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The Extended Case MethodAuthor(s): Michael BurawoySource: Sociological Theory, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), pp. 4-33Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/202212

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The Extended Case Method*MICHAEL BURAWOY

University of California, Berkeley

In this article I elaborate and codift the extended case method, which deploys partici-pant observation to locate everyday life in its extralocal and historical context. Theextended case m7ethodemulates a reflexive imodel of science that takes as its premise theintersubjectivity of scientist and subject of study. Reflexive science valorizes interven-tion, process, structuration, and theory reconstruction. It is the Siamese twin of positivescience that proscribes reactivity, but upholds reliability, replicability, and representa-tiveness. Positive science, exemplified by surs'ev research, works on the principle of theseparation between scientists and the subjects they examine. Positive science is limitedby "context effects" (interview, respondent, field, and situational effects) while reflex-ive science is limited by "power effects " (domination, silencing, objectification, andnormalization). The article concludes by considering the implications of having twomodels of science rather than one, both of whIichare necessarily flawed. Throughout Iuse a study of postcolonialism7 to illustrate both the virtues and the shortcomings of theextended case method.

Methodology can only bring us reflective understanding of the means which havedemonstrated their value in practice by raising them to the level of explicit conscious-ness; it is iio more the precondition of fruitful intellectual work than the knowledge ofanatomn is the precondition of "correct" walking.

Max Weber-The Methodology of the Social Sciences

True,anatomicalknowledgeis not usuallya preconditionfor "correct"walking.But whenthegroundbeneathour feet is always shaking,we need a crutch.As social scientistswe arethrown off balanceby ourpresencein the world we study, by absorptionin the society weobserve,by dwelling alongsidethose we make "other."Beyond individualinvolvementisthebroaderethnographicpredicament-producing theories,concepts,and facts that desta-bilize the world we seek to comprehend.So, we desperatelyneed methodologyto keep userect, while we navigatea terrainthatmoves and shifts even as we attemptto traverseit.*'Addresscorrespondenceto the authorat Departmentof Sociology, University of California,Berkeley, CA94720, [email protected] have been writing this paper for twenty years. Earlier versions are barely recognizable due to dialogue,discussion in many venues. In recentyears two people in particularhave sustainedme in this endeavour.ErikWrighthas plied me with dozens of pages of intenseargumentationto the effect that therecan be only one modelof science, while PeterEvans has insisted thatI persist despite all opposition.And opposition there was plenty,from hostile receptionsin talks to dismissive reviews fromjournalreferees.The extendedcase methodenjoyedextended and lively public discussion in various midwest seminars at the University of Wisconsin, Madison,NorthwesternUniversity,University of Chicago, and the University of Minneapolis,Minnesota.I have taught

participantobservationsince I arrivedat Berkeley in 1976 and it was in those heatedcourses thatmy ideas tookshape as well as in working with graduatestudentson two collections of Berkeley ethnographies.The firstappearedas Ethnogra,phyUnbolund(1991). TeresaGowan, Leslie Salzinger,MarenKlawiter,andAmy Schalethave been intent on holding me accountablefor what I say, while Raka Ray, JenniferPierce, Charles Ragin,Michael Goldman,Bob Connell, Nora Schaeffer,andespecially Linda Blum providedmoregentle stimuli overthe years.My greatestdebtis to JaapvanVelsen, my firstsociology teacherwho, as an anthropologist,embodiedthe extendedcase method,althoughhe'd recoil in horrorat the formalizationto which I have subjectedit. Finally,I'd like to thankCraigCalhounfor steeringthis into printso thatI can finally forget about it.Sociological Theory 16.:1 March 1998? American Sociological Association. 1722 N Street NW, Washington, DC 20036


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THE EXTENDED CASE METHODLike otherhandicaps,the ethnographicconditioncan be dealt with in one of two ways:containingit or turningit to advantage.In the first strategy,we minimize ourpredicamentby limiting our involvementin the world we study, insulatingourselves from oursubjects,

