The inability of general-linear-reality-style approaches
I04 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number i, February 1995
to deal with the multiple possible contexts of a given
situation is thus a crucial failing for process-oriented
researchers.
This critique of standard quantitative social science
taints the reflexive analytical approach, which is based
on standard statistical models. As a result, such an ap-
proach cannot provide a truly explanatory (i.e., causal)
analysis of social phenomena. With our commitment
to formal methods, where can we turn from standard
quantitative techniques? Have the textualists won their
argument that we must adopt a strictly interpretive
style of research in ethnography (even though reflexive
analysis accomplishes the important goal of reflexivity)?
The answer is no.
Storytelling Reborn: The Comparative
Event-History Approach
Even Abbott (i992), despite being the author of the cri-
tique of standard quantitative modeling just described,
advocates the use of formal methods. With Abell (i987:
4-5), he envisions "a qualitative methodology which
can compare in analytic rigor with the generalized linear
model usually associated with the variable-centered [i.e.,
quantitative] methodology."
A variety of researchers combine the study of event
sequences with the use of formal methods. Event-based
methods are typically interested in case histories, caus-
ally related sequences of events. Abbott (i992) calls his
approach "narrative positivism" (also exemplified by the
work of Abell I987 and Heise I986, i99i), but following
the suggestion of Abell (i987) I will call it "comparative
event-history" because its objective is to compare sys-
tematically sequences of human social interactions as
constrained by social structures (Abbott I992:428).10
The basic strategy of the comparative event-history
approach is to (i) determine a typology for events, (2)
determine how particular sequences of such events are
structured (i.e., find a grammar to describe patterns in
individual event histories), and (3) develop a framework
within which different structures can be compared (i.e.,
determine the generality or breadth to which particular
structures are applicable). Once the basic types of se-
quence structures are identified, the causes linking pairs
of events in these structures can be inferred from inde-
pendent information sources. These comparative ap-
proaches avoid the multivalent-meanings problem men-
tioned above either by allowing the object of analysis
itself to be complex (e.g., the individual-qua-individual
rather than just a characteristic) or by allowing the units
of analysis to follow multiple causal pathways under
specific circumstances (Abbott i988:I76).
How are formal comparisons between event se-
quences achieved in practice? Several kinds of approach,
deriving from disciplines ranging from sociology to arti-
ficial intelligence, might be distinguished. However,
this is not the place for a description of the variety of
techniques being developed by the different comparative
schools. I will therefore describe only the approaches of
the two more prominent narrative positivists, since, as
historical sociologists, their concerns are most closely
related to those of ethnography."1
Abell's (i987) goal is to devise a formalism which can
determine the fundamental structure of different narra-
tives. This requires that he first classify all human ac-
tions into a small set; he bases his classification on a
simple theory of rational action (e.g., if agent A desires
goal G and believes that doing X will achieve G, then A
will do X). Individual behaviors in social interactions
can then be classified as being intended, unintended, or
preventions of actions by other individuals. He then
seeks to classify particular narratives by reducing them
to a basic structure, represented as a directed graph or
causal network. This is accomplished by finding the
minimum set of pathways that describes a particular
sequence of events. Abell argues that, once extraneous
links are eliminated, many example sequences can be
io. Important formal "qualitative" approaches to data analysis not
discussed here (for a general review, see Miles and Huberman I994
or Werner and Schoepfle I987) include semantic networks (e.g.,
the "cultural models" of D'Andrade I990, Holland and Quinn
I987, and Garro and Mattingly I994; the "activity record" of Wer-
ner and Schoepfle I987; and ethnoscientific folk taxonomies [see
Weller and Romney I990]); rule-based models such as decision
trees (e.g., Gladwin I989) and computer-based expert systems (e.g.,
Benfer, Brent, and Furbee I993, Read and Behrens I990; cf. Cicourel
I986); social network analysis (Wasserman and Faust I993, Ga-
laskiewicz and Wasserman I993, and any issue of Social Net-
works); and Ragin's (i987) very general "qualitative comparative
analysis" technique. I do not wish to slight these approaches
through exclusion; each has its strengths and weaknesses. How-
ever, in general the methodological conclusions reached later in
this paper with respect to the comparative event-history approach
apply to these other ones as well. In particular, none fully satisfies
all three criteria I have established for good ethnographic research:
reflexivity, formal methods, and methodological situationalism.
Given the constraints of space, my purpose here is to describe
two general but very different approaches in social science, thus
providing a sense of the range of formal techniques now available.
i i. Other comparative event-history approaches can be found on
various fronts in cognitive science. Each of these groups takes a
somewhat different approach to analyzing event sequences on
computers. For example, as Abell (I987:35) notes, the action se-
quences of narrative positivism are conceptually similar to Schank
and Abelson's (I977) notion of scripts, which are descriptions of
the recurrent structure in sets of related event sequences (e.g., the
everyday phenomenon of ordering a meal in a restaurant). Another
computer-based comparative event-history approach is interested
in simulating social phenomena. This general class of simulation
models has been variously called "artificial life" (Langton I988),
"artificial worlds" (Lane I993), "microanalytic evolution" (Collins
and Jefferson i992), and "synthetic ethology" (MacLennan i992),
but the name "simulated experimental history" better clarifies its
relationship to the other comparative approaches. Individualized
entities are let loose in a simulated spatial environment to interact
with one another, each pursuing a course of behavior determined
by a small set of simple interaction rules. In the course of the
interactions, information may be transmitted and coordinated be-
haviors may result. A number of different artificial population his-
tories (or sequences of interactions between agents) can be gener-
ated from multiple simulation runs using different starting
conditions. These historical sequences can then be analyzed for
comparable features using a variety of formal methods.
1
I05
collapsed into a common narrative class called "homo-
morphic" because they share a basic structure. He then
compares a wide variety of such reduced narratives to
generate the set of possible narrative classes that can
lead to a particular kind of outcome. The result of
Abell's method is an explanation which takes the fol-
lowing form: "an individual with socioeconomic stand-
ing A does X then Y then Z, which leads to his/her
child's exhibiting socioeconomic standing B." Other
narrative structures (i.e., involving actions other than
the sequence X, Y, Z) might be necessary to account
for other causal pathways leading to a person's having
socioeconomic standing B.
Abbott's approach is more empirical and can best be
explained by detailing an example (for a more general
account, see Abbott I992:449-50). Abbott and Hrycak
(i990) examined the professional life histories of Ger-
man classical musicians during the Baroque and Classi-
cal eras. Their goal was to discover, from a compendium
of information about many such musicians, whether
there were distinguishable career patterns. Events in
each individual's career were first coded as a sequence
of stages characterized by the type of job held and the
number of years spent in it (a classification scheme de-
vised by the researchers). Optimal matching techniques
borrowed from molecular biology (for DNA sequence
analysis) were then used to compare these sequences.
This involved calculating the distance between event
sequences, taken as the number of transmutations (i.e.,
insertions, deletions, and substitutions) required to
bring one sequence into equivalence with another. The
different kinds of transmutation were assigned various
costs reflecting researchers' views about the nature of
sequence resemblance. For the German musicians, the
degree of difference between jobs was based on measures
of the social and geographical mobility required to go
from one job to another. Given these costs of job
changes, pairs of career sequences were compared to de-
termine intersequence similarities. A dynamic program-
ming algorithm identified the smallest distance between
each pairing of sequences, given the relative size of job
changes. Finally, the matrix of intersequence similarity
values was analyzed using cluster analysis to determine
whether groups of careers resembled each other suf-
ficiently to be considered a career type. Abbott and
Hrycak (i990) thus distinguished 2i different empirical
classes of musical careers. It remains to be determined
why certain career paths were observed while others
were not and what caused individuals in certain circum-
stances to follow a particular path (tasks not undertaken
by the authors of this illustrative study). For example,
it might be that careers heavily dependent on church
patronage became available only to musicians who mar-
ried relatively early in life and thus conveyed an appear-
ance of responsibility.
The primary advantage of this kind of event-oriented
analysis over generalized linear models is that the causal
relationships between preconditions and outcomes are
more clearly delineated. For example, analysis using a
generalized linear model might show an interaction be-
tween the two variables A and B, but this interaction
might indicate that both factors were measuring the
causal influence of a third, unmeasured factor or that
there was some overlap in the responsibility of A and B
for the outcome. In contrast, if those two factors ap-
peared in a particular combination in a specific case,
the comparative event-history approach would conclude
that both A and B were necessary (i.e., independent) con-
tributory factors. Thus, the comparative event-history
model, unlike the reflexive analytical approach, allows
a very robust consideration of causation, as well as
allowing for sequence-dependent outcomes.'2 Further-
more, fewer restrictive assumptions are placed on data
analysis than would be involved in the use of general-
ized linear models (Behrens I990:324). Most important,
the comparative event-history approach is not subject
to the above-mentioned criticisms of generalized linear
models such as the reflexive analytical approach. But
how does this "new narrativism" avoid the epistemolog-
ical problems of the old ethnographic narrativism out-
lined by the textualist critics? Are these comparative
event-history methods reflexive?
For generalized linear models, reflexivity is achieved
by introducing variability into all possible aspects of the
situated subject-object relationship and then isolating
the variation due to each aspect using a statistical
model. However, the goal of comparative event-history
methods is to infer classes of equivalent causal struc-
tures. Regardless of whether the constituent events and
states of a given structure are abstracted from historical
accounts, observed directly in the field, or produced by
a computer, they must be classified and coded for use
by a comparative method.'3 Unfortunately, the classifi-
I2. As Miles and Huberman (I994:238) note, a variety of quantita-
tive statistical techniques have been developed for causal analysis
(e.g., LISREL and other structural equation models), but it is not
clear "how you move from a list of 'associated' variables to an
integrated, causally coherent picture" using such approaches. At
best they provide some understanding of "local temporal reality,
with all its complexities."
I3. Jahoda (i980:i26) has criticized methodological situationalism
as requiring a classification of situations without providing a "the-
ory of situations" that would assist in determining the relevant
"natural kinds" into which situations might fall. Indeed, this is a
major problem with the comparative event-history approach: the
first step of coding events is not formalized. Abbott (I992:449)
assumes that categorization can be made on a purely empirical
basis, to reflect the goals of the particular analysis, while Abell's
(I987) system is based on a general theory of human behavior,
resulting in a few quite gross, abstract categories.
Although a more comprehensive solution would be desirable,
Jahoda's theory of situations is probably impossible, because any
situation can be discriminated along potentially infinite dimen-
sions. For example, events can be considered actions by a single
actor or social interactions between actors-that is, events can be
simple or compound and highly contingent (Abbott I992:437-38).
Abell (I987:56-57) characterizes joint action as independent ac-
tions by each actor, but how "social" is that? Another issue is the
level of organization at which events are to be represented: whether
in terms of individuals or of some sort of social group (Abbott
I992:45i). Abbott (I992:445) and Abell (i987:2i-22) argue that
both levels are legitimate, although Abell requires that the agent
of action be capable of intent.
In addition, true sequence-dependence is not yet incorporated into
IO6 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number I, February 1995
cation of events cannot include explicit recognition of
elicitation effects. For example, equivalent events can-
not be coded as "event X as observed by A" and "event
X as observed by B," because this would obscure their
similarity in other respects and reduce rather than ex-
pand the scope for generalization. Further, such a coding
would not necessarily provide any information about
how the event as observed by A was different from the
event as observed by B-that is, what bias is introduced
by a particular observation method.'4 Reflexivity re-
quires that an observation be analytically dissected so
that any methodological biases are eliminated. To make
an observation reflexive is to contextualize it, to make
it specific, which is antithetical to the goal of generaliza-
tion. It is thus the need to formalize the contrasting
of events and to generalize the results which precludes
reflexivity during the comparison of network structures.
In conclusion, like the reflexive analytical approach,
the comparative event-history approach is not a suffi-
cient solution to the problem of representing ethno-
graphic realities. Each of these two general approaches
has problems when used alone: the reflexive approach
is not causal, and the comparative approach is not re-
flexive. However, each has the quality which the other
lacks. Further, the most important limitation of one
method is the primary strength of the other. Because the
comparative case-based techniques deal with conjunc-
tions of causal factors, they rapidly become unwieldy,
since the number of possible factorial combinations ex-
plodes as the number of cases and/or types of factors
considered increases. Variable-oriented approaches ap-
preciate nothing more than large numbers of cases but
become statistically invalid as the complexity of causal
relationships considered increases (Ragin i987:68). In
this sense, the reflexive analytical and comparative ap-
proaches are complementary. It seems that they must
be used together. But how can this combination be
achieved?
The Primacy of Ontology
The reflexive analytical and comparative event-history
approaches can be seen as representatives of two funda-
mentally different ways of conducting research, each of
which has been historically important in the social sci-
ences. Sperber (i985:7) calls these the scientific and in-
terpretive approaches, respectively. The goal of the
interpretive approach is to provide the reader with an
intuitive understanding of a particular culture in its to-
tality, while the goal of the scientific approach is to ex-
plain-that is, to find the general processes operating in
human society.'5 In order to organize the discussion
about how elements from these two primary paradigms
might be combined, table i lists their differences.
It is widely argued that theory and methods in social
studies not only have been historically linked but are
logically connected (e.g., Bhaskar I979, Harre and Secord
I972, Layder I990, Outhwaite I987, Sayer i984). How-
ever, as is apparent from recent practice and the reflex-
ive analytical and comparative approaches just de-
scribed, it is possible to develop approaches that
combine aspects traditionally associated with different
research paradigms. For example, current statistical
techniques make possible the testing of more "struc-
tural" models (i.e., ones with complex webs of interrela-
tionships between variables in multiple, simultaneously
estimated equations), thus combining positivistic ana-
lytical methods with something closer to the event ori-
entation of the interpretivists. Further, the comparative
event-history approach combines a scientific epistemo-
logical stance with other qualities of interpretivist eth-
nography while the reflexive analytical approach does
just the opposite.
What, then, are the constraints within which a reflex-
ive but historical/causal approach to social scientific
practice must be designed? Sayer (i984:i8o) maintains
that "the implicit conception [of paradigm i's statistical
models] tends to assume the universality of closed sys-
tems [i.e., isolable causal networks that are not re-
stricted to the cases from which their relationships are
estimated], a regularity theory of causation [i.e., the sim-
ple notion that B regularly follows A, hence A causes
B], an atomistic ontology (theory of what exists) and an
comparative event-history methods. Abbott (personal communica-
tion) complains that events which have already happened cannot
have the same ontological status as those in the ever-moving pres-
ent. A similar consideration is that comparative event-history
methods can only attach finite costs to having events occur in
different orders when in fact there is no possibility of such reorder-
ings: those events have already occurred, and the past is unchange-
able. There is no real cost function for the comparison of historical
events; the analysis is hypothetical.
