In this article I elaborate and codify the extended case method, which deploys participant observation to locate everyday life in its extralocal and historical context. The extended case method emulates a reflexive model of science that takes as its premise the intersubjectivity of scientist and subject of study. Reflexive science valorizes intervention, process, structuration, and theory reconstruction. It is the Siamese twin of positive science that proscribes reactivity, but upholds reliability, replicability, and representativeness. Positive science, exemplified by survey research, works on the principle of the separation between scientists and the subjects they examine. Positive science is limited by “context effects” (interview, respondent, field, and situational effects) while reflexive science is limited by “power effects” (domination, silencing, objectification, and normalization). The article concludes by considering the implications of having two models of science rather than one, both of which are necessarily flawed. Throughout I use a study of postcolonialism to illustrate both the virtues and the shortcomings of the extended case method. Methodology can only bring us reflective understanding of the means which have demonstrated their value in practice by raising them to the level of explicit consciousness; it is no more the precondition of fruitful intellectual work than the knowledge of anatomy is the precondition of “correct” walking.

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The extended case method

A classic problem common to sociology and other social sciences revolves around how people make decisions. Some recent approaches start with and revise an individually focused, rational action framework. While this orientation to building transdisciplinary, multilevel models provides many insights, it fails to capture essential features of social life. The social organization strategy (SOS) framework presented in this article offers a complementary approach to social action in general and decision making in particular. This orientation, a network and event-centered counterpart to rational choice, rests on fundamental principles that distinguish the discipline of sociology: social interaction is the basis of social life, and social networks provide the mechanism (interaction) through which individuals learn about, come to understand, and attempt to handle difficulties. This approach shifts the from individual "choice" to socially constructed patterns of decisions, including consultation with others. Utiliz...

Beyond Rational Choice: The Social Dynamics of How People Seek Help

A Map of the Terrain PART ONE: THE VIEW FROM ON HIGH The Legacy of Talcott Parsons Varieties of Marxism PART TWO: WHERE THE ACTION IS Meanings, Situations and Experience Perceiving and Accomplishing PART THREE: BREAKING FREE AND BURNING BRIDGES Foucault and the Postmodern Turn Beyond Micro and Macro: Abandoning False Problems Gidden's Structuration Theory PART FOUR: ONLY CONNECT: FORGING LINKS Linking Agency and Structure and Macro and Micro Habermas's Lifeworld and System Varieties of Dualism New Directions: The Theory of Social Domains

https://99chan.org/wri/src/Layder_Understanding_Social_Theory__2006.pdf

Understanding social theory

Communication for Rural Innovation

The paper critically reviews some themes and methods within qualitative research and argues for self-ethnography as an approach to study universities and other settings which the researcher is highly familiar with, and has direct access to. Advantages and disadvantages are discussed. In particular the struggle between utilizing closeness to empirically rich situations and avoid the closure following from being ( staying) native is highlighted. Some ideas for self-ethnographic work in organization studies are developed.

Karin D. Knorr-Cetina

Papers

The micro-sociological challenge of macro-sociology : towards a reconstruction of social theory and methodology