observingthem fromthe outside, interrogatingthemthroughintermediaries.We keep ourfeet on the groundby adheringto a set of datacollecting proceduresthat assureour dis-tance. This is the positive approach.It is best exemplified by survey research in whichevery effort is made to suspendour participationin the world we study.We try to avoidaffecting the situation we study, standardizethe collection of data,bracket externalcon-ditions, and make sure our sample is representative.In the alternativestrategywe thematize our participationin the world we study.Wekeep ourselvessteadyby rootingourselves in theorythatguides ourdialoguewith partici-pants. Polanyi (1958) elaboratesthis idea in detail, rejectinga positivist objectivitybasedon "sense data"in favor of a commitment to the "rationality"of theory-cognitive mapsthroughwhich we apprehendthe world. This "dwellingin"theoryis at thebasis of whatIcall the reflexivemodel of science-a model of science thatembraces not detachmentbutengagementas the road to knowledge. Premisedupon our own participationin the worldwe study,reflexive science deploys multipledialogues to reachexplanationsof empiricalphenomena.Reflexive science startsout from dialogue, virtual or real,between observerandparticipants,embeds such dialogue within a second dialoguebetween local processesand extralocalforces that in turncan only be comprehendedthrougha third,expandingdialogue of theory with itself. Objectivityis not measuredby proceduresthat assure anaccuratemappingof the world but by the growthof knowledge; that is, the imaginativeandparsimoniousreconstructionof theoryto accommodateanomalies(Kuhn 1962; Pop-per 1963; Lakatos 1978).The extendedcase methodappliesreflexive science to ethnographyin orderto extractthe generalfromthe unique,to move from the "micro"to the "macro,"andto connectthepresentto the past in anticipationof thefuture,all by buildingon preexistingtheory.In myown use of the extendedcase methodI used my experiencesas a personnelconsultantinthe Zambiancopper industryto elaborateFanon's theory of postcolonialism. I tried toexpose the roots of consent to Americancapitalismby applyingGramsci'stheoryof hege-mony to my experiencesas a machineoperatorin a SouthChicagofactory.I haveexploredthe natureof workorganizationand class formationundersocialism by combining Szele-nyi's theoryof class structureandKornai'stheoryof theshortageeconomy.Thiswas basedon laboring in Hungarianfactories-champagne, auto manufacturing,and steel. MostrecentlyI have workedmy way outwardfrom a smallfurniturefactoryin NorthernRussiain orderto develop theoriesof the transitionfrom socialism to capitalismusing Marxistnotions of merchantandfinance capital.How can I justify these extravagantleaps acrossspace andtime, fromthe singularto the general,fromthe mundaneto the grandhistoricalthemes of the late twentiethcentury?That is the questionthatmotivatesthis article.Although it is more usual for ethnographicstudies to confine themselves to claimswithin the dimensions of the everydayworlds they examine,I am not alone in "extendingout" from the field. Indeed, this was one of the hallmarks of the ManchesterSchool ofsocial anthropology,which firstcoined thephrase,"extendedcase method"(Garbett1970;Gluckman1958, 1961a, 1961b, 1964;VanVelsen 1960, 1964, 1967;Mitchell 1956, 1983;Epstein 1958). Instead of collecting datafrom informantsaboutwhat "natives""oughttodo," they began to fill theirdiarieswith accountsof what "natives"actuallywere doing,with accounts of real events, struggles,and dramas that took place over space and time.They broughtoutdiscrepanciesbetweennormativeprescriptionsandeverydaypracticesdiscrepanciesthey tracedto internalcontradictionsbutalso to the intrusionof colonialism.They began to restore Africancommunities to theirbroader,worldhistoricalcontext.

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SOCIOLOGICALTHEORYNot just in Africa but in the United States, too, there is a rich but inchoate traditionofscholarshipin the implicit style of the extended case method.Communityethnographieshave not always stoppedat the tracks but incorporatedthe wider contexts of racism and

labor markets(Liebow 1967; Bourgois 1995) as well as urbanpolitical regimes (Whyte1943;Susser 1982;Haney 1996).Workplaceethnographies,traditionallyconfined to "plantsociology,"have also taken externalfactors into account,such as raceandethnicity(Lam-phere et al. 1993 ), citizenship(Thomas 1985), markets(Smith 1990), and local politics(Blum 1991). Participantobservation studies of social movements locate them in theirpolitical and economic context (Fantasia1988;Johnston1994;Ray 1998). Ethnographiesof the school have always sought to explain how education is shapedby and at the sametime influenceswiderpatternsof social inequality(Willis 1977;MacLeod 1987;andPow-ers forthcoming). Family ethnographieshave found it impossible to ignore influencesbeyond the household (Stacey 1990; Devault 1991; Hondagneu-Sotelo1994), upholdingDorothySmith's (1987) feminist injunctionto locate lived experiencewithin its extralocaldeterminations.'The rudimentsof the extendedcase methodaboundin these examples and elsewhere.What I propose, therefore, is to bring "reflective understanding"to the extended casemethodby raisingit to the "level of explicit consciousness."But, contraWeber,this is notsimply a clarificatoryexercise. It has real repercussionsfor the way we conduct socialscience. Indeed, it leads to an alternativemodel of social science and thus to alternativeexplanatoryandinterpretivepractices-something social scientists are reluctantto coun-tenance. We preferto debateappropriatetechniquesor even toleratethe rejectionof sci-ence altogetherratherthan face the possibilityof two coexistingmodels of science, whichwould wreak havoc with ourmethodologicalprescriptions.Still I hope to demonstratethatreflexive science has its pay-off, enabling the explorationof broadhistoricalpatternsandmacrostructureswithoutrelinquishingeitherethnographyor science.