There is also a basic problem of sequence categorization: What
sets of events are isolable as a causal system (Abbott I992:437-40)?
All events in the world are interrelated. How can some causal flows
be separated out? Where does an identifiable narrative begin and
end? Analyzable narratives are embedded in narratives of greater
historical sweep, which have either additional causal streams or
greater temporal depth. Such sequences thus require assumptions
about independence or the ability to treat units of analysis without
the need of further contextualization. Here, both Abbott ( 1992:449)
and Abell (i987:I9-20) take largely instrumentalist positions.
Nevertheless, once a coding scheme for events is devised, at least
optimal matching techniques are fairly robust to differences in cod-
ing styles between individuals (Forrest and Abbott I99O).
I4. Abell is aware that narrative positivism has methodological
problems (as well as the conceptual problems noted in n. I3). He
admits (i987:56) that narratives are data-dependent constructs of
the analyst, that it is often necessary to piece together event se-
quences from participant accounts when the relevant behaviors
were not directly observed by the researcher (the typical case in
historical sociology). His attitude is that this is an inescapable but
not debilitating problem for social science. In general he argues (p.
I04) that there are important social questions to be addressed and
that we should not be troubled by methodological anxieties.
i5. Sperber's distinction is a stark one, contounding interpretive
with hermeneutic, constructivist, critical, feminist, cultural stud-
ies, and other postmodem schools of social research. However,
similar simplifications are made by a wide variety of other theorists
for the purpose of argument (e.g., Blaikie I993, Braybrooke I987,
Sayer I984).
I
I07
TABLE I
Two Paradigms for Social Science Research
I 2
Aspect Scientistic/Positivistic Humanist/Interpretive
Logical form deductive/"theory testing" (theory inductive/"theory building" (data
data) theory)
Epistemological stance "objective" (separation between observer "subjective" (interpenetration of percep-
and observed) tion and interpretation)
Temporal framework static (i.e., equilibrium assumed)/abstract processual/historical
Model of causality regularity of correlation mechanisms generate outcomes
Social ontology "atomistic"/realist "structural" /constructivist
Philosophical anthropology mechanist/behaviorist teleological/intentionalist
Units of analysis variables themes/motifs
Data collection methods survey, formal interviews/questionnaires participant observation, interactive inter-
viewing, introspection
Analytic methods "quantitative" (i.e., statistical tests) "qualitative" (i.e., narrational)
Population/scale large ("macro"-scale) small ("micro"-scale, "local")
Sampling representational (e.g., random) none or ad hoc
Quality assessment criteria validity, replicability contextual equivalence, authenticity,
stimulus for social action
Research goals description/generalization/prediction/ understanding (Verstehen)/social cri-
causal explanation (Erklaren) tique/advocacy
Presentation style dispassionate/informational evocative/inspiring
SOURCES: Abbott (i988, i992), Guba and Lincoln (I994), Layder (i990, I993), Neuman (i99l), Sayer (i984).
equivalence of explanation and prediction." In effect,
only certain features-analytical methods and goals, on-
tology, and the notion of causation-are argued to be
connected to a particular theoretical paradigm. Simi-
larly, Abbott (I992:435) argues that presumptions about
ontology, causality, time, and social constraints on indi-
vidual action follow from the choice of a particular ap-
proach to research.
Rather than merely contribute another opinion to this
debate, we can examine the reflexive and comparative
approaches to determine what aspects from different
paradigms can be amalgamated. Table 2 indicates on
which side of the paradigmatic divide each feature of
the reflexive analytical and comparative event-history
approaches falls. This table suggests that a research ap-
proach's underlying epistemological stance, philosophi-
cal anthropology, data collection and analytical meth-
ods, population or scale of analysis, sampling regime,
research goals, and presentation style are "mobile" be-
tween paradigms. Thus aspects of different research par-
TABLE 2
Aspects of the Reflexive Analytical and Comparative Event-
History Approaches
Aspect Reflexive Analytical Comparative Event-History
Logical form I 2
Epistemological stance 2 I
Temporal framework I 2
Model of causality I 2
Social ontology I 2
Philosophical anthropology 2 2
Units of analysis I 2
Data collection methods i or 2 i or 2
Analytic methods I i and 2
Population/scale i or 2 i or 2
Sampling i or 2 2
Quality assessment criteria I 2
Research goals I I
Presentation style I I
NOTE: Numbers refer to paradigms listed in table i.
io8 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number i, February 1995
adigms can be combined in a single approach in ways
not generally acknowledged by those debating research
methods in social science. In particular, the textualist
critique of ethnography implicitly assumed that if the
objectivist epistemology was discredited, so were the
methodologically individualist ontology and quantita-
tive methods characteristic of the scientific paradigm.
However, the reflexive analytical approach indicates
that this is not necessarily the case. Concern with re-
flexivity does not necessitate a turn to interpretive
methodologies; rather, recognition of the interpersonal
nature of human research can be combined with formal
analytical methods.
However, many aspects of a research paradigm are at
least correlated with the chosen ontology, which there-
fore might be called the "core feature" of an approach.
The features that revolve around ontology (and which
might therefore be called the "satellite features" of an
approach) are its logical form, temporal framework,
model of causality, units of analysis, and quality assess-
ment criteria (a list similar to those suggested by Sayer
and Abbott, both quoted above). Thus, once an ap-
proach's ontology is established, a number of its other
aspects seem to follow naturally.
For example, causality is connected to ontology be-
cause the types of relationships between things depend
on what is allowed to exist. This connection has its basis
in human psychology: "One major point that emerges
from the psychological (particularly developmental)
study of causal thinking is that intuitive ontologies and
intuitive expectations of causal powers are two facets of
the same distinction. . . . intuitive 'theories' include
many precise expectations about what causal processes
different objects can enter into" (Boyer I994:i52). The
presumption of the generalized-linear-model or para-
digm-i approach is that the statistical estimation of cor-
relations from a particular set of data is applicable to the
specified relationships more generally (Abell i987:9).
But, as Outhwaite (i 987:21) says, "even an inquisitive
child will feel that there is something unsatisfactory
about explaining 'why' something has happened by say-
ing that it always does." Empirical regularities or "prob-
abilistic relationships are not accepted as demonstra-
tions of cause" by devotees of event-oriented approaches
(Ragin i987:5 I). Rather, "a truly explanatory causal ex-
planation would want to . . . account for these regulari-
ties by reference to the real underlying structures that
produce these manifestations" (Layder i990:67). For Ab-
bott (I992:435), as a historical sociologist, causation
means neither Humean correlation (i.e., the regular ob-
servable conjunctions of events) nor the abstract genera-
tive mechanisms of the generalized linear model but
narrative "enchainment": the linking of outcomes
through sequences of human actions. Thus, for any pro-
cessualist there is a sense that some underlying relation-
ship between events-in-the-world must be identified
which an abstract entities-and-attributes approach by its
very nature cannot provide.
Table 2 shows that the nature of what exists also de-
termines whether an analysis can be dynamic. This af-
firms the narrative positivist position (see the quotation
from Abbott above) that the temporal framework of an
approach is a function not of analytical method but of
ontology. There are, after all, dynamic quantitative as
well as qualitative methods.'6
But there is also a rather surprising conclusion from
this analysis: commitment to a particular ontology does
not require the use of specific analytical methods or
units of analysis, each of which can vary independently
from the others (which contradicts Sayer's expectation,
quoted above). Thus, paradigm-2-style causal modeling
can be quantitative. Narrative positivist methods, for
example, depend on coding and formal comparisons us-
ing specialized software and nonlinear statistical tech-
niques. The reverse also holds: paradigm-i goals (gener-
alization/description) can be couched in narrative terms
(e.g., the argument that results found in the context of
one society hold for another that has had a similar
history).
Another surprising finding is that epistemology can
vary independently of ontology. When a paradigm-2 con-
structivist ontology is joined to a paradigm-2 subjectiv-
ist epistemology, as has historically been the case, the
result is an approach that defines multiple realities, each
existing in the mind of a particular social agent. Simi-
larly, a paradigm-i epistemology/ontology combination
produces a single-level reality independent of but know-
able through an agent's perception. However, the reflex-
ive analytical approach is an example of a realist (para-
digm- i) approach that is combined with a reflexive
(paradigm-2) rather than a positivist epistemology. Thus,
even though the reflexive analytical approach asserts the
existence of a reality independent of observation, it does
not allege that this reality is perfectly knowable through
either sense impressions or theoretical construction.
The other results from table 2: A research program's
assumptions about human intentionality (i.e., philo-
sophical anthropology) also varies independently of on-
tology: perhaps the most significant change in the scien-
tific paradigm represented by the reflexive analytical
approach is its emphasis on human agency. Finally, re-
search goals and presentation style seem to be linked to
analytical methods rather than ontology: the use of for-
mal methods tends not to be associated with (but does
not preclude) social activism and a rhetorical presenta-
tion style.
As representatives of the two primary paradigms for
research, the reflexive analytical and comparative event-
history approaches are fundamentally different in their
ontology (one is abstract, the other grounded in events),
epistemology (one is reflexive, the other not), analytical
methods (general linear reality versus sequence analy-
sis), and units of analysis (variables versus events). The
conclusion of this analysis is therefore that, if the choice
of ontology necessitates other choices such as temporal
framework (i.e., historicity) and notion of causality (as
i6. However, the "sequence-dependence" of quantitative tech-
niques such as time-series analysis is limited to stepwise iterations
by its general-linear-reality ontology.
I
IO9
argued here), then the reflexive analytical and compara-
tive event-history approaches cannot simply be mixed
into a single overarching formulation with the virtues
of both and failings of neither. Instead, if they are to be
combined, there must be a sequence of use. But how
best to integrate these different analytical steps?
Storytelling and Science
Abell (i987:5) says that most combinations of qualita-
tive and quantitative methods "turn out to be rather ad
hoc and unsatisfactory.... Qualitative studies need to
be placed within a technical framework which will facil-
itate an effective combination of the two. Until this hap-
pens social scientists will, it seems, inevitably polarize
into camps each philosophically seeking to maintain the
exclusive legitimacy of its own views at the expense of
those of its opponents." Since the gulf between the two
paradigms is profound, any bridging framework must be
strong and high. However, according to Abell (I987:87-
9i), general-linear-reality-style methods can be used to-
gether with comparative event-history methods. He pre-
sents the following scenario. First, a relationship is
found between two variables (say A and B) using stan-
dard statistical methods (e.g., generalized linear models).
This relationship, once uncovered, may be further sub-
stantiated and elaborated by introducing "intervening"
variables which specify a causal model of the Durk-
heimian sort (i.e., one "social fact" in the form of an
aggregated variable is explained in terms of other "social
facts"). This causal chain from A and B is then seen as
"in need of explanation in terms of narratives which
link the variables, showing how human action/interac-
tion establishes the social facts" (Abell i987:88). Com-
parative analysis is then used to uncover particular se-
quences of events that lead from A to B. Abell (i987:89)
notes that the relationship between A and B may be
overdetermined in the sense that many narrative path-
ways lead from A to B. The final step is therefore to
determine the generalizability of each narrative-that
is, to discover whether a particular sequence regularly
recurs in many cases involving different individuals and
varying circumstances.
Unfortunately, Abell's suggested sequence of general-
linear-reality-style analysis and comparative event-
history methods is an insufficient solution to the prob-
lem of linking the two basic kinds of approach in social
science. In particular, it does not resolve the epistemo-
logical problems identified by recent critics of ethno-
graphic practice. The problem lies in the requirement of
a reflexive analysis. Without such a requirement, the
comparative step could proceed quite independently of
the generalized-linear-model step, merely taking its cue
about where to look from the statistical results as in the
imagined example above. (Abell would say that the
event history is the end result of an investigation, with
the prior generalized-linear-model analysis serving only
as a preliminary, heuristic step [see Abell i987:341.)
However, with the reflexivity constraint, it becomes
necessary to relate explicitly the results from the reflex-
ive analysis to those from the event-history analysis.
The problem is that the products of the two steps take
different forms. From the first step there is typically a
set of statistical results at some abstract or aggregated
level, from the second step a causal network diagram at
the event-historical level. How are we to bring about a
comparative event-history analysis fully informed by a
prior reflexive statistical analysis? Ideally, the compara-
tive analysis should be based on data "cleaned" of meth-
odological (particularly data elicitation) biases.
Further discussion of the earlier example on food
avoidances in Zaire may help clarify how the reflexive
and comparative approaches could be used together in
ethnographic research. In Aunger (I994a), I used the re-
flexive analytical approach to clean the data and to de-
termine relationships between variables. At the same
time, a related analysis using the reflexive analytical ap-
proach showed that, ceteris paribus, better-schooled in-
dividuals had greater knowledge of the food-avoidance
domain than unschooled individuals (Aunger I994b).
The question therefore arises, is this knowledge differ-
ence due to cognitive changes brought about by the
training experience of going to school, or does it repre-
sent the influence of some difference in life history cor-
related with having gone to school?
To answer this question would require a deeper under-
standing of the psychological and social causes behind
differences in knowledge of culturally sanctioned beliefs
in Zairian society. Thus, case-based narrative tech-
niques could be used in a second step to examine the
correlation between schooling and increased knowledge.
Because considerable life-historical information was col-
lected on each individual in the initial fieldwork, the
same dataset used in the reflexive analysis could be used
to assess the types of life history that result in the leam-
ing of particular classes of avoidances.17 This analysis
(e.g., using Abbott's method) might demonstrate that ed-
ucated individuals exhibit an increased knowledge of
food avoidances from exposure to a wider range of such
beliefs when they leave their natal villages to attend
school in more cosmopolitan areas. Further, in yet a
third analytical step, individuals might be classified by
whether or not they went to school away from their
natal villages. This difference could be included in a re-
flexive-style statistical model as an additional variable.
Any new relationships hinted at by this second reflexive
analysis could then be examined by again turning to a
comparative event-history analysis, each step thus suc-
cessively probing deeper and deeper into the causal uni-
verse in which people live.
Unfortunately, this hypothetical example suggests
that there is no clear way to achieve the goal of complete
I7. In general, researchers should be able to perform both reflexive
and comparative event-historical analyses based on a single dataset
because both approaches make the same ontological assumptions
about the phenomenon under study: they categorize the research
question in the same way and are therefore likely to require the
same kinds of information.
