Perhaps the hottest topic in contemporary ethnographic research is the possibility, the value, and the drawbacks of comparative ethnography. In Beyond the Case, Corey Abramson and Neil Gong and their well-chosen authors provide a diverse set of explanations for how and when comparative ethnographies advance description, theory, and policy analysis. This is a book that will stand the methodological test of time and every field researcher will wish to consider
its arguments for their own projects and for those of their students.
Corey M. Abramson is Associate Professor of Sociology at University of Arizona. His research uses a combination of quantitative, qualitative and hybrid methods to understand how persistent social inequalities structure everyday life and are reproduced over time. His recent comparative ethnography on this topic is The End Game: How Inequality Shapes Our Final Years. The End Game has been awarded the 2016 Outstanding Publication
Award by the American Sociological Association Section (ASA) on Aging and the Life Course, selected for an Author Meets Critic Session at ASA, and featured in national media outlets including The New York Times and The Atlantic. Abramsons current methodological works, including recent pieces in Sociological Methodology and Ethnography,
focus on integrating computational techniques to improve the scalability, replicability, and transparency of large multi-site ethnographic projects conducted in accordance with realist principles.
Neil Gong is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, and currently a Junior Fellow at the University of Michigan Society of Fellows. His research uses diverse empirical cases to study power and social control in modernity, with a specific focus on understanding liberal social order. Neils forthcoming book project Mind and Matter: Madness and Inequality in Los Angeles is a comparative ethnography of public safety net and elite
private psychiatric services in community settings. He has previously researched a no-rules libertarian fight club, and will next study the construction of free speech in everyday life. His articles have appeared in Social Problems, Theory and Society, and Ethnography.