By ethnographyI mean writing about the world from the standpointof participantobservation;by science I mean falsifiable and generalizable explanations of empiricalphenomena. In developing my argumentit will be necessary to distinguish (a) researchmethod(here surveyresearchandthe extendedcase method),which is the deploymentof(b) techniquesof empiricalinvestigation(here interviewingandparticipantobservation)to best approximate(c) a scientific model (positive or reflexive) thatlays out the presup-positions and principles for producingscience. In elaboratingthe different dimensionsof the extended case method, I hope to improve its execution, justify it as a science,albeit a reflexive science, and draw out broaderimplicationsfor the way we study theworld.In orderto illustrateand explicate the extended case method I returnto a study con-ducted between 1968 and 1972 in the thennewly independentAfricancountryof Zambia.Of all my studies I have chosen this one because it most effectively illustratesboth thevirtues and the limits of the extendedcase method.First, the virtues:the extendedcasemethodis able to dig beneaththe political binariesof colonizer andcolonized, white andblack,metropolisandperiphery,capitalandlaborto discovermultipleprocesses, interests,and identities.At the sametime, thepostcolonialcontextprovidesfertilegroundforrecon-densingtheseproliferatingdifferencesaroundlocal, national,andglobal links. Second,the

'Smith's "sociology of women"begins by debunkingabstract,decontextualized,and universalisticsociologyas the ideology of ruling men and turnsto the concrete lived experience of women as point of departure.Themicrostructuresof everydaylife, which women direct,become the foundationandinvisible premisefor macro-structurescontrolled by men. This looks like the extended case method, but whereas Smithjustifies it on thegroundsof the "standpointof women," I groundit in an alternativeconception of science. In this regardI amcloser to SandraHarding(1986, 1990), who works the terrain between androcentricscience and postmoderndismissal of science. Ratherthan surrenderscience to men, she calls for a successor science.

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THE EXTENDED CASE METHODlimits: the extended case method comes up against the very forces it displays. As therenascentfield of "colonial" studies makes clear,the colonies were not simply the site ofexotica butof experimentsin new tactics of power, subsequentlyreimportedback into themetropolis(Stoler 1995;Mitchell 1988). Dominationtook on especially rawandexagger-atedforms, transparentlyimplicating sociologists andespecially anthropologists,coloringtheir vision in unexplicated ways (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Asad 1973). Colonial andpostcolonialregimesof powerthrowintorelief limits inherentto the extended case method.Accordingly,the article is constructedas follows: I begin with a narrativeof my studyof the Zambiancopper industry (Burawoy 1972a, 1972b, 1974), highlightingthe socialembeddednessof reflexive research.I then show how my study violated each of the fourprinciplesof positive science. If therewere only this model of science, thenI would haveto abandoneither the extended case methodorscience. However,theextended case methodis not alone in violating positive principles. I show that surveyresearch,the quintessen-tially positivemethod,transgressesits own principlesbecause of inescapablecontexteffectsstemmingfrom the indissoluble connectionbetween interviewerandrespondent,andfromthe embeddedness of the interviewin a wider field of social relations.We can eitherlivewith the gap between positive principles andpractice,all the while tryingto close it, ORformulatean alternativemodel of science thattakes context as its point of departure,thatthematizes ourpresencein the world we study.Thatalternativeis the "reflexive"model ofscience which, when appliedto the techniqueof participantobservation,gives rise to theextended case method.In saving both science and the extended case method, however, I do not eliminatethe gap between them. Making context and dialogue the basis of an alternative scienceunavoidably brings into prominence power effects thatdivide the extended case methodfrom the principlesof reflexive science. Postmodernismhas done much to highlightthesepower effects but, ratherthanmake do with an inadequatescience, it rejectsscience alto-gether.I find myself workingon the bordersof postmodernism,without ever oversteppingthe boundaries.Choosing to remainon the side of science, we have to live with its self-determinedlimitations,whethertheybe thecontext effects of positive science orthepowereffects of reflexive science. Given that the world is neitherwithout context nor withoutpower, both sciences are flawed. But we do have a choice. So I finally ask when, where,andwhy we deploy each of the two model-methods.I. THE ETHNOGRAPHICCONDITIONEMBRACEDReflexive science sets out froma dialoguebetweenus andthem,between social scientistsandthe people we study.It does not springfrom anArchimedeanpointoutside space andtime; it does not create knowledge or theory tabula rasa. It starts out from a stock ofacademic theoryon the one side and existent folk theoryor indigenous narrativeson theother.Both sides begin theirinteractionfrom real locations.My own studyof the Zambiancoppermines beganfrompublicly debateddilemmas ofthe legacies of colonialism. I travelled to the copperbeltin 1968 in searchof the policiesandstrategiesof transnationalcorporationstowardthe postcolonialregime.The two min-ing companies, the Anglo AmericanCorporationandthe Roan Selection Trust,had theirroots in the colonial orderof NorthernRhodesia, a Britishprotectorateuntil 1964. Howwere these companies respondingto Zambianindependence,whose statedobjective wasto reappropriatecontrolover the nation's economy?This was not a trivialquestion sincethe copper industry employed some fifty thousandpeople, 90 percent African and 10percentexpatriate.At the time of independencethe mines provided90 percentof foreignexchange and 50 to 70 percentof governmentrevenue. As far as Whitehall(andlaterthe