IIO
I
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number i, February I995
integration of the reflexive analytical approach with
comparative event history. Events or event sequences
can always be coded and treated as values of a variable
in cases submitted to a general-linear-reality-style anal-
ysis. Thus, integration in one direction, from compara-
tive event-history to reflexive analysis, is possible, but
the comparative approach cannot directly incorporate
information about the influences on events from a gen-
eral-linear-reality analysis into its consideration of those
events because of its goal of generalizing about types
of events. Abbott (I992:45 i) has argued that one might
conceive of events as complex combinations of vari-
ables, allowing a translation from general linear reality
to the historical viewpoint. But this remains a concep-
tual transformation, not an operational one, especially
in light of Abbott's own description of general-linear-
reality-style models' limited ability to deal with vari-
ables as clusters.
There are, however, two tasks that prior general linear
reality can perform for the comparative event-history
approach. First, it can isolate the relationships to be pur-
sued by comparative analysis (i.e., it can establish corre-
lations between variables that suggest causal relation-
ships between events). Second, the methodological
influences discovered by a general-linear-reality-style
analysis can be avoided or reduced in subsequent data
collection for a comparative event-historical analysis.
For example, if particular interviewers are found to be
particularly unreliable, they can be eliminated from the
next round of data collection. However, these are incom-
plete solutions to a problem that must remain un-
solved-at least for the present.
Summary and Conclusions
The argument of this paper can be briefly restated as
follows:
Problem i. Traditional ethnography is no longer via-
ble because it is not reflexive. Traditional "realistic"
ethnographic practice assumes that reading is like an
encounter with Alice's looking-glass: merely by opening
an ethnography and passing one's eyes over the pages,
one is transported through the book-as-mirror into the
reality of life in another culture (what van Maanen
[I988:741 calls the "doctrine of immaculate percep-
tion"). There is no recognition in the ethnographic me-
dium that the social and psychological reality of some
far-off place and time is transformed into the mental
representations of a reader through at least one interven-
ing intelligence (the ethnographer's) and several in-
stances of physical mutation (e.g., into patterns of ink
on paper). In fact, traditional ethnographers make use
of this magical elision in order to achieve unwarranted
credibility, to convince us that "had we been there we
should have seen what they saw, felt what they felt,
concluded what they concluded" (Geertz i988: i6).
Solution i. Experimental or interpretive ethnography.
Hermeneutically inspired critics, recognizing the decep-
tive nature of this rhetorical gambit, have argued that
ethnographers should create a conscious reading experi-
ence, interposing the book-as-object between the reader
and the reality being depicted. Through an act of will
and imagination, the reader is supposed to construct an
individualized experience of the ethnographic reality
from the imperfect building blocks of written state-
ments.
Problem 2. Experimental or interpretive ethnography
merely places the burden of analysis and interpretation
squarely on the reader's shoulders. This is a burden most
readers are ill-equipped to assume. In addition, the re-
cent turn to a more self-conscious, experiential ethnog-
raphy does not solve the basic problem of increasing the
credibility of ethnographic reports. One reason is that
the textualists' use of variable modes of presentation
and viewpoints does not necessarily allow the reader to
determine the quality of each different kind of material
in the report. A Rashomon effect may result from the
concatenation of narratives: as in the Kurosawa movie,
a number of viewpoints on the same event may be re-
counted by different participants, but each voice in the
ethnography will be slanted in a way that may be un-
knowable to the reader due to a lack of an overarching
contextualization (see Cronk I993). Readers of experi-
mentalist ethnographies also do not know whether all
the relevant information has been presented to them,
because the traditional reliance on participant observa-
tion means that the set of information acquired during
fieldwork is necessarily ad libitum. In addition, there is
usually no explicit procedure by which the ethnographer
selects textual fragments (e.g., fieldnotes, transcriptions,
or archival materials) for presentation in the report.
Solution 2. The reflexive analytical approach. In con-
trast to both traditional and textualist ethnography, this
approach results in a scientific report. Based on formal
data collection procedures and statistical analysis, the
report includes descriptions of methods and results, re-
flections on these results, and other, more traditional
materials, if applicable. The reflexive analytical ap-
proach does not draw attention to the report itself, as
do the textualists, but also does not attempt to obscure
the origin and nature of ethnographic statements, as
does traditional ethnography. This approach, based on
an explicit consideration of the data collection process
as a situated human interaction, includes attention to
data elicitation effects, variation in informant beliefs or
behavior, and the effects of the context of data collec-
tion. Discussion of an empirical case study (Aunger
I994a) has shown that this approach can effectively sep-
arate purely methodological biases in interview re-
sponses from answers that more truly reflect the beliefs
of informants in a typical ethnographic situation. In this
fashion, the reflexive analytical approach establishes
data quality and achieves a relatively high degree of va-
lidity.
Problem 3. While the reflexive analytical approach is
sufficient to remedy the epistemological concerns that
arose in the context of the textualist critique of tradi-
I
III
tional ethnographic practice, it does not represent a
complete approach to ethnographic research. Based on
what Abbott (i988) calls general linear reality, which
attributes action to variables moving through an ab-
stract space rather than to intentional agents acting in
the world, it is ontologically and causally unrealistic and
impoverished.
Solution 3. The comparative event-history approach.
Unlike reflexive analysis, this approach deals directly
with events in their multifarious complexity. A chain
of events is identified by the researcher, the component
events are categorized, the overall structure of the narra-
tive sequence is identified (which may involve some re-
duction of irrelevant complexity), and then different se-
quences are compared for structural similarities.
Although originally designed for the analysis of histori-
cal events, this approach can also be used with respect to
informants' life-history narratives or even hypothetical
event-stages such as the course of an illness. All such
narratives can be compared and analyzed for underlying
causal linkages. This is different from the textualists'
solution of simply providing different accounts without
commentary: comparative event history represents a
formal method of comparison of accounts. The presenta-
tion style of the ethnographic report in this case is not
a rhetorical narrative but a discussion of the structure of
causal mechanisms underlying the phenomenon being
studied.
Problem 4. Comparative event history is not reflexive.
This is partly because of its origin in various disciplines
which lack traditions of concern for data collection is-
sues (historical disciplines use secondary data and so
have no control over data quality; cognitive science is
heavily involved with computers, where there is no in-
tersubjectivity problem). But there are also two reasons
that comparative methods cannot even be made reflex-
ive. First, comparative event-history analysis depends
on previously written accounts of past events or, alter-
natively, on abstract events that take place inside com-
puters. Such data are secondhand and cannot be modi-
fied to incorporate reflexive information because the
factors biasing the original recording process are typi-
cally unknown. Comparative techniques can, however,
be used with respect to events directly observed during
the ethnographic field season, in which case this second-
hand-account problem can be alleviated. The inevitable
problem, however, is that even when events are directly
observed, there is no way to incorporate a marker of the
relationship between the observer and observed into the
classification of events. To do so would obstruct the goal
of comparison, which is to find general classes of se-
quences of such events, because events would then be
linked to the identities of specific observers. The re-
quirement of formal comparison and the goal of general-
ization together preclude the sensitive analysis of ob-
server-object relationships necessary for reflexivity (as
defined here).
Solution 4. A two-step analytical procedure consisting
of reflexive analysis followed by comparative event his-
tory.18 Axinn, Fricke, and Thornton (I 99 i) and others
(e.g., Agar I980, Freidenberg, Mulvihill, and Caraballo
I993, Sieber I973) have advocated the simultaneous
combination of approaches from the two paradigms (e.g.,
long-term participant observation with survey-based
quantitative research). Although this offers some bene-
fits (e.g., the minimization of measurement errors be-
cause researchers with ethnographic insight can design
more appropriate survey instruments, increased validity
of those instruments due to background knowledge and
language skills developed by the researchers over time,
and more meaningful interpretation of data due to eth-
nographic insight), such protocols remain loosely inte-
grated and therefore somewhat ad hoc as an overall
methodology. Further, they are not reflexive.
My proposal is similar to Abell's (i987) suggestion of
standard statistical modeling followed by comparative
event history except for the emphasis on methodological
situationalism and reflexivity in the first step and the
application of this combination to the ethnographic sit-
uation. The close integration of the primary approaches
to social research in a two-step procedure is made possi-
ble by two crucial features of the component ap-
proaches: (i) Both are founded in methodological situa-
tionalism, or the idea that "at the center of our social
ontology there must be ... the commonsense picture of
physically distinct persons capable of independent ac-
tion" (Outhwaite I987:IO8). This is captured in the no-
tion of the data collection situation in reflexive analysis
and the events-as-units-of-analysis principle of compara-
tive event history. (2) Both use formal methods. This
allows output from one method directly to inform the
other. The two modes of analysis retain their different,
essential natures but provide more mutual support than
Axinn, Fricke, and Thornton's (I99I) simple mixing.
This interdependence of the steps in the two-step ap-
proach is not, strictly speaking, an example of "triangu-
lation" (so-called because it resembles the surveyor's
practice of finding the precise location of a point by ap-
proaching it from several different directions). In trian-
gulation, results from two analyses of the same phenom-
enon are compared side by side in order to determine
the overall validity of the study. Unfortunately, the dif-
ferences between analytical methods make any such
comparison necessarily imperfect. Campbell and Fiske
(i959) tried to get around this impasse by combining
multiple elicitation methods under a single analytical
umbrella, but the methods they developed exhibit sig-
nificant limitations in application and interpretation
i8. Two caveats are in order. First, ethnographic projects have a
great variety of goals. My proposal is restricted to ethnographic
research devoted primarily to the explanation or description of eth-
nographic realities. Ethnographies designed to capture the experi-
ential nature of fieldwork or life in the culture under study would
have to rely on alternative methods and presentation styles. Sec-
ond, comparative event-history methods are but one type of case-
based formal procedures, restricted to the analysis of event se-
quences; similar techniques are available for other types of data
(see n. iO).
II21 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number i, February I995
(Kenny and Kashy i992). Thus, there seem to be intrin-
sic constraints on the degree of validity that can be
achieved by any single approach to empirical research.
It therefore appears unlikely that a single method with
all the features desired by researchers will ever be de-
veloped.
The two-step method recognizes both the necessity of
multiple methods and the essential differences between
them and therefore takes another approach to validation
than either triangulation or the strained amalgamation
of disparate methods into a single procedure. Instead,
two different methods are utilized sequentially, with the
output of one procedure being input to the other in an
iterative cycle of mutual illumination. Thus, formal
methods are a prerequisite to the high degree of integra-
tion achieved by the two-step approach. The only caveat
is that comparative event history does not directly make
use of reflexively cleaned data; rather, the relationships
it examines are those suggested by the reflexive analyti-
cal results. At least at present, it is not clear how to
improve this less-than-perfect melding of methods.
The primary conclusion of this paper is thus that eth-
nographic research requires the use of two fundamen-
tally distinct approaches. Reflexivity requires the disag-
gregation of social interactions using analytic separation
techniques, while causal explanation requires multiva-
lent meaning (the ability of the same event to lead in
two different directions, depending on exogenous cir-
cumstances). Only an approach that can compare the
various abstract aspects of situations can deal with the
problem of reflexivity (as defined here), but only an ap-
proach that keeps complex structures intact can be
causal/explanatory. The former requires but the latter
is precluded by the use of standard statistical modeling.
For this reason, a research approach is either reflexive/
statistical or causal/narrative but not both. The title of
this paper therefore perpetuates a false dichotomy: both
storytelling and science are necessary for a complete un-
derstanding of ethnographic realities. This conclusion is
in conformity with a number of recent calls for a plural-
istic approach to social science (e.g., Blaikie I993:2I5;
Braybrooke I987:IIO; Layder I993:I07-28; Outhwaite
I987:II6; Ritzer i992:648; Roth i987).
The primary contribution of this paper is to have clari-
fied why there are two fundamentally distinct ap-
proaches to ethnographic research.19 Further, although
the two approaches have traditionally been viewed as
antithetical (Neuman I 99I:32I), they have here been
closely integrated into a single research process. The
two-step approach combines an interpretive feel (i.e., a
subjective epistemological stance and a concern with
causal explanation) with scientific aspects (i.e., goals of
comparison and generalization) in a reflexive analysis
through the use of formal methods. Although the vic-
tory has been hard-won, I argue that the two-step
method "saves" scientific ethnography from the prema-
ture obituary composed for it by textualist critics.
There are still those who object to any sort of scien-
tific approach to the study of people. For example, a po-
tentially fundamental criticism of scientific ethnogra-
phy is that setting up a specific data collection protocol
introduces an artificial structure which itself influences
informant behavior in a way that naturalistic participa-
tion in social activities by the ethnographer does not
(e.g., Hammersley i990:9). It is true that, if everyone in
a group reacts in the same fashion to being interviewed,
then the analysis cannot determine what effect being
interviewed has on responses compared with, for exam-
ple, "naturalistic" discourse with the same sample of
informants. However, the mere presence of the ethnog-
rapher in a social situation also has an unknowable ef-
fect on the behavior of those around the ethnographer,
so traditional participant observation is just as subject
to the criticism of introducing some bias into observed
i9. That the differences between generalized linear models and
the comparative event-historical approach are fundamental may be
more easily seen by examining what can be called their analytic
"orientation." Consider how these approaches deal with a data
matrix. In the case of generalized linear models, rows of data iden-
tify observations or cases and columns measure various aspects of
these cases. Although the goal of quantitative research is almost
always (at least implicitly) to explain cases (e.g., how much a given
change in a particular variable affects the outcome of the case), it
is still fair to say that, analytically, standard multivariate statistical
methods aggregate over cases. They might therefore be called "col-
umn-oriented," despite their lack of intrinsic interest in particular
variables. Many of these techniques estimate statistical parameters
by comparing relationships among all cases simultaneously, with
the influence of each variable being calculated independently of
the effects of the variables identified in other columns. This is
generally part of the effort to establish statistical control for the
causal complexity of events, used when experimental control is
impossible, as it is in most social science research (Ragin I987:58-
59).
Methods that focus attention directly on the cases themselves
(such as comparative event history), in contrast, can be seen as
"row-oriented." For example, standard qualitative methods often
direct attention to the explanation of the particular combination
of aspects of single cases, not as a possible outcome of more general
processes (i.e., interest is not strictly theoretical) (Ragin I987:53).
Classical ethnography is such a method, although more formal
methods can also be applied to single cases (e.g., content analysis
or Ragin's "qualitative comparative analysis"). But the data matrix
used by comparative event-history methods is different from the
standard data matrix described above, in which only a single obser-
vation is made on each case, so that each column represents an
aspect of an observation (i.e., an abstract characteristic or variable).
In the comparative event-history approach, each column of data
represents an observation of the different case histories, an identi-
fiable event that has been coded to capture those aspects of its
nature relevant to the study question at hand. Further, in the pro-
cess of data analysis, these methods violate the integrity of the
data matrix in several ways not seen in generalized linear models.
By analogy to the matrix of values in computer memory, the "ad-
dressability" of particular data points is lost because values can be
shuffled between columns (but not between rows). In addition, the
number of columns may differ between rows, so that the data ma-
trix is no longer rectangular. Each row or case is treated quite
independently, as in traditional qualitative methods.
Thus, the reflexive analytical approach is column-oriented, using
the first kind of data, while the comparative event-history approach
is row-oriented and based on the second kind of data. These differ-
ences in analytic orientation and data types make it very difficult
to combine the two approaches under a single analytic umbrella.
AUNGER Ethnography: Storytelling or Science? I ]
behaviors and responses as any other elicitation proce-
dure (except covert ones).
A complaint specifically against quantitative ap-
proaches is that replication in human studies is impossi-
ble: repeating an observation would require control over
events involving people, which is neither feasible nor
ethical (Hammersley I990:57). However, this argument
reflects a false conception of replication. The complete
set of circumstances surrounding any particular event
can never be duplicated. Replication is always a matter
of degree, regardless of the procedure involved (see
White I990, quoted above). Within the variable condi-
tions of an ethnographic observation, there are elements
that are common with other observations which provide
sufficient material for scientific investigation.
The two-step approach also does not dehumanize the
subjects of ethnographic research as some critics argue
"reductionistic" scientific methods do (e.g., Tyler i99i).
On the contrary, because of their situationalism, the re-
flexive and event-historical approaches view individuals
as strategizing agents. They do not gloss over differences
in motivation, belief, behavior, or life experience but
admit this variability directly into the analysis, thereby
granting a considerable degree of personhood to those
living in other cultures. Since moral systems are some-
times judged by their tolerance of the deviant, I argue
that this treatment of variation in the two-step approach
is humane.
Finally, the recent round of self-reflection about eth-
nographic practice has had the virtue of increasing
awareness not only about the rhetorical but also about
the ethical nature of ethnographic research. A number of
critical ethnographers (e.g., Fabian I983, I99i; Rosaldo
I989; Said I978, i989) are concerned with the intrinsic
differences in power between ethnographers and their
subjects. Fabian (I99I:I93-94), for example, believes
that "hanging the walls full with reflexive mirrors may
brighten the place, but offers no way out [of the ethnog-
rapher's dilemma of
being]
... stuck in the dirt of poli-
tics or the mire of epistemological quandaries." Some
react to this problem by arguing that anthropology must
become "emancipatory" or "participatory" by humaniz-
ing the conditions of life in the cultural group being
studied (Burawoy et al. i992, Fals-Borda and Rahman
I99I, Huizer I979, Scholte I974, Stull and Schensul
I987, Torbert I99I, van Willigen, Rylko-Bauer, and
McElroy I989, White I99I, Wulff and Fiske i987). This
can involve returning the knowledge gained through re-
search to the community from which it was derived
(rather than merely enhancing the Western academic's
reputation) or, more radical, making research itself a
form of action designed to better conditions in the com-
munity. Argyris, Putnam, and Smith (I985) and Torbert
(i99i) emphasize the need for the animator/researcher
to acquire the necessary self-reflexive, interpersonal, and
sociopolitical skills before attempting to lead others into
the development of novel social organizational forms.
However, "it is impossible to create a research process
that erases the contradictions (in power and conscious-
ness) between researcher and researched" (Acker, Barry,
and Esseveld I99I:I50). Nevertheless, most liberation-
ists (e.g., Fabian I99I:I95; Wolf i992:6) do not advocate
that Westerners stop conducting fieldwork. What is the
conscientious ethnographer to do?
In fact, this dilemma cannot be minimized, because
the political-economic effects suggested by these critical
ethnographers do exist. The case study using the reflex-
ive analytical approach discussed above (Aunger I994a)
determined that informants in Zaire bias their responses
in a number of specific ways when the interrogator is a
powerful interloper into their social circles rather than
a local individual. However, I would argue that merely
by providing evidence of the political/epistemological
factors intrinsic to the ethnographic situation, the re-
flexive analytical approach represents a partial solution
to the liberationist dilemma. Thus, to find out what ef-
fect being an expatriate representative of a colonialist
power has on what informants say or do in one's pres-
ence, one can rigorously compare it with their behavior
with persons of their own culture in similar circum-
stances.
This does not represent a complete solution, of
course, because it remains to do something about the
imbalance of power in ethnographic research. As a first
step, selection of research questions can certainly be tied
to issues decided by the native community rather than
by Western intellectual fashion. Further, the results
from Aunger (I994a), suggest that the best way to get
high-quality ethnographic data is to turn data collection
over to those who are enculturated in the cultural group
of interest. Of course, the research will probably not be
done without the direction and monies of the ethnogra-
pher-a point recognized by feminist ethnographers,
who argue that since the researcher controls the terms
of interaction and the framing of the study, a power dif-
ferential exists between ethnographer and informant
even if women are writing about women. As a result,
they argue that one must adopt in one's research a politi-
cal agenda explicitly directed at overcoming the forces
of the oppression (Mascia-Lees, Sharp, and Cohen I993:
246). Perhaps an intimate collaboration between ethnog-
raphers and local individuals, from research design and
execution to the interpretation of results, would provide
the best, if still imperfect, solution.20 Even so, concern
with social power is absolutely necessary for a more
complete understanding of the situational and historical
context of ethnographic fieldwork. However, the exis-
tence of power differentials even at the interpersonal
level does not preclude a scientific analysis of social phe-
nomena; rather, it precludes exclusive reliance on re-
searchers' personal sentiments and observations, which
must necessarily be biased by their positions in social
20. Various forms of such collaboration have been utilized by a
variety of ethnographers (e.g., Abu-Lughod I992, Behar I993, Ber-
nard and Pedraza I989, Chapman I992, Crapanzano I980, Davison
and Women of Mutira I989, Dwyer i982). However, the work of
each participant/author in the ethnographic report, although often
contextualized inside framing devices, remains fragmentary and
thus is not validated by an overarching analytical framework.
II4 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number i, February I995
I therefore conclude that scientific analysis and evalu
ation is not a valueless, morally odious, or impossible
goal for ethnography. In fact, I maintain that formal
methods provide a rigorous means of addressing many
of the issues considered important by interpretivist an.
thropologists. In general, as noted by Behrens (i990
325-26), statisticians have been extremely creative ir
their development of methods to deal with types of prob.
lems previously treated in a purely interpretive manner
"Take for instance the impact of multidimensional scal.
ing on the measurement and representation of complex
cultural constructs. Who in the 40's or 50's might have
thought it possible to derive a statistical representatior
of emotions or kin relations, concepts of illness, or a
culture's food classification? ... [New
techniques] havc
allowed us to quantify what were once thought of as
strictly qualitative phenomena." The continuing devel.
opment of formal analytical methods suggests that the
approach outlined here can serve as a general framework
for conducting replicable ethnographic research on the
full range of traditional anthropological topics, from so-
cial interaction patterns to marriage rules and religious
beliefs.
Several important implications of the analysis herc
have not been previously noted. First, the textualist con-
cern with ethnographic representation was part of the
reason that their critique appeared to lead to an analyti-
cal impasse. The implicit goal of both traditional and
textualist ethnography, to depict cultures, requires that
a culture be a self-consistent, integrated whole capable
of being presented in some unidimensional form. But as
Barth (I993:4) argues, "we must break loose from oui
root metaphor of society as a system of articulated parts.
The image is too simple, and it misleads," because soci-
ety is not an organic body with definite boundaries and a
particular nature. Rather, it is the result of multifarious
agents' performance of specific roles, each with unique
competencies and different strategies. From these con-
siderations, Barth (I993:4) concludes that "the image of
processes serves us better than that of a structure or a
closed system."
Further, the debates regarding reflexivity in the social
sciences have overemphasized epistemological and
purely methodological concerns. Assumptions about the
nature of reality (ontology) made by researchers have
been shown here to have more significant consequences
for an approach (a claim repeatedly made by the "new
structuralists" as well [e.g., Outhwaite I987, Layder
I990, Giddens I99I, Bhaskar I9791). For example, de-
spite an objectivist epistemology, microeconomics has
made considerable progress in describing individual de-
cisions regarding resource allocation, indicating that
having the correct epistemology is less important in im-
plementing a theory than having the right ontological
categories. In particular, the choice of ontology has been
shown to determine an approach's notion of causality,
units of analysis, logical form, temporal framework, and
quality assessment criteria. Sperber (i985) and Boyer
(I994) have emphasized that granting ontological reality
to inappropriately characterized concepts (i.e., those
with an academic but not a natural history) can lead
research programs to become moribund: a science that
does not "carve nature at its joints" will be more debili-
tated than one that simply makes relatively large obser-
vation errors. Powerful explanations deal with "natural
kinds," entities that have causal force in the world. Un-
fortunately, there is no scientific method for discovering
what categories of things in the world constitute natural
kinds. Progressive research programs, it seems, can be
discerned only by their results.
In any case, the battle over epistemology has been
won: it is now widely agreed that positivism-or at least
its objectivist epistemology-is dead (Rosenberg I988,
Bohman I99i, Outhwaite i987). However, debates
about ontology continue to rage. For example, an impor-
tant current theoretical controversy in sociology is the
so-called agency/structure debate (see Archer I988;
Bourdieu
I977, I984; Giddens
I979, i984). This is the
latest incarnation of the ancient rivalry between parti-
sans of intentionality and those who argue that human
action is significantly constrained by social institutions.
Perhaps it is time for ethnographers to follow the exam-
ple of their sociological cousins. We should turn our at-
tention from solipsistic concerns with texts to substan-
tive questions about what variation in cultural practices
can tell us about the human condition.
Comments
ANDREW ABBOTT
Department of Sociology, University of Chicago,
Chicago, 111. 60637, U.S.A. I5 vIII 94
After some years' service in the epistemological
trenches, I have begun to sense an uncanny resemblance
between methodological debates and the western front
of I9I4-I7; soldiers go over the top into the no-man's-
land between the two cultures while their generals
dream of the ultimate breakthrough. Now comes
Aunger and proposes, if not the Christmas truce, at the
least a joining of forces against a common enemy. What
is one to make of this?
Aunger urges us to combine his reflexive analytical
approach and the approach he kindly attributes to Peter
Abell and me, that of comparative event analysis. By
doing this, he argues, we will achieve the best of both
sides of an old dichotomy and will answer a now-
common extremist critique. Aunger uses the extremist
critique-the "writing cultures" tradition and the vari-
ous solipsist and "positional" positions related to it-as
a foil to stimulate reconciliation of event-based and
variables-based approaches.
Of the extreme critique I shall say little. By aiming to
find the right way to talk about cultures it denies the
very premise from which it starts. When the smoke
clears, this particular group of lying Cretans has the
same interests as I, or Aunger, or most other social sci-
I
II5
entists: discovering how the social process unfolds in all
its flagrant diversity.
The real question is whether we who analyze the so
cial process with "formalist" methods ought now, ir
this present moment, to follow Aunger's prescription oi
rejoining events and variables. I do not think we should
To be sure, eclecticism is always the best practical strat
egy at a given time. Broad results, multimethod results
triangulated results are always best for a given empirical
question. We'd rather know more than less, we'd rathei
have two takes on a subject than one, and so on. But we
purchase eclecticism at a price. We pay first a price ir
methodological consistency. Eclecticism becomes the
last refuge of the intellectually lazy: "Don't worry, an-
other view of the problem will pin things down." By nol
disciplining ourselves to follow one method or approach
to its logical conclusion we easily overlook matters thai
prove to be fundamental to it. Neither Peter Abell nor I
would have seen the profound problems in general lineai
reality if we hadn't at times been the exact opposite oJ
eclectics, closing our minds against the general-linear-
reality approach in a quite bigoted fashion. Many people
do very good and very interesting social science within
what we so strongly rejected.
Second, not only may our personal views of a particu-
lar problem be thus impoverished but new views in gen-
eral may become more difficult to develop. To turn the
comparative-event perspective into a broad approacb
equivalent to its predecessors will require a whole com-
munity of like-minded people. A community of eclec-
tics won't work. Lazersfeld, Duncan, and the others who
developed contemporary quantitative social science
were, although not a community of bigots, certainly a
community of enthusiasts. Had each given the other a
full, eclectic critique, they would never have built even
a small body of work, much less the large one that they
did. They knew the foundational problems in their
work; Duncan's quixotic Notes on Social Measurement
(i984) makes that very clear. But they submerged their
doubts in the adventure of development.
My general complaint about eclecticism once ex-
pressed, I would like to speak to the issue of reflexivity,
which is after all the heart of Aunger's critique of the
comparative-event perspective. For Aunger, reflexivity
means dealing with "elicitation effects," the conse-
quences of the data-gathering situation for our results.
This is an unusual definition for reflexivity, but let it
stand for the moment.
First, Aunger's own reflexive analytical approach is
itself reflexive only given certain assumptions about ob-
servers. Aunger employed multiple observers of a single
phenomenon and then predicted different observations
of that phenomenon on the basis of antecedent charac-
teristics of the observers. But he did this with an analy-
sis of variance, which presupposes precisely the general
linear model of reality against which Abell and I argue.
Aunger thus misses an essential part of our critique of
that model. People in the survey business have been un-
dertaking analyses of elicitation effects for decades; in
market research, money-often lots of money-rides on
the validity of responses. Abell and I, however, think
that even these elicitation studies produce fallacious re-
sults, because the analysis of variance presupposes
things about people and actions that aren't true: that
aspects of them are separable, that there are such things
as "main effects," and so on. Undertaking a general-
linear-reality-based analysis of response bias (as it is
called in the trade) doesn't really respond to the concep-
tual issue involved.
Yet this is precisely what Aunger advocates. He deals
with elicitation effects by assuming that they are separa-
ble consequences of different attributes: that status does
so-and-so, that kinship does such-and-such, and so on.
That's what "statistical analysis with variables" as-
sumes. But Abell and I argue that one can't separate
kinship and status in this way. Because individuals' vari-
ous qualities are all bound up together, it makes more
sense to try to group different types of individuals. Then
one can look for elicitation effects (if one chooses) with
respect to these types.
Thus I agree that studying sources of variation in data
is crucial. But I don't think that "the classification of
events cannot include explicit recognition of elicitation
effects." On the contrary, it would be quite interesting
to code data on one event sequence as perceived by doz-
ens of different actors and then to classify the different
renditions of the sequence-right down to inclusion of
different action chains, different subevents, and so on.
One could begin to characterize social groups in terms
of the commonalities between their differential percep-
tions of what happened at the Rashomon. There is noth-
ing in the comparative-event approach that forbids such
an analysis, contrary to Aunger's implication. What
matters is rather that such an analysis of elicitation is
true to the project of thinking of social life in terms
of actors, processes, and actions, which a general-linear-
reality-based study of elicitation effects is not.