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SOCIOLOGICALTHEORYFederationof Rhodesia andNyasaland)hadbeen concerned,NorthernRhodesia's reasonfor existence was her copper.Road and rail transportation,land andagriculture,taxationand trade, labor and education,nationalityand race were all designed to maximize theexportof copper.Zambia was the archetypalenclave economy, withcopperits organizingprinciple.It was easier to study how mineworkerswere faring than to disclose the mysteriouscorporatepracticesof Anglo AmericanCorporationand Roan Selection Trust.Mine wasnot a studythat could be accomplishedby combing throughdocumentssince, as I was tolearn,by themselves they revealedso little. Interviews,conductedfrom the outside, wereno less useful since managerswere protectedby layers of public relations.InsteadI tookadvantageof my recentlywon mathematicsdegree and my contactin Anglo's headquar-ters to land myself a job in the Personnel ResearchUnit of the CopperIndustryServiceBureau. Locatedin Kitwe, at the heart of the mining region, this was the centerof indus-trialrelations,both policy andpractice.Oncetheremy attentionturnedto the morespecific questionof laborforce localization,or whathad been called "AfricanAdvancement"but which since independencecame to becalled "Zambianization."Colonial rule left Zambia'sfour million people with barelyonehundreduniversitygraduatesandjust overtwelve hundredAfricanswith secondaryschoolcertificates. So the countryremainedheavily dependenton white managersand experts.Historically,the mining industryhad been organizedaccordingto the color barprinciple,viz. no blackpersonshould exercise authorityover anywhiteperson.It was a majoraimofthe anticolonialmovementto eradicateall suchtracesof whitesupremacy.How hadthingschangedin the postcolonialperiod?I began with the figuresput out by the new govern-ment's ZambianizationCommittee, which painted a rosy picture of achievement. Fouryears afterindependencethere were fewer expatriatesandmore Zambiansin "expatriate"(white) positions. Whatlay behindthis portraitof "deracialization"?If comprehensionof managerialstrategieswas largelybarredto outsiders,any seriousstudy of Zambianizationwas totally off limits. Racial succession in what had been anapartheidorderwas simply too explosive a questionto openly investigate.Yet, of course,it hung like a heavy cloud over all aspects of industrialrelations.I could not have beenbetterplacedto observe the differentforces at work. Not only was I sittingin the miningindustry'sdatagatheringcenter but I became an active contributorto the industry'snewjob evaluationschemethataimedto integrateblack andwhitepayscales.As partof my jobI learnedthe stakes in negotiationsamongmanagement,unions,andgovernment.So much for the perspectivefrom the top. How did Zambianizationlook from insideand from the bottom?Here I had to be more surreptitious.I organizeda survey into theworking and living conditions of African miners, unrelatedto Zambianization.But asinterviewersI chose youngZambianpersonnelofficers who, I had reasonto believe, wereat the storm'seye of Zambianization.We would meet every week in the nominallydeseg-regatedRokanaClub to discuss the progressof the survey but also Zambianization.Stillthis was not enough.I workedin the PersonnelResearchUnit for one and a half yearsandcontinuedthe researchfor anothertwo years while I was an MA studentat the Universityof Zambia.There I recruitedundergraduatesto join me in studying "postcolonial"workorganization,undergroundand on surface.At least officially thatwas our goal; we werealso exploringZambianizationfrom below, from the standpointof the vast majorityofunskilledand semiskilled workers.How did they feel aboutthe Zambianizationof super-visors andlower level managers?Ourextendedobservationsshowed thatwhite managementmet governmentZambian-ization targetsas well as its own interest in maintainingthe color bar by two types of