ARIE DE RUIJTER
Department of Cultural Anthropology, Utrecht
University, Utrecht, The Netherlands. 8 VIII 94
Aunger's paper is very well-structured. Using a tried-
and-true rhetorical device, Aunger formulates questions
for us, points out dilemmas, proposes a series of poten-
tial solutions, is not afraid of self-criticism. As a result,
his conclusion not only appears completely logical but
reassures us. He leads us by the hand from the opposi-
tion between storytelling and science to the comple-
mentarity of storytelling and science. To put it briefly,
the article is certainly successful on the storytelling
level. If, however, one succeeds in resisting the tempta-
tion of being taken by the hand, one is led to ask
whether Aunger's claim that his particular two-step ap-
proach is "necessary and sufficient to provide a scien-
tific explanation of processes affecting cultural do-
mains" is as convincing as it seems. In order to answer
this question I will examine his first two assumptions
more close1v.
ii6 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number I, February 1995
First of all, Aunger advocates reflexivity because of
the interpersonal nature of data collection in human
studies. He considers reflexivity to be an aspect of analy-
sis rather than of representation in the ethnographic doc-
ument. This redefinition of reflexivity does, however,
take the sting out of the criticism of postmodernists or
(to put it even more generally) constructivists such as
Latour and Woolgar (i986). It is exactly the postmodern
textualist critique which calls for attention to the pro-
cess of transformation whereby the ethnographer's field
experience is translated into an ethnographic report.
Reflections on the nature and method of composition
of the representation, the role of rhetorical devices, the
restrictions imposed by conventions and styles, the con-
structed character of ethnography's authenticity and au-
thority, and the political and ideological context in
which the ethnographic process takes place have caused
postmodernists to argue that data do not exist prior to
but take form during an interpretive dialogue in which
researchers, researched, and readers participate: "Scien-
tific activity is just one social arena where knowledge
is constructed" (Latour and Woolgar I986:31).
Should one draw the conclusion that the ethnographic
document is merely a construct? Since several dialogues
take place in different contexts, there are also several
constructs differing from each other in, amongst other
things, conceptual framework. The question remains-
and I for one cannot answer it-whether the confronta-
tion of constructs leads simply to the refinement of de-
bate or to the development of a better description or
approximation of reality. For the time being, I am satis-
fied with the thesis that reflexivity allows us more in-
sight into the process through which reality is encoun-
tered and construed but does not in itself lead to a better
product as far as the representation of reality is con-
cerned. On this point I disagree with Aunger, since he
believes that representation is possible (for instance,
"this approach can effectively separate purely method-
ological biases in interview responses from answers that
more truly reflect beliefs of informants").
Aunger's second assumption is that it is necessary to
specify the context of the data collection event in the
analysis. This assumption ignores the issue of the im-
possibility of fully specifying the context of the data col-
lection event. I reason from the following two premises:
(I) Language use is always metaphorical (Hesse ig80).
Language is, after all, primarily an ordering mechanism.
Phenomena and objects are joined together on the basis
of certain considerations. Certain aspects of an object or
situation are thought of as characteristic, while other
aspects are simultaneously declared insignificant for the
ordering. There is a whole network of relations between
concepts, which means that a primitive implicit theory
exists. The imposing of an order is in essence no more
than the selection and grouping of objects and situations
on the basis of observed differences and similarities.
Which order one imposes depends on the perspective
that is used. This means that the transfer of meaning
from one object to another is an essential element of
ordering. However, it is the mechanism of transferring
meaning which forms the basis of metaphorical lan-
guage use. (2) From the above it follows that data are
constructs anchored in concepts. Since constructs are
tied to particular places and periods of time, translatabil-
ity, comparability, and commensurability are matters of
interest. Kuhn (i962), amongst others, has pointed out
that different paradigms make us see things differently.
Research workers in different paradigms have not only
different concepts but also different perceptions. Even if
we accept that researchers, Aunger included, use differ-
ent methods for setting up research and evaluating its
results, the question remains in what way and to what
extent the combination of the two can be unambigu-
ously and consistently underpinned, and surely this
question is both important and relevant. Should not at-
tention be paid to the problem in judging that occurs
when "data" and concepts are joined? Although judg-
ments are the products of the universal human capacity
to judge, of a "natural rationality" (Barnes I976), con-
crete judgments are decisions based on information. The
interesting element in this is that judgments are not
formed according to rules, but they are also not arbitrary
(Brown I988: I 38-39; see also Sperber and Wilson i986).
On the basis of the above considerations, I feel a
strong need for clarification of Aunger's recommenda-
tions that the researcher use and report (i) "an explicit
method for making inferences from primary data" and
(2)
"a means of assessing the nature and quality of data
prior to the inference step." As concerns i, what exactly
is meant by primary data? First-level concepts, verbatim
answers, first(hand) impressions, or something else?
With regard to 2, I doubt the fruitfulness or validity of
the advocated differentiation into phases. Is not infer-
ence inherent in perception?
MALCOLM M. DOW
Department of Anthropology, Northwestern
University, Evanston, Ill. 60208, U.S.A. 26 IX 94
Aunger correctly identifies a mistaken (though often re-
peated) overgeneralization in the recent spate of self-
critical literature on ethnographic report writing: that
because each ethnographic interview is essentially
unique in terms of the individuals involved, their spe-
cific interactions, the physical and political context of
the interview, etc., it is simply impossible to draw scien-
tific generalizations about human behaviors either
within or across cultures. To the contrary, Aunger ar-
gues that rather than prematurely surrendering the goal
of scientific generalization in cultural anthropology we
should measure and include in the relevant model vari-
ables that code for relevant contextual features; his
reflexive analytical approach requires that such context-
sensitive measures be part of the model. His data-
analytic procedures allow him to partition variation in
responses across distinct (unique, if you prefer) settings
to determine, using formal inference procedures,
whether any similarities can be established. That is,
rather than asserting that no scientific generalizations
I
I]
can be produced from multitextured ethnographic data
Aunger proposes to assess whether generalizations of in
terest to the ethnographer can be found in the data usinE
explicit, replicable inferential methods.
Aunger's reflexive analytical approach is a new
wa)
of addressing the crucial, though still routinely avoided
problem of accuracy in ethnographic interview data. As
sessing the degree of error in "key" informants' reports
on behaviors and beliefs should be central to cultural
anthropological discussion of appropriate data-captur(
methods. Traditional ethnographic field practice still
commonly involves collecting reports from a small
number of "key" informants on behaviors and beliefs o:
interest. However, in studies carried out in the earl)
I980S by Russ Bernard and his colleagues (see Bernard
et al. i984) the quality of the data captured by such tradi-
tional and still widely used ethnographic interview prac-
tices has been called into question. On the basis of theii
own seven field studies and after reviewing scores ol
other empirical studies in such areas as child care,
health care, communication, and social interaction, Ber-
nard et al. (pp. 503-5, emphasis added) conclude that
these studies lead to one overwhelming conclusion:
on average, about half of what informants report is
probably incorrect in some way.... there appears to
be systematic distortion in how informants recall
just about everything. Furthermore, recall may be af-
fected by the subject of the study, by whether infor-
mants are aided in their recall in some way during
the interview (e.g., giving them checklists rather
than open-ended questions), by whether they keep di-
aries, by conditions of the interview, or by a variety
of cultural factors. There has hardly been any re-
search at all on any of these things.
It is astonishing that a decade later this is still the case
(notable exceptions being Freeman et al. I987 and Rom-
ney et al. i986). Indeed, as Aunger points out, the cur-
rent bout of critical self-examination by "textualists"
has in fact led to little change in ethnographic data col-
lection methods. The current preoccupation in ethno-
graphic writing is with the presentation of various ac-
counts and not at all with their accuracy. The obvious
conclusion here, that the great majority of interview-
based ethnographic studies are probably methodologi-
cally problematic, is of major significance for the disci-
pline.
Aunger has, I believe, made a major contribution with
a new proposal for assessing and including factors that
may lead to informant unreliability. Essentially, his idea
is to include variables that code identifiable factors of
the interview situation-physical and social context, in-
terviewer attributes, interviewer-respondent interac-
tion, and so on. Such contextual variables permit him
to partition the likelihood of discrepancies in responses
on food taboos by his informants at two time periods
into percentages due to interviewer effects, informant-
based effects, and interactions. To my knowledge, this
is a new approach to assessing the magnitude and the
sources of unreliability in ethnographic data. Applica-
tion of his reflexive analytical approach to new data on
food avoidances of individuals in the Ituri Forest reveals
that the likelihood of "response error" by informants
to the same questions at two points in time could be
attributed mostly to informant cognitive variation and
almost none to memory and recall effects. The minute
effect of memory and recall is especially surprising given
the extensive work in this area by D'Andrade and
Shweder and others. The relatively large effects of inter-
viewer and interviewer-informant interaction clearly
validate Aunger's claim that such effects are measurable
and nontrivial and should be included as control factors
in "reflexive" ethnographic research.
Aunger gives a broad overview of some of the more
exciting developments in contemporary statistical
methodology. Here I have two points of disagreement.
First, his critique of general-linear-model statistical
methodology relies too heavily on Abbott's earlier one.
In particular, the casewise-independence assumption is
no longer required in situations in which individuals
are in interaction and clearly influence one another. A
relatively new class of network autocorrelation models
specifically incorporates sample-unit interdependencies.
Second, it is not the case that "sociograms and other
diagrammatic forms" of data representation cannot be
made reflexive. Sociograms, in particular, are easily re-
stated in matrix notation, and recently developed qua-
dratic assignment regression procedures allow a depen-
dent matrix of interactions to be regressed on a set of
independent interaction matrices. It is straightforward
to code "reflexive"-type matrices and include them as
regressors, much as dummy variables are commonly
used in standard regression models.
Overall, this is an impressive piece of work. Aunger
is to be congratulated for insisting that the goal of scien-
tific generalization be made central to the task of eth-
nography and for introducing new methods and data
that demonstrate how such generalizations might be
achieved. If the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis,
and synthesis really applies to the current anthropologi-
cal discourse on "objectivity" and "scientific generaliza-
tion, " there may be some gain in muting the "hard-soft"
battle. At least some of the time, the discipline needs
individuals with diverse tastes attempting to work to-
gether towards the same end. Without more work like
Aunger's the goal of sound generalizations is unlikely
to be attained. It may be that to bring this about will
require a revolution in the political economy of anthro-
pology departments.
GERARD DUVEEN
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University
of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3RQ, U.K. I2 VIII 94
Aunger presents what might be called a report from a
battlefield, or perhaps I should say a despatch from a
combatant, since as author he is also participant, and it
is as protagonist that he is able to send out a signal of
"victory" even if it "has been hard-won." Ethnography,
ii8 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number I, February 1995
it seems, has been saved for science through a judicious
combination of formal methods and interpretive ap-
proaches. And yet I find myself unable to join the cele-
bration, since what he claims as victory seems to my
eyes closer to what I would recognise as defeat. Before
explaining my reaction in more detail I should perhaps
add that I come to his paper not as an anthropologist
but as a social psychologist, that is, from a discipline
which has suffered more than most from the reification
of formal methods. Indeed, like many social psycholo-
gists I have found myself turning to the use of ethno-
graphic methods in research in order to recover a per-
spective on the meaningful and intentional aspects of
human activity which formal methods of data collection
and analysis have obscured (e.g., Lloyd and Duveen
I992, Duveen and Lloyd I993). It may be that from the
perspective of social psychology the battlefield appears
to be a different one from the one which Aunger de-
scribes, but the issues which divide us do not seem to
me to be merely disciplinary questions.
As he is aware, the strategy of incorporating quantifi-
cation and statistical analysis into ethnography is not
one which would commend itself unequivocally
throughout the community of ethnographers. However,
my concern is not with these techniques themselves,
which have their place within an approach which Mos-
covici (i982) has described as "methodological polythe-
ism." Rather, my central concern is one of perspective
which I can best introduce by pointing to some signifi-
cant weaknesses in Aunger's arguments.
Sometimes the weaknesses are embedded in the way
he formulates his points. For instance, he describes his
second criterion of ethnographic acceptibility by saying
"it is necessary to specify fully the context of the data
collection event in the analysis." Who amongst us could
claim the perspicacity to meet such a criterion? As re-
searchers we are ourselves social and historical agents,
and one consequence is that we operate within a context
which we can never "fully specify"!
At other times it is the rigidity of his argument which
leads to a lack of what I might call interpretive flexibil-
ity. He writes, for example, that his proposals would
grant "a considerable degree of personhood to those liv-
ing in other cultures." But "personhood" is itself a cul-
turally embedded notion, and the characteristics he at-
tributes to it are not objective but a reflection of his own
cultural insertion (and even within this cultural system,
can there be degrees of personhood?). He makes this ar-
gument to suggest that his proposals offer a "humane"
approach in its treatment of informants, but the human-
ity which is offered has a distinctly Western flavour; not
every culture would construe individuals as "strategiz-
ing agents."
If I have identified these points from his text it is
not to defend the "textualist" school which he seeks to
challenge but rather because they seem to me symptom-
atic of an unacknowledged assumption which permeates
his text and determines his rhetoric. Aunger's position
appears to me to rest on the assumption that the social
sciences can articulate knowledge of society from a posi-
tion which is detached from society, and it is this as-
sumption which I want to question. He writes as though
the social sciences were capable of producing an objec-
tive account of social phenomena provided that they
used an appropriate methodology. But whose account
would this be? Whose voice could articulate objective
knowledge of society? It seems to me, rather, that the
history of the social sciences is a history of diversity
which shows little indication of convergence. The
minds of enough good scholars and researchers have en-
gaged these problems for us to have recognised such ob-
jective knowledge if it were accessible to us. In spite of
his disavowals, Aunger's position remains within the
cycle of positivist thinking, to the extent that even
where he appears to take account of critical perspectives
these have in fact been assimilated within a positivist
framework.
Perhaps we expect different things from ethnography.
I expect it to yield an exploration of the meanings which
social actors engage, and the only way of grasping mean-
ings is by articulating them through other meanings.
This is what makes the social sciences an interpretive
endeavour, and because of this I also expect to find diver-
sity among scholars. Diversity in the social sciences
seems to me to be the corollary of a constructivist epis-
temology, and it cannot be eradicated simply through
the adoption of formal methods.
LINDA C. GARRO
Department of Community Health Sciences,
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
R3E OW3. 8 VIII 94
While Aunger's paper encompasses far more than the
reflexive analytical approach, my comments will focus
on this topic. By urging anthropologists to direct more
systematic attention to the data collection situation and
by clearly explaining a rationale and means for further-
ing this objective, Aunger provides an explicit frame-
work for addressing reflexivity (whether one agrees with
his definition or not) and its implications for anthropo-
logical practice. He contends that formal methods can
contribute to reflexive analysis by ascertaining "the way
in which the elicitation process itself biases observa-
tions" through dividing the observed phenomenon into
"observer- or situation-derived and subject-based as-
pects."
Aunger briefly discusses an example illustrating how
this approach can be operationalized. Using logistic re-
gression, the proportional contribution of factors in his
model to explained variability can be determined. He
finds, for instance, that I4% of the probability that an
informant would give different responses to the same
question at different times is attributable to interviewer
effects. However, this and the other percentages are dif-
ficult to interpret, as their relevance is best understood
with reference to the proportion of the total variability
explained by the model. This information is not pro-
vided by Aunger, who says only that "the overall sig-
I I9
nificance of the statistical models indicated that a con-
siderable proportion of the variability observed in
responses was not explained by the model." The smaller
the amount of observed variability explained by the
model, the weaker the explanatory power of the vari-
ables in the model. Additionally, details such as the sig-
nificance levels associated with the different types of
factors and their constituent variables would help re-
searchers to evaluate this approach and its implications
for ethnographic inquiry. Further, while Aunger ascribes
the unexplained variability to unspecified situational
factors, it is also plausible that, for example, characteris-
tics of the informants, interviewers, or questions that
were not considered in the model might have explana-
tory value if they were included. In correlational analy-
ses, explanation is necessarily couched in terms of the
specific variables the investigator chooses to examine
and operationalize. If variables are not included, their
contribution cannot be evaluated.
Overall, however, Aunger's attempt to tease apart the
many aspects of the data collection situation that can
influence observations is laudable. It is to be hoped that
researchers will follow his lead, for it is through addi-
tional empirical work that the advantages of such an
approach relative to its drawbacks can be assessed. It
may well prove difficult or infeasible to implement the
specific repeated-interview, multiple-interviewer design
described by Aunger in some settings. In addition, the
repetition of a structured interview will likely test the
patience and willingness of participants. Even so, many
systematic data collection techniques can be adapted to
satisfy the criteria he proposes. Although he excludes
qualitative analytic methods that represent data (e.g.,
tree diagrams and multidimensional scaling diagrams),
it would often be possible to collect data in a manner
consistent with the reflexive analytical approach and to
carry out such an analysis prior to the representational
procedure. One interesting application would be to add
a reflexive dimension (as specified by Aunger) to a study
like Boster's (i985), in which individuals who gave the
more culturally consistent answers, that is, those who
agreed more with others, also tended to be the more
reliable in a test-retest situation. The contribution of
variability in the two data collection situations to an
understanding of variability in responses could then be
compared with the effect of participant characteristics,
including agreement with shared cultural knowledge. It
should be noted that in domains characterized by high
cultural agreement one would expect less variability in
a test-retest situation, lessening the likelihood of other
significant measurable effects. Yet, what remains is
Aunger's challenge that researchers address issues con-
cerning the effect of the observer on what is observed
during a data collection situation.
The broader question is whether this reflexive analyti-
cal approach represents a necessary and sufficient re-
sponse to concerns about reflexivity. Reliability of re-
sponses across time cannot be the only guide. My own
research often revolves around illness, and I have used
both structured and more open-ended interview formats.
And although I work to distance myself from biomedical
practitioners, it is ethically important for all partici-
pants to be aware that the study is university-based and
to understand the ways in which the findings will be
disseminated. This context, which remains constant re-
gardless of who conducts the interview, undoubtedly in-
fluences how individuals respond. But is this an effect
which can be measured? Further, Aunger has defined
and limited reflexivity to the data collection situation.
Can concerns about reflexivity be reduced to method-
ological matters and divorced from the formulation of
the research problem and the research design?
MARTYN HAMMERSLEY
School of Education, Open University, Walton Hall,
Milton Keynes, U.K. 3 VIII 94
Aunger begins from the premiss that until I983 "the
authority of an ethnographic report was assumed to be,
and effectively was, inviolate because of the lack of al-
ternative viewpoints on a particular cultural group."
This is a considerable exaggeration, at best. To mention
just one example, Lewis's restudy of Tepoztlan raised
some of the same problems as Freeman's re-evaluation
of Mead's work and also led to debates about the objec-
tivity and validity of ethnographic accounts (see Pad-
dock
Ig6I).
I doubt that the ethnographer's authority
has ever been taken as "inviolate." Nevertheless, it is
probably true that the questioning of ethnographic au-
thority, not least by ethnographers themselves (Ham-
mersley I992), has never been greater than it is today.
I agree with Aunger that what he calls the textualist
critique has substance and that the response to it should
not be to abandon a scientific approach to ethnogra-
phy-that a rigorous approach to analysing ethnographic
data is possible and desirable. However, what he pro-
poses seems to me to be defective in three respects.
First, I think he fails to understand the radical nature
of the textualist critique. He writes as if he believed that
he had met the criticisms coming from this source,
when in fact he largely ignores the textualists' most fun-
damental (if misconceived) arguments. Thus, some of
them claim that cognitive representation is not possi-
ble-that ethnography necessarily involves political rep-
resentation and in practice often political repression. In
order to meet this criticism, he needs to address the
issues of how cognitive representation is possible, how
the idea of ethnographic science can be defended, and in
what senses it is and is not political. He scarcely begins
to do this.
Second, and more important, Aunger underestimates
the depth and character of the differences between posi-
tivist and interpretive approaches. I agree with him that
these are not simply two mutually exclusive categories
but represent a much more complex array of assump-
tions, arguments, techniques, etc. To take Abell's com-
parative event-history as exemplifying interpretive ap-
proaches is, however, seriously to misrepresent the
latter and thereby to avoid most of the issues that are
I201
in dispute, such as whether the goal of ethnography is
explanation or understanding, whether it is nomothetic
or idiographic, etc. These tensions have been present
within anthropology and sociology since the igth
cen-
tury, and they are not easily resolved.
Finally, the model of rigorous ethnography which
Aunger puts forward is open to question. His concept
of reflexivity captures only part of what that term is
frequently used to denote. And the idea that the various
factors influencing the data collection process can be
measured and statistical techniques used to determine
their relative contribution to the results shows an aston-
ishing overconfidence in the capacity of quantitative re-
search. Here Aunger ignores the problems that qualita-
tive researchers have long raised about the measurement
of variables and the determination of their causal contri-
bution. Indeed, some have questioned the very possibil-
ity of the definitive concepts on which such an approach
relies. As a result, they have set up very different models
of ethnographic rigour, as exemplified by ethnoseman-
tics and ethnomethodology, to mention just two exam-
ples. In order to establish the superiority of Aunger's
own approach, some comparative assessment of other
attempts to make ethnography rigorous is surely nec-
essary.
As regards Aunger's specific proposals, I am not con-
vinced that what is required for rigour is an explicit
method for making inferences. Is not scientific inference
necessarily substantive and situational? If so, it cannot
be controlled by method: a crucial element of judgment
is involved. And explicitness is a matter of degree. What
is important, surely, is that the analysis be sufficiently
explicit to deal with genuine doubt on the part of the
ethnographer and/or the audience for which he or she
is writing. Aunger seems to assume some sort of founda-
tionalist epistemology here. In these respects, there are
problems with the very basis on which he builds his
proposal for scientific ethnography.
I believe that ethnographers should explore the use of
new techniques which might enable them to improve
the rigour of their work and that this should include
drawing on modes of thinking and methods developed
by quantitative researchers. Aunger's discussion of the
reflexive analytical and comparative event-history ap-
proaches is therefore of value. However, what he pro-
poses is not convincing as a scientific basis for method-
ological, philosophical, and political ethnographic work:
it is questionable in its own terms and hardly begins to
take account of the fundamental disagreements which
currently plague anthropology and the other social sci-
ences.
DEREK LAYDER
Department of Sociology, University of Leicester,
Leicester LEI 7RH, England. 30 vII 94
I agree with Aunger's basic objective, which is to dispute
the idea that a scientific approach to ethnography is im-
possible. Those "textualists" who believe that ethnogra-
phy can only take the form of a juxtaposition of "multi-
ple narrative voices" which the reader is left to analyse
must be challenged, as Aunger insists. I also agree that
the ethnographer's interpretations are privileged as a re-
sult of firsthand experience with the group under study
and that this does not preempt or preclude readers' inter-
pretations as the textualists would have us believe. The
textualist claim that (social) science is impossible be-
cause it is incompatible with the intrinsically interper-
sonal nature of human studies is also mistaken, and I
think that Aunger goes some way towards rectifying this
view.
However, Aunger seems to operate with a fairly re-
stricted view of science even though he does not con-
cede the (scientific) explanatory ground that interpretive
(storytelling) modes of analysis have arrogated for them-
selves. Although he does not share their view of science,
he substitutes for it a different but still fairly narrow
definition which centres on the importance of formal
methods of analysis. By so doing he fails to meet (and
thus, answer) an important part of the textualist critique
of objectivism and scientism, which insists that science
does not and cannot take situated meanings into ac-
count. The argument is that social study is an inherently
interpretive enterprise and therefore precludes the use of
naturalistic scientific methods. Thus, a textualist might
reply that although Aunger endeavours to grapple with
some of their critique of scientism (particularly the ne-
cessity for reflexivity), he has missed a crucial ontologi-
cal point about the nature of social reality and its refrac-
toriness to impersonal analytic modes.
This omission is reinforced in his account of the "re-
flexive analytical approach," in which "reflexivity" is
defined as an aspect of analysis rather than of data pre-
sentation-which is what the textualists mean by it, as
Aunger himself acknowledges. Leaving behind the tex-
tualists' definition is crucial here, since it means that
Aunger cannot claim that his attempt to satisfy the cri-
terion of reflexivity is successful in their terms. Missing
the fact that it is the interpretive moment of the presen-
tation of raw data that is crucial to the textualist argu-
ment about reflexivity, Aunger cannot really claim to
be marrying storytelling and science here. Rather, he is
applying scientific techniques (via formal analytic meth-
ods) to certain kinds of ethnographic projects which,
moreover, have already been defined as beyond the uni-
verse of discourse to which the textualist critique ap-
plies. This is apparent in n. I8, where Aunger says that
his two-step analytical procedure (reflexive analysis fol-
lowed by comparative event history) applies only to
"ethnographic research devoted primarily to the expla-
nation or description of ethnographic realities" and thus
explicitly excludes "ethnographies designed to capture
the experiential nature of fieldwork or life in the culture
under study."
To some extent, then, Aunger's counter to the textu-
alist argument against the possibility of a scientific ap-
proach to ethnography misses its intended target. Fur-
thermore, I do not think that he provides anything other
than a nominal link between quantitative and qualita-
I
1I2
tive forms of analysis, because his concluding comments
strongly suggest that formal analytic methods are the
basis of "real" science and that qualitative analysis itself
is somehow unscientific or pseudoscientific. Truly grap-
pling with the textualist critique requires that "science"
not be limited to studies reliant on "formal analytic
methods." It has to be shown that qualitative studies in
general (not only ethnography) are just as systematic,
rigorous, and analytic as those based on quantitative
techniques.
Thus, "science" must be not just a matter of the appli-
cation of specific methods or techniques of analysis but
one of the explanatory form and power of an account.
Further, a science of the social must presuppose an onto-
logical subject matter that is not limited simply to the
interpretation of the meaning of human activity but ex-
tends to the analysis of social structures, institutions,
and cultures. That is, it must attend to collective as well
as individual or interactional properties of social life
and, furthermore, should at some point attempt to un-
ravel their mutual influences. Finally, science is not
simply about the use of particular methodological tech-
niques and forms of analysis but about the practical ap-
plication of certain assumptions about the nature of the
topic under investigation. That is, science is intrinsi-
cally about theory and making theoretical commitments
(explicit or implicit, systematic or ad hoc) which influ-
ence research design, the choice of methodological tech-
niques and strategies, and the interpretation of results.
In summary, although Aunger's overall objectives are
sound, by ignoring purely qualitative analysis his spe-
cific proposal for a scientific ethnography seems too nar-
rowly defined and prescriptive.
P. STEVEN SANGREN
Department of Anthropology, Cornell University,
265 McGraw Hill, Ithaca, N.Y. 14853 U.S.A.
(pss3@cornell.edu). 27 VII 94
I agree wholeheartedly with Aunger that the values of
science ought not be abandoned in ethnography (Sangren
I988, i989). However, I disagree both with him and with
the "textualists" he disputes about how science ought
to be conceived. It is instructive that, although Aunger
and the textualists disagree profoundly on the possibil-
ity and desirability of writing scientific ethnography,
they agree rather remarkably on what qualifies as "sci-
ence": to be scientific, ethnographic writing ought to
eschew "linguistic devices" and "rhetoric," eliminate
intended and unintended biases and effects of power ine-
qualities, and emulate the quantitative methods of sta-
tistically oriented sociology. Both Aunger and his post-
modern or textualist opponents, by restricting the
construction of scientific authority (both rhetorical and
real) mainly within the boundaries defined by singular
ethnographies or research procedures, significantly mis-
construe the relevant contexts that constitute the inter-
subjective social world of social science discourse.
For example, Aunger credits the textualist critique
with a useful calling into question of ethnographic au-
thority and the unreflexive positivism presumed to have
characterized earlier ethnographic studies: "previously,
the authority of an ethnographic report was assumed to
be, and effectively was, inviolate because of the lack of
alternative viewpoints on a particular cultural group."
Such statements are clearly hyperbolic; disputes of in-
terpretation in anthropology have always been with us.
Clifford's and Freeman's depictions of anthropological/
ethnographic authority or consensus were rhetorical de-
vices intended to exaggerate the novelty of their respec-
tive views. Even when an ethnographer argues an inter-
pretation in assertive fashion, one should not infer that
any absolute truth or authority is claimed. More to the
point, one should not assume that professional readers
have ever accepted any ethnographer's claims solely on
the basis of some imagined scientific "authority."
In other words, Aunger shares with the textualists a
tendency to neglect the role of a scientific community-
the domain of public discourse and controversy of which
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY constitutes such a laudable
and concrete example-in which claims to novelty, ex-
planation, and discovery are ultimately evaluated. Even
if a study fails (as all ultimately do) to satisfy problemat-
ically conceived criteria of absolute truth or reliability,
this does not in itself disqualify it from participating
in a constructive way in a wider scientific discourse.
Aunger's argument to the effect that anticipatable biases
arising from the nature of informants' vantages or those
of ethnographers should be taken into account in re-
search design is always a good idea. So, too, is the call
for making methods of data collection explicit. But these
values are all but universally acknowledged and under-
stood, even if not consistently practiced. Practically
speaking, an obsession with method and reflexivity in
research design is very likely, as the current scene dem-
onstrates, to deflect scholarly attention from the study
of societies and cultures to studies of method and re-
flexivity in the abstract.