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THE EXTENDED CASE METHODorganizationalmaneuvers. The first strategywas blanketZambianization.In the days ofcolonialism the personnel managerwas king, reigningover his Africansupplicantsandtoa lesser extent over whites too. The personnel departmentlordedover the companytown,over life in the mine and the "compound"(Epstein 1958). An obvious target,the depart-mentwas entirelyandrapidlyZambianizedbut atthe same time shuntedasideandstrippedof its powers, especially over expatriateemployees, who were placedunderthe guardian-ship of the newly created"StaffDevelopmentAdvisor"-one of the formerwhite person-nel managers.The second stratagemwas shadowZambianization.Duringthethree and a half yearsofour researchthe position of mine-captain,thatis the highest level of undergroundsuper-vision, was Zambianized.A numberof old white captainswere promotedinto newly cre-atedposts of assistantundergroundmanager,and took withthemmanyof theirold powersandresponsibilities.Any Zambiansuccessorhadto operatein the shadowof his predeces-sor. He became abufferbetween his subordinatesand the"real"mine-captain,nowremovedto a comfortableoffice on surface.These maneuvers to maintainthe color bar had several, not hardto anticipate,conse-quences. First, the organizationbecame increasingly top heavy as the layers of manage-ment thickened. Second, there was increased conflict between workers and their newZambiansupervisorswho were less effective, even if less abusive,than theirpredecessors.Maintainingthe color barthroughZambianizationwas a recipefor organizationalrupture,conflict, andinefficiency.If blanketand shadow Zambianizationunderminedthe organization,why did it con-tinue? Whatwere the forces behind the retentionof the color bar?How could a nationalistblack government ignore the continuity of the racial order,as it effectively did in itsZambianizationreport?I soughtthe answer in the broaderconstellationof interests.First,while the government embraced the rhetoric of Zambianization,African trade unions,representingthe unskilled and semiskilled miners,were more interestedin higher wagesand betterworking conditionsthan in the upwardmobility of supervisors.Second, Zam-bian successors, caughtbetween black subordinatesand white bosses, were a lighteningrod for racial and class tensions.They were organizationallyweakerthanwhite manage-ment, which retaineda virtualmonopolyof knowledge andexperience.Third,corporateexecutivesin the industryhad long fought for raisingthe level of thecolor bar and replacing white with black since this reduced labor costs. If they facedorganizedresistance fromwhite staffbefore,now they were threatenedby exodus.Fourth,the Zambiangovernmentregardedthe mining industry as a sacred cow, the source ofrevenue for its "nation-building"projects.It did not darejeopardizeprofitsfrom copper.Moreover, it was content to let expatriatesrun the industrybecause, although they hadeconomic power, they did not pose a political threat.They were on limited three-yearcontractsthatcould be terminatedatwill. Zambianmanagers,as a powerfulfractionof thedominantclass, could pose manymoreproblemsfor a Zambiangovernment.This balanceof forces meant that, despite independence, the overall class and racial patternsin themines did not change substantially.Fromthemicroworldsof ZambianizationI "extendedout"to the sourcesof underdevel-opment. Obstaclesto developmentarosenot only from dependenceon copper in a worldeconomy controlledby advancedcapitalistnationsbut also from the reproductionof classrelationsinheritedfromcolonialism.An emergentAfrican"nationalbourgeoisie"hadclassinterests in a racial order that inhibitedeconomic transformation.My study had, thus,reconstructedandreconfiguredindigenousnarrativesinto a class analysisof postcolonial-ism which, as we shall see, fed backinto society in unanticipatedways.

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SOCIOLOGICALTHEORYII. POSITIVE SCIENCEREVISITEDWhat is positive science? ForAugust Comte, sociology was to replacemetaphysics anduncoverempiricallaws of society.Itwas the lastdiscipline to enter thekingdomof sciencebut once admittedit would ruleovertheunruly,producingorderandprogressout of chaos.Thus,positivism is at once science andideology. Today sociology has, for the most part,droppedits pretensionsto a rulingideology and we can call this strippeddown versionofpositivism simply positive science. The premisethatdistinguishespositive from reflexivescience is that there is an "external"world that can be construed as separatefrom andincommensurablewith those who studyit. Alvin Gouldner(1970) once called thispremise"methodologicaldualism"-social scientists are exempt from the theories they developabout others. Positive science calls for the distancingof observerfromthe objectof study,a dispositionof detachment.The purposeof positive science is to producethe most accu-ratemappingof the workingsof this externalworld, to mirrorthe world (Rorty 1979).Constitutingthe observeras outsiderrequiresan effort of estrangement,facilitatedbyproceduralobjectivity. In his exemplary discussion of "analyticfieldwork,"Jack Katz(1983) lays out the "4Rs,"whatI refer to as thefourprescriptivetenetsof positive science.First,sociologists mustavoid affectingand thus"distorting"the worldsthey study.This isthe injunctionagainstreactivity.Second, the externalworld is an infinite manifold,so weneed criteriafor selectingdata.This is theprincipleof reliability.Third,the code of selec-tion should be formulatedunambiguouslyso thatany other social scientist studying thesame phenomenacould produce the same results. This is the principleof replicability.Fourth,we mustguaranteethat the slice of the worldwe examine is typicalof the whole.This is the principle of representativeness.Katz accepts these principles as definitive of social science. He tries to show howparticipantobservationcan live up to the 4Rs if it follows "analyticinduction,"or what heprefersto call "analyticresearch."However, in the process he radicallydestabilizeshismethodological principles,embracingratherthanproscribing"reactivity,"dissolving theboundarybetween fact andfiction, andsummoningreadersto replicatefindingsfrom theirown experiences. Still he holds on to the 4Rs. I take the oppositetack, forsakingpositivescience for "reflexive"science, more appropriateto the extended case method. I justifyinvoking andelaboratingthis alternativeby first showing how the extendedcase methodviolates the 4Rs, and thenhow even surveyresearchfails to live up to those samepositiveprinciples.My intentionhere is not to rejectpositive science but to show how positivescience rejectsthe extended case method andin particularmy studyof Zambianization.