One suspects that Aunger would disqualify as unsci-
entific the contributions of many if not most classic eth-
nographies (e.g., Boas, Mead, Evans-Pritchard) based on
information supplied by "key" informants. By now the
shortcomings of many early ethnographies are well
known, but it is the discipline of the framing public
discourse on these studies that has improved (made
more scientific) our understandings of the Kwakiutl, Sa-
moans, and the Nuer, not the implementation in single
case studies of narrowly conceived research methods de-
signed to eliminate or minimize bias and distortion.
Aunger's penchant for bifurcations of categories like
rhetoric and statistics, hermeneutics and science-
disavowals notwithstanding (it is not only the title of
the paper that "perpetuates a false dichotomy" between
storytelling and science)-also aligns with a similar pen-
chant among those he disputes. I suggest that Aunger
consider the rhetorical uses of statistics and mathemat-
ics. Numerical and mathematical devices are not, as he
assumes, devoid of rhetorical intent; they are employed
to persuade. And neither are "linguistic devices" incapa-
ble of "scientific" (or at least logical) precision. In this
regard, Aunger's faith in the objectivity of statistical
methods and their ability to incorporate a rather oddly
conceived "reflexivity" into research design is uncon-
vincing. I, too, believe that statistical data can be useful
in the construction of ethnographic description. But as
Gregory Bateson (I972) so usefully pointed out, statis-
tics can "prove" quite "reliably" how such factors as
"dormative principles" in opium produce sleep! Statis-
tics can be employed very productively in producing
compelling arguments, but so can argumentative nar-
rative.
Clearly, Aunger is favorably impressed by the poten-
tial of methods developed by statistical sociology to en-
hance the scientific status of ethnography. Yet data col-
lection by what amounts to opinion poll has its own
shortcomings. Ethnographers are interested not only in
what people say or believe (and any pollster could tell
you that one cannot take respondents' answers at face
value; context, the specific nature of the topic in ques-
tion, and many other factors make interpretation of
informants' answers problematic) but also in why they
believe it and how the fact that they "believe" it (or
claim to do so) produces social effects. For example,
studies of "ideology" under Aunger's research regime
would be diminished to statistical portraits of people's
"beliefs" and their correlations with other "vari-
ables"-attempting to control for various biases in data
collection. The misrecognizing, legitimating social ef-
ficacy of ideology as more commonly conceived could
not be statistically studied in any such straightforward
way. In short, many necessary elements in good ethnog-
raphy are unframable in the terms enjoined by Aunger's
caveats.
In sum, one can agree with many of Aunger's method-
ological suggestions and even grant that the terms of
his "reflexive analytical" approach as part of a two-step
research strategy might inspire useful contributions to
ethnographic knowledge. However, his claim that "the
approach outlined here can serve as a general framework
for conducting replicable ethnographic research on the
full range of traditional anthropological topics" is at
once too restrictive and too ambitious. Aunger's agenda
unnecessarily restricts ethnographic analyses to a single
protocol. However, most good ethnography requires a
continual reframing of the premises of one's study as
research proceeds. It remains unclear how a mere se-
quencing of narrative and formal frameworks can coher-
ently transcend the epistemological divide Aunger de-
fines by methodological means. Why not expand our
horizons beyond individual studies to the imagined
community of social scientists? Let us aspire to some-
thing akin to an implementation of communicative rea-
son (Habermas I982) as a collective process among eth-
nographers (and their informants) rather than imagine a
research method capable of containing the power of this
intersubjective notion of science within a single re-
search methodology. An understanding of "science" as
itself an intersubjective process could more effectively
defend the scientific status of ethnographic research and
writing, on the one hand, and more coherently encom-
pass a plurality of styles of ethnographic representation,
on the other, than can Aunger's laudable attempt to
imagine a single utopian method.
DOUGLAS WHITE
Department of Anthropology, University of California,
Irvine, Calif. 92717, U.S.A. I IX 94
Aunger's analytic reflexivity seeks to combine source-
of -bias concerns and systematic interrogation of patterns
in sociocultural phenomena. It presents a challenge for
the continuing evolution of our discipline. While text
critique contributes to understanding of possible sources
of implicit bias in ethnographic syntheses, understand-
ing of the relative contributions of margin-of-error, dis-
tortion, and accurate rendering of phenomena requires
systematic comparison of alternative accounts. Aunger
shows how one can move beyond the conventional addi-
tive-statistical-influence (general linear) approach, with
its limiting assumptions, to create an internally compar-
ative science of culture-internal, that is, to the proce-
dures of data collection and analysis. His greatest service
to the discipline, however, is not to rest content with
the newer methodologies for internal comparisons (ran-
dom assignment and, I might add, discrete-structure
models) but to face the need for process description of
event histories, which brings actors and their contexts
(including event and material flows) into analytic focus.
His proposed synthesis of the more nomothetic, vari-
able-driven approach with comparative event history
and analysis-"storytelling reborn"-is a good begin-
ning, and it can be enlarged and strengthened in various
ways.
For one thing, it is possible to combine the newer
methods of internal comparison (e.g., random assign-
ment and discrete-structure models for the null hypoth-
esis and descriptive-nomothetic components, respec-
tively) with comparative event history and analysis.
Furthermore, it is possible to include flags for point of
view or possible sources of bias in the internal compara-
tive event analysis. This will permit determination of
whether a potential source of bias makes a systematic
difference to the patterns or structures observed. (Non-
systematic biases are, by definition, errors that do not
accumulate in one direction or another over a series of
observations. They behave in a random fashion to intro-
duce the margin of error that is always present in obser-
vations but to varying degrees. Random biases cancel
one another out in averaging over a series and do not
detract from the validity of description as do systematic
ones.) There are many more ways to combine process
description with systematic internal comparison (story-
telling and science) than the one-two-step linkage pro-
posed by Aunger.
Given the need for and possibility of hybrid ap-
proaches that reconceptualize some of our tools for an-
thropological research, process descriptions are likely to
increase in importance. Event-history approaches in-
I
I23
volving specific sets of actors, contexts, social and inter-
pretive relations, etc., are intellectually more satisfying
than purely variable-driven representations of the phe-
nomena we study. They necessarily involve us, along
with those we work with, in developing the phenome-
nology of human existence. Activity systems, flow sys-
tems, and relational systems are coming into wider use
for representing event histories. In consequence, flow
dynamics, discrete structures, and network representa-
tions are increasingly used to model continuous and dis-
crete processes. These newer event-flow representations
do need to be subjected, as Aunger suggests, to internal
comparative analysis (I would add: at all levels, not jusi
that of descriptive validity). These new directions in re-
search may help to synthesize the more idiographic
event-history and the more nomothetic statistical-
influence approaches. Some may seek to follow these
directions to develop more satisfactory foundations foi
the research and interpretive problems that face anthro-
pology.
Reply
ROBERT AUNGER
Chicago, Ill. 60637, U.S.A. 26 IX 94
As is suggested by two respondents (Abbott, Duveen)
who begin their commentaries with analogies to martial
combat, taking any stand on ethnographic methods
these days is like landing in the middle of enemy terri-
tory: one is liable to suffer an onslaught from all sides.
I nevertheless thank the commentators for taking up
arms to engage in yet another round of battle. I will deal
here with the apparently more "explosive" positions
taken in the paper.
"Reflexivity." My use of the notion of reflexivity
proved an admirable target for criticism. I either used a
peculiar interpretation of the term (Abbott), was merely
too limited in my definition (Garro, Hammersley), or
"defined away" the crux of the matter identified by the
textualists (de Ruijter, Layder). However, it seems to me
that the relevant question is not whether I have ad-
dressed the textualists' concerns but whether their no-
tion solves the reflexivity problem more effectively than
mine. The problem is to provide "information as to how
it [ethnographic information] came into being, the pro-
cess by which it was obtained" (to quote Meyerhoff and
Ruby [i982:2] again). The textualists' gambit of using
representational cues in the text assumes that the readei
has the experience to make the relevant inferences. As
they recognize, introspection is untrustworthy because
of the situatedness and biases of the ethnographer; it
is a feeble sort of reflexivity. The reflexive analytical
approach provides more explicit information about the
origins and qualities of the data in the form of data col-
lection protocols and standardized analytic procedures.
Thus, I would argue, reflexive analysis is a more power-
ful response to the basic problem of leaving tracks show-
ing how you reached your interpretive destination.
In addition, reflexive analysis does not preclude the
use of the textualists' reflexivity-as-introspection in
other steps of research. Garro argues that it is important
to be reflexive in the steps which define the research
problem and design prior to analysis as well as at the
other end of the research sequence, in the use of research
results. As I argued in footnotes, I acknowledge that
such steps exist and that self-awareness in such steps is
necessary and laudable. Reflexivity in the analytical step
represents a new contribution to the research process
which can be used in addition to self-reflection.
Sangren and Hammersley decry my argument that the
textualist critique represents a new chapter in the ap-
preciation of ethnographies. They argue that ethno-
graphic authority (a concept developed by the textual-
ists) has always in fact been subject to scepticism. I
think this downplays the textualist contribution to eth-
nographic practice; the notion of reflexivity has raised
the consciousness of ethnographers about representation
and the truth value of ethnographic descriptions-issues
which were implicit previously-and, as a result, the de-
gree of sophistication among practitioners and consum-
ers of ethnography has increased. I believe that the tex-
tualists deserve credit for this advance.
The reflexive analytical approach. The reflexive ana-
lytical approach has also proved quite controversial. San-
gren argues that it is incapable of studying emergent
phenomena-for example, topics central to social stud-
ies such as ideology-because it relies on survey statis-
tics. Informants can't report their implicit knowledge or
can mislead the ethnographer if confused by false con-
sciousness. But the imaginative use of individual-level
data, coupled with ethnographic insight, can indeed pro-
vide insight into social processes. For example, how
would an inverse correlation between the size of a
bride's bound feet and her husband's wealth in igth-
century Chinese society be properly interpreted except
as a consequence of rich men's ability to command the
self-defacement of their wives? A mother's reported de-
gree of ambition for her daughter might also be found
to be associated with the smallness of that daughter's
feet, suggesting that women were also socialized to be
the proximal agents of their own subjugation in this so-
ciety. Such evidence is indirect, but so are assertions
based on what ethnographers can themselves observe.
The ethnographer may intuit that ideological manipula-
tion of beliefs has occurred in an unfamiliar society, but
the use of social statistics can confirm the ethnogra-
pher's impression. I would argue that issues such as ide-
ology are less persuasively studied in a strictly interpre-
tive fashion.
De Ruijter, Duveen, and Garro argue that no one can
fully specify a social situation. Indeed, as Garro notes,
there are aspects of a situation which cannot be explic-
itly incorporated into any model, however elaborate, as
is exemplified in my own empirical work (where some
variation remained unexplained by the statistical
model). I was obviously misleading on this point: I did
not mean that every possible influence should be incor-
porated into the reflexive analytical model, which is ob-
viously impossible. However, the inability of the reflex-
ive analytical procedure to account for all influences on
the phenomenon of interest does not invalidate it, since
the alternative is an inability to determine the effects of
any factors on the situation except through direct infer-
ence from observation. Instead, I meant "fully" to im-
ply the inclusion in the analysis of variables from each
of the four categories of factors identified by the method-
ological situationalist position (i.e., some characteristics
of the context, the subject, the observer, and their inter-
action). These categories are admittedly introduced only
later in the paper. Missing "situational" factors might
include observer characteristics or aspects of other cate-
gories besides context, as Garro asserts.
A related point: Garro's complaints about the inter-
pretation of the reflexive analytical case study cited in
the paper are all cogent, but the information she desires
(e.g., about the relative significance of different explana-
tory variables, the proportion of overall variability ac-
counted for) is all presented in the original publication
(Aunger I994a). Since the purpose here was illustration
rather than demonstration of the particulars of the case,
these figures were not specified.
The comparative event-history approach. The second
step of the approach I advocated has been virtually ig-
nored, except by Abbott and White. Certainly, compara-
tive event historians are few at the moment, and I hope
that by advertising their existence to anthropologists
their ranks will increase. But Abbott makes a tactical
argument against a paper whose purpose was strategic.
He argues that novel approaches to research must be
championed by a vigorous and single-minded cadre of
Young Turks. This may be accurate from a sociology-of-
science point of view. However, it is irrelevant to my
more theoretical point: what methods are required to
treat a research question? If several researchers are
needed to implement the two-step approach because
each is likely to be specialized in one or the other major
approach to research, this is a fault not of the approach
but of the researchers or their training. Abbott's own
abilities testify against his claim about the impossibility
of "eclecticism": only someone with an expert's knowl-
edge of general-linear-reality approaches could be so in-
sightful in criticizing them. It must therefore be possible
for a single individual to imagine, if not execute, both
kinds of research. Further, since Abbott and his col-
leagues have already uncovered the hidden difficulties
with the general-linear-reality approach by concentrat-
ing their attention on the development of an alternative,
the constructive work has already been largely done.
What remains is for practitioners to apply both methods
to the same problems, cognizant of the limitations of
each. As Abbott allows, using multiple methods pro-
vides the best understanding of any given situation.
Abbott and White also assert that it is appropriate to
perform comparative event-history analysis on event se-
quences which describe the same events as perceived by
different actors or observers. While such an analysis is
not "forbidden," I still maintain that it is contrary to
the purposes and virtues of the approach. If such an anal-
ysis were to conclude that events at the Rashomon were
observed more similarly by A and B than by A and C,
we would not have come closer to understanding why A
and B perceived a particular event sequence differently.
While the comparative event-historical approach is able
to sort observers into groups by clustering their different
reported sequences, it cannot assist the researcher in
identifying what caused their commonality of percep-
tion. A reflexive analysis might, however, suggest that
this similarity was associated with A and B's both being
males while C is a female. Of course sex per se is not
the cause of the observed grouping-perhaps women are
relegated by social structure to particular roles which
affect their perception and interpretation of events-but
treating individuals as if they were unbundled sets of
characteristics can provide significant clues about where
to look for ultimate causes. As Abbott himself recog-
nizes, doing so has enabled "many people [to] do very
good and very interesting social science within what we
so strongly reject" (i.e., the general-linear-reality meth-
odology). Thus even though, ontologically speaking,
such analyses produce "fallacious results," they provide
powerful heuristics that lead to a deeper understanding
of the processes which generated the differences in what
was observed.