Positive Science ViolatedThe extendedcase methodmakes no pretenseto positive science. First, my Zambianiza-tion researchbrokethe injunctionagainstreactivity.I was anythingbut a noninterveningobserver.I enteredthe PersonnelResearchUnitjust as it was undertakinga mammothjobevaluationexercise to categorizethe complex industry-wideoccupationalstructurewith aview to bringingwhite andblackpay structuresinto a single hierarchy.It was criticalthatthe job hierarchyalreadyestablishedwithin each racial group should be maintained.Inorderto give the impressionof "fairness,"integratingthe two pay scales was basedon ajoint teamof "experts"from unionandmanagement"evaluating"eachjob accordingto apregiven set of characteristics,experience,education,dexterity,effort, and so forth.AnEnglishconsultingcompany,broughtin to attemptto matchthe evaluationof jobs with thepreexistinghierarchy,failed abysmally.Withmy mathematicaltrainingI was able to turn

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THE EXTENDED CASE METHODthe taskinto a simple problemof linearprogrammingandthereby helpedto reproducethevery racialorder that became the focus of my researchin The Colourof Class.Reliabilitywas also violated. Having a fixed coda or prism throughwhich to observeand extract informationmakes one unresponsiveto the flux of everydaylife. Living in thetime and space of those one studies makes it difficult to fit the world into a predefinedtemplate.One begins with one set of questionsand ends with very different ones. Thus, Ientered the mining industryin search of some company policy guidingrelations with theZambiangovernment.It was only by workingfor the company executives that I realizedthat there was no such policy. Nor was it rational,as I subsequentlyrealized,to follow apredeterminedstrategyin situationsof greatuncertainty-political uncertainty(frequentgovernmentcrises, changesin ministerialpersonnel,or surprisemoves such as the nation-alizationof the mines); economic uncertainty(especially the volatile world price of cop-per);and technicaluncertainty(unexpectedproblemsof excavation,mine falls). In such aturbulent environmentmanagersneed to be flexible and not be hamstrungby detailedplans.As I discovered,those policies that did exist were constructedin post-hoc fashion,by "experts"like myself, tojustify decisions alreadymade. Had I not been a participantinthese processes I would still be looking for that elusive companypolicy, or more likelywould have concocted a policy fromcompanyrationalizations.In short,with the extendedcase method,dialogue between participantand observerprovidesan ever-changingsievefor collecting data.This is not to deny that we come to the field with presuppositions,questions, andframeworksbut thatthey aremore like prismsthantemplatesandthey areemergentratherthan fixed.By the same token replicabilitywas also problematic.The data I gatheredwas verymuchcontingenton who I was-a white malerecentlygraduatedfrom a Britishuniversitywith a degree in mathematics,a newcomer to colonialism, and an idealist to boot. Everyone of these characteristicsshapedmy entryandperformancein social situationsand howpeople spoke to me of racial issues. More thanthat, anyone who replicated my study ofZambianizationat a subsequentpoint in time would come up with very different observa-tions. Historyis not a laboratoryexperimentthat can be replicatedagainandagainunderthe same conditions.Thereis something ineffablyuniqueabout the ethnographicencoun-ter. It certainlywould have been interestingfor someone else to repeatthe study,eithersimultaneouslyor subsequently,not as a replicationbut as an extension of my own study.2And so, of course, we come to the inevitablequestion of representativeness.How rep-resentative were my observations of the processof Zambianizationwithinmy two cases?How representativewere my case studies of all the possible case studiesat the one mine Istudied,let alone of the six othermines or indeed of industriesbeyond?How could I drawany conclusions beyond my two unique cases? And if I could not generalize,why did Ibother to devote threeand a half years to the study!These are valid criticisms from the standpointof positive science, andif this were theonly model of science I would indeed have wasted my time. However, thereis a secondapproachto science, a reflexive approachthat also seeks generalizable and falsifiableexplanations.This alternativeis not drummedup out of thin airbut, true to its own prin-ciples, arises from a criticalengagementwith positive science. But first I must show thatno method, not even the best survey research,can live up to positive principles,for it isfrom this irrevocablegap between positive theory and its practicethat the principles ofreflexive science spring.

2Inanotherstudy(Burawoy 1979), this time of a factoryin SouthChicago, I foundmyself in the sameplantthathad been studiedby anothersociologist thirtyyearsearlier.I could have tried to show why his theoryof "outputrestriction"was wrongbut insteadI used it as a baseline fromwhich to extendmy own studyback into history.