The integration of idiographic and nomothetic ap-
proaches. I share White's enthusiasm about the pros-
pects for the development of social science methodology
which may lead to greater interaction between nomo-
thetic and idiographic methods than is allowed by the
two-step approach I have outlined here.' I am less san-
guine than White appears to be, however, about the
eventual synthesis of these two approaches into a single
analysis which can deal with both observer bias and
event structure simultaneously. His proposed solution
is randomized regression of a structural model (Dow
makes a similar argument). The social-network and
discrete-structure models mentioned by White involve
matrix manipulation techniques which look for "struc-
ture" or patterns in matrix values. Combinatorial as-
signment methods can be used to investigate the struc-
ture of different matrices, one of which could include
the event sequence codings as elements while another
matrix represented information about the characteris-
tics of individuals responsible for the observations in the
event matrix.
The problem with this approach from Abbott's point
of view is that the rows in the event matrix are not
treated as a unit. In the comparative event-history ap-
proach events are compared only as elements of se-
quences; White's suggested approach would instead ma-
nipulate each value in the event matrix independently
wTAithknV1 yor%pn+e to -rwr-AL
ny
onlnIv"%no WUhilM thio
; im py_
i. As Dow notes, developments in traditional statistical methods
also lead to new techniques which avoid one or more of Abbott's
critical points about general linear reality. Nevertheless, most of
Abbott's points are true of most existing linear models.
AUNGER Ethnography: Storytelling or Science? I 125
fectly legitimate statistically, such a single-step combi-
nation of observers and events becomes a purely general-
linear-reality-style analysis. I therefore agree with
Hammersley that nomothetic and idiographic models
represent two general classes of approach which are suf-
ficiently different to inhibit their meaningful synthesis.
They make different ontological assumptions, have dif-
ferent analytical purposes, and are based on different
units of analysis. In essence, my argument is that a sup-
posedly idiographic analysis may ignore Abbott's
qualms about general linear reality to such a degree that
the virtues of a case-oriented approach are lost.
I should note that there are examples in the literature
of approaches which might more closely approximate
White's ideal. For example, Behrens (i990) developed a
procedure which combines random assignment with
Ragin's (I987) algebraic comparison method for causal
analysis. Since this is also a two-step approach, it pre-
serves the essential characters of the variables-based and
case-historical approaches. In particular, cases are
treated as wholes. However, Behrens's procedure does
not compare event sequences. Instead, the most parsi-
monious set of necessary and sufficient preconditions
leading to a particular ethnographic outcome is found
using Ragin's method and then the relative significance
of these conditions in producing the outcome is deter-
mined using randomization. Although events may os-
tensibly serve as preconditions, the algebraic compari-
son step still retains a dependent/independent variable
"feel," so that the preconditions as opposed to outcome
events are considered only as states, not as complex
entities, and there is no consideration of their temporal
(i.e., causal) order. Behrens's approach is therefore not
truly event-based or historical and as a consequence
does not represent as complete an integration of idio-
graphic and nomothetic approaches as the two-step pro-
cedure I have outlined. Thus, while I agree with White
that there are other methods which can be made analyti-
cally reflexive or historical, none has quite the same set
of virtues as the one I proposed.
The nature of "science." The most important con-
tention, I believe, is that of Layder, Sangren, and Ham-
mersley that my notion of science is positivistic and
hence hopelessly antiquated. Science, they argue, is not
about methodology but about theoretical commitments
prior to research design. While no research can be con-
ducted without theoretical underpinnings (if only im-
plicit), I disagree with Layder that scientific research can
be recognized by its explanatory form or power rather
than by its analytical methods. Science is primarily
about falsifiability and therefore involves a commitment
to publicly disclosed (i.e., replicable) methods. Layder
and others would argue that science is not restricted
to empirical, testable hypotheses. My response to this
contention requires some development.
First, the nomenclature of quantitative and qualita-
tive methods obscures the more important question
whether methods are formal. Nominally, what distin-
guishes quantitative methods is whether counts (i.e.,
"quantities") are used in analysis. But as I have noted,
methods have often been linked to theory as a matter of
academic tradition. For example, Denzin and Lincoln
(I994: 2) define qualitative researchers as those who
"study things in their natural settings, attempting to
make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the
meanings people bring to them." But they also contend
(p. 4) that "qualitative researchers stress the socially
constructed nature of reality, the intimate relationship
between the researcher and what is studied, and the situ-
ational constraints that shape inquiry." I have argued,
however, that such theoretical positions are not neces-
sarily implied by reliance on particular methods. So in
fact purely qualitative approaches can be considered sci-
entific, as Layder and Hammersley assert, as long as
they are as "systematic, rigorous, and analytic as those
based on quantitative techniques" (Layder). Ham-
mersley suggests ethnomethodology and ethnoseman-
tics as examples of such methods. Certainly a major re-
search program of this school, conversation analysis
(e.g., as practiced by Schegloff and his students), quali-
fies as a formal method. This technique is based on tran-
scribed naturalistic dialogues and uses standardized as-
sumptions about conversation structure as well as the
substance of what is said to determine how individuals
coordinate these social interactions (Levinson I983:
294-332). Thus, conversation analyses are to a consider-
able extent replicable, and traces of how the analysis
was conducted (as well as the "raw" transcriptions
themselves) are often represented in published reports
using this method. Thus I have nothing against qualita-
tive techniques as long as they are formal (see n. i I).
Although formal, conversation analysis is designed to
deal with the intentionality of the participants and to
infer the meaning attached to speech acts-the very "as-
pects of human activity which formal methods of data
collection and analysis have obscured," according to Du-
veen. Ethnomethodologists have convincingly con-
tended that meaning is constructed within local situa-
tions through social interaction (Heritage I987:225-26).
For this reason, I have emphasized that methods must
also be situationalist. Thus whether human behavior is
couched in intentional or behavioral terms is less impor-
tant than the kind of analytical approach used. Formal-
ity of methods has little do with the nature of what is
studied but everything to do with verification and credi-
bility.
There is further evidence that what distinguishes sci-
ence as a cultural practice is its reliance on methods.
The evidence lies in how science produces knowledge.
As the sociology of science has taught us, conceptual
change in science is a function of sociological processes.
The question is, what processes in which society? Is it
society-at-large, so that scientific knowledge consistent
with the ideologies of powerful social groups is legiti-
mated, as is argued by the "strong programme" in the
sociology of knowledge (e.g., Bloor I976, Barnes I977)?
Or is the "scientific community" to which Sangren re-
fers largely self-policing, using its own criteria to estab-
lish what scientific knowledge is?
This question can be answered by examining the data
i26 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 36, Number I, February 1995
on scientific reputation, since who gets an audience de-
termines which theories and results become widely ac-
cepted. Reputation can be ascertained from citation
practices-which researchers seek support for their
work by linking themselves to the authority of others.
Hull (i992) finds that only a small proportion of the
scientists in any field publishes papers regularly (admit-
tedly, some scientists work outside academia, where
publication is not expected). Of these papers, only a few
are ever cited; a very small proportion of the papers pub-
lished in any field is cited often. There is thus tremen-
dous variation in this measure of scientific reputation,
indicating that competition for reputation is intense.
Since reputation is relative, individual scientists
should seek to elevate their own reputations at the ex-
pense of others. This can be best achieved by coalescing
into "numerous, relatively isolated groups of scientists
who hold significantly different views from each other"
(Hull I992:78), so that within groups there is coopera-
tion (i.e., mutual citation, support in the grant process)
while between groups there is competition for domi-
nance in the discipline. Kuhnian paradigm shifts can
then be explained as the ascendancy of cliques which
have theoretical views different from those of the group
which previously held sway. Hull finds evidence for this
"demic" organization of scientists in National Science
Foundation proposal reviews, where the conceptual
school to which one belongs highly determines the de-
gree to which one is positive about a proposal.
At the same time, the theft of ideas and falsification
of results are severely punished-much more so than
in other professions (e.g., medicine, law, police)-while
honest mistakes are rapidly forgiven as long as the scien-
tist acknowledges them. The most powerful can be
knocked down instantly by proof of impropriety. How-
ever, personal failures are irrelevant to status in the sci-
entific community. Honesty is therefore the most suc-
cessful scientific attitude, and the scientific work ethic
should strike a balance between the pursuit of good the-
ory and little deviation from normative practices to es-
tablish results: being a good scientific citizen means be-
ing moral and creative. Further, this scientific ethos
exists independently of national culture: in many disci-
plines, the race for knowledge is now global, with com-
munication networks facilitated by faxes and e-mail. We
can infer from this evidence that the scientific commu-
nity has a culture of its own and can be properly under-
stood as a self-contained society playing by a unique set
of rules.
Hull concludes from this investigation (which, be-
cause it relies on formal methods, he calls the "science
of science")2 that reputation is constantly under attack
and must continually be backed up by high-quality
work. This analysis indicates that the criteria primarily
used to establish reputation in science are professional
and internal to the scientific community rather than
based on power or standing in the larger society.
More relevant to the present discussion is that what
allows this community to function on these standards
is formal methods. Scientific reputation depends on le-
gitimated results, and results, to be legitimated, must
stand up to efforts at falsification. As Miles and Huber-
man (I 994: 2) note, the "deep, dark" problem with purely
interpretive research is that of credibility: "we do not
really see how the researcher got from 3,600 pages of
field notes to the final conclusions, as sprinkled with
vivid illustrations as they may be." Interpretive research
proceeds directly from fieldnotes to final product on the
basis of analytical constructs devised by the researcher.
Formal methods, in contrast, lead the reader through
the steps preceding the presentation of results and their
interpretation. Such ethnographic reports are more cred-
ible because the interpretation has been shown to result
from a replicable protocol, not simply from personal
biases.3
Thus, falsification remains the criterion which distin-
guishes science as a cultural practice and results in the
unique ability of scientific theories to exhibit greater
power over time (as seen in the increasing ability of
technology to manipulate the environment). In other ar-
eas of scholarly endeavor (e.g., literary criticism, histori-
cal and humanistic interpretation), knowledge can accu-
mulate through accretion, but theoretical development
does not occur. So science is about replication and test-
ing, which requires formal, public methods. Certainly
which methods are used is constantly in flux as support-
ing technologies and social understandings of those
methods change. But for the reasons above, I do not
think it unreasonable to emphasize methods rather than
interpretive style, as suggested by Layder, in distinguish-
ing science from other types of knowledge-generating
practices.
Of course, scientific reputation can also depend on
the development of novel, widely adopted theoretical
concepts. Theories cannot themselves be falsified (Laka-
tos I970), since theory tends to be underdetermined by
data (hence the need to augment theory with secondary
restrictions to develop testable propositions). Therefore
multiple theories for a given domain of phenomena can
often persist, although nonscientific criteria may lead
to preferences among them (e.g., elegance, parsimony,
consistency with theory in other domains-or advocacy
nf t1he thonrv by
-nrPetioinh1Q individiual. as is Q11cYYpQtp.d
2. Hull reviews all the available data on citation and review prac-
tices in entire scientific communities, whereas the sociology-of-
science literature is almost totally restricted to individual case
studies-e.g., Latour and Woolgar's I986 classic study of a biologi-
cal laboratory, cited by de Ruijter as evidence of the socially con-
structed nature of science. However, as Hull (i992:80) notes, this
latter evidence remains "impressionistic and programmatic."
While the work of individual labs may largely reflect interpersonal
politics, competition in the harsh environment of scientific pub-
lishing and reputation making ensures that scientific knowledge
is progressively adapted to the social world it helps to shape.
3. Because it relies on such formal methods, I argue, contra de
Ruijter, that the two-step approach, like the postmodem textualist
critique, "calls for attention to the process of transformation
whereby the ethnographer's field experience is translated into an
ethnographic report."
I
I27
by the sociologists of science). As I have argued here,
ontology is crucial in determining philosophical orienta-
tion and hence can also influence the choice of theory.
Unfortunately, in most cases ontological beliefs remain
highly personal, leading to the kinds of debates we have
seen recently in ethnography.
Thus, my response on this issue can be summarized
as follows: (i) scientific (i.e., falsifiable) results are pro-
duced using formal, public methods; (2) qualitative
methods can be formal; (3) meaning is created by indi-
viduals in social situations, so methods must be situa-
tionalist to contend with the aspects of interpretation
dependent on human intentionality; (4) scientific results
can "speak to" many theories, hence interpretation is
an art depending on personal considerations rather than
proof and remains open to dispute.
With respect to the larger philosophical issues, I am
sorry to have given Duveen and de Ruijter the impres-
sion that I believe there is an objective approach to sci-
ence (i.e., that data exist prior to perception or facts prior
to language and conceptual categories). I thought that
my acknowledgment of reflexivity would preclude such
interpretations, along with my statement that percep-
tion is theoretically informed. Nor do I believe that a
research program will be devoid of personal, culturally
informed concepts (e.g., Duveen's remark about my
Western individualist notion of the person). Further, in
my own empirical work, "primary data" are not treated
as facts but are considered strategic information con-
veyed in social situations (de Ruijter's question about
what constitutes primary data is answered in n. 5). None
of this would classify me as an unreconstructed positiv-
ist as Duveen seems to believe.
No commentator advocates a positivist approach,
nor does any identify with the textualist position. The
commentators can thus all be considered "middle-
grounders" on the philosophical questions considered in
the paper. It is probably for this reason that they have
attempted a dialogue with me. I expect that there is lit-
tle comon ground for argument among those who do not
share a belief in ontological realism. This is the true
difficulty for cultural anthropology today, since it is un-
likely that such a fundamental division can be sustained
within a community of scholars. Indeed, the textualists
now appear to be reaching out to other disciplines for
an intellectual home, perhaps to be centered around cul-
tural studies.
This development confirms, I think, Sperber's point
that there are multiple ways of knowing. Some types of
understanding can no doubt be achieved only through
sympathetic response, just as other kinds of knowledge
require bodily experience ("learning by doing"). Never-
theless, there are kinds of knowledge which can be ac-
quired through intellectual effort; otherwise schooling
would serve no purpose. Scientific reports seek to con-
vince rather than persuade, to improve understanding
by an appeal to intellect rather than sympathy. As a
result, scientific and interpretive approaches differ in
forms of representation and use of rhetoric. For example,
while the comparative event-history approach has the
interpretive goal of understanding individual cases, it
does not use the means which Hammersley suggests is
intrinsic to this goal: evocative understanding. Never-
theless, each mode of presentation can produce a valid
type of knowledge. But while I grant legitimacy to those
who seek to convey a sense of life in unfamiliar cultures
by summoning up images and emotions in readers, I
doubt that the textualists return the compliment to
those of us who argue on behalf of scientific ethnogra-
phy. My objective has been to reassert that a type of
science recognizable by those in other disciplines re-
mains a viable way of knowing in anthropology.
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