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SOCIOLOGICALTHEORYPositive Science DelimitedSurveyresearchis avowedlypositive in its method. It tries to live up to the 4Rs by deliv-ering the 4Ss. First, in orderto overcome the problemof reactivity,the interview is con-structedas a uniform,neutralstimulus that elicits variegatedresponses.The respondentissupposedto reactto the question and the questionalone, strippedof the mediumin whichit is posed. Second, to confrontthe problemof reliabilityand achieve a consistent set ofcriteria for the selection of data, the interview is standardized;identical questions areaskedin identicalways of each respondent.Third,for replicabilitynot only has the ques-tion to be a stimulus "isolated"from the interview but the external conditions must becontrolled,thatis stabilizedor deemed irrelevant.Finally,forrepresentativenesstherespon-dentsmust be a carefullyselected sample of the broadertargetedpopulation.Despite theirbest efforts, surveyresearchershave always andinevitablyfallen shortoftheirpositive goals. The interview is a social context, embeddedin othercontexts, all ofwhich lend meaningto andare independentof the questionitself. There are four types ofcontext effects. First,there arewell-documentedintervieweffects,which createthe prob-lem of reactivity,in which interviewercharacteristics(for example, race or gender)or theinterview schedule itself (for example, orderor form of questions) significantly affectresponses (Hymanet al. 1954;Converseand Schuman1974;SchumanandPresser1981).Second, thereare respondenteffects, in which the meaningof questionshave an irreduc-ible ambiguity,dependenton the differentworlds fromwhich therespondentscome. Stan-dardizationof questionscannoteliminaterespondenteffects (Cicourel 1967;ForsythandLessler 1991).Third,there arefield effects,which simplyrecognizethat interviews cannotbe isolatedfrom the political, social, and economic contextswithin which they takeplace.Responses to interviewsconductedat differentpointsin time or in differentplaces will beshapedby such extraneousconditions.Replicationis thwartedby external factorswe donot control. We cannoteven disentangletheirunmediatedimpacton the respondentfromtheir mediated impact via the interview itself.3 Finally, there are situation effects, whichthreatentheprincipleof representativeness.Insofaras meaning,attitudes,andeven knowl-edge do notreside with individualsbutareconstitutedin social situations,4then we shouldbe sampling from a populationof social situations and not a populationof individuals(Stinchcombe 1980). But we have no idea how to determinethe populationof relevantsocial situations,let alone how to draw a sample.There is nothingnew here-serious surveyresearchersspendtheir lives tryingto min-imize and/or control for context effects, assuming them to be noise that can be investi-gated if not expurgated.If early researchinto surveyresearchsimply revealedintervieweffects, more recentwork has begunto theorizethose effects (Suchmanand Jordan1990;Schaeffer1991;Tanur1992).The interview is viewed as a distortedconversationin whichone of the interlocutorsis absent (the researcher),in which the conversationfollows a

3Just how difficult it is to control context effects can be seen in ethnographicallysensitive surveyresearch.Inorderto reduce "intervieweffects"surveyresearchmatchesthe raceof interviewerandinterviewee,butthis canexaggerate"respondenteffects"and"field effects." Sanders(1995) shows thatthe widerracial field invades theinterview so much that some black respondents imputed"whiteness"to their "black"telephone interviewers.Moreover,those blacks who identifiedtheir intervieweras white adoptedmoreconciliatoryattitudes.In theirpenexperiment,Bischoping and Schuman(1992) show that the divergent polling results prior to the Nicaraguanelection of 1991 was due to the respondents'perceived partisanshipof the polling organization.They concludethatthis was an artifact of the polarizedpolitical situation in Nicaraguabutexactly how that field affected theresponsesremainedunclear.4Here we are appealing to a methodological situationism (Knorr-Cetina1981; Cicourel 1964) to replace amethodologicalindividualism.Surveyresearchersmight try to build in social situationas a "variable,"examin-ing, for example, how a person's race is affected by situation,but that is very differentfrom methodologicalsituationismin which the situationratherthanthe individualis the unitof analysis.Thus,Cicourel(1982) raisesthe problemof "referentiality"-what can we know abouta given situation froma conversationthat takesplacein anothersituation.

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THE EXTENDED CASE METHODpredeterminedtrajectorywith prescribedresponses, and in which dialogue is precluded(Clarkand Schober 1992).5Unable to establish common groundwith the respondent,theinterviewercannot avoid misunderstandingsand mistakes. One response,therefore,is tomove toward a more "narrative"interview. Instead of foisting the standardizedinterviewon respondents,theinterviewerallowsrespondentsto tell their own story,to offer theirown"narrative"(Mishler 1986).The interviewerproceedsthroughdialogue, reducingdistortionbut at the expense of reactivity,reliability,replicability,andoften representativeness.In other words, no one denies the importance of context effects. Survey researcherslook upon them as a challenge-they must be measured,reduced, and controlled.How-ever, if one takes the view that context is not noise disguising realitybutrealityitself, thenimproving survey researchis tackling the wrong problemwith the wrong tools. Thus,many regardthe ineluctabilityof context effects as a demonstrationof the irremediableflaws of positive science,justifying abandoningscience altogetherin favor of an interpre-tive approachto the social world. We can find influentialrepresentativesof this "herme-neutic" school across the disciplines: philosophers such as Hans Gadamer and RichardRorty (1979) reduce social science to dialogue andconversation;anthropologistssuch asClifford Geertz (1973, 1983) regardthe art of ethnographyas thick descriptionor theexcavation of local knowledge; sociologists such as ZygmuntBauman(1987) arguethatintellectualsshould abandontheirlegislative pretensionsfor an interpretiverole, mediat-ing between communities; feminists such as Donna Haraway(1991, chapter9) call fornetworks of "situatedknowledges."This is not theapproachI proposeto follow here.Faced with theineluctablegapbetweenpositive principlesand researchpractice,I neither abandonscience altogethernor resignmyself to refiningpracticeto approachunachievablepositive principles.Instead,I proposeanalternativemodel of science, areflexive science, thattakes contextas pointof departurebut not point of conclusion.

III. REFLEXIVESCIENCE DEFINEDReflexivity in the social sciences is frequentlyregardedas the enemy of science. Long agoPeterWinch(1958) arguedthatindividualreflexivity,thatis the self-monitoringof behav-ior,leads to anirrevocableuncertaintyin humanaction,makingscientificpredictionimpos-sible. All social science can do is reveal the discursive and nondiscursive worlds of thepeople it studies. Similar views have become common in anthropologywhereverthe "lin-guistic"or "interpretive"turnhas taken hold. In its extreme form we are so boundby ourown preconceptionsthat we can do little more than gaze into our biographies.Withinsociology reflexivity has been put to more positive use. Alvin Gouldner(1970) turnedsociology onto itself to uncover the"domainassumptions"of reigning paradigmsin "West-ern"sociology, arguingthattheywere increasinglyoutof sync with the worldtheyclaimedto mirror.More recently PierreBourdieu(1977, 1990), with the help of his interlocutorLoic Wacquant(Bourdieu and Wacquant1992), invites us to a reflexive sociology that

5SnidermanandPiazza(1993) tryto builddialogue into theirsurveys by presentingrespondentswith predeter-minedcounterarguments.Forexample, respondentsare firstasked whetherthey approveof governmentsupportfor blacks. If respondentsapproveof spendingincreases then they are asked whetherthey would feel the sameway if blacks were singled out for special treatment.If, on the otherhand,respondentsdo not approveof morespending they are asked if they would feel the same if this meant that blacks would continueto be poorerthanwhites. Their data show that 44 percentof whites were "talkedout" of their original position. In the case ofaffirmativeactiononly 20 percentchangedtheirminds in the face of counterarguments.It is not clear why thereshould be such changes, whetherSnidermanand Piazza aretappingcontext specific attitudes,whether attitudesof whites toward race are pliable and superficial,or whether this is simply an artifact of the interview situationitself in which the respondentflows with an expected answer.Whateverelse, these changes in responsessuggestthe importanceof studyingthe interview itself as a social situation.

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SOCIOLOGICALTHEORYexplicitly seeks to deepen the scientific foundationsof sociology. Recognizing our ownplace within the disciplinaryfield enables us to objectify our relationto those we study,which will make us better scientists.

I take a slightly differentapproach.Rather than arguingthat there is one model ofscience that is best carriedout withreflexive awareness,I proposea methodologicaldual-ity, the coexistence and interdependenceof two models of science-positive and reflex-ive.6 Where positive science proposes to insulate subjectfrom object, reflexive scienceelevates dialogue as its defining principle and intersubjectivitybetween participantandobserveras its premise.Itenjoinswhatpositive science separates:participantandobserver,knowledge and social situation,situation and its field of location, folk theory and aca-demic theory.The principles of this reflexive science can be derived from the contexteffects thatpose as impedimentsto positive science.

1. InterventionThe first context discussed above was the interviewitself, which is not simply a stimulusto reveal the true state of the interviewee but an interventioninto her life. The interviewextracts her from her own space and time and subjectsher to the space and time of theinterviewer.In the view of reflexive science, interventionis not only an unavoidablepartof social researchbuta virtue to be exploited.It is by mutualreactionthat we discoverthepropertiesof the social order. Interventionscreate perturbationsthat are not noise to beexpurgatedbut music to be appreciated,transmittingthe hidden secrets of theparticipant'sworld. Institutionsreveal much aboutthemselves when understress or in crisis, whentheyface the unexpectedas well as the routine. Instead of the prohibitionagainst reactivity,which can neverberealized,reflexivescienceprescribesandtakesadvantageof intervention.

2. ProcessThe second context effect is the multiple meaningsattachedto the interviewer's "stimu-lus," which underminesthe reliabilityof research. One can standardizethe question butnot the respondent's interpretationof the question. Respondentscome to the interviewwith multiple experiences derived from differentsituationsthat they are then asked tocollapse into a single datapoint.Even asking someone's raceor gendercan turnout to becomplicated,requiringthattherespondentreducea diversearrayof experiencesto a singleitem of a check list. There is a double reduction:firstaggregationand then the condensa-tion of experience.Reflexive science commandsthe observerto unpackthose situationalexperiencesbymovingwith theparticipantsthroughtheirspaceandtime.The move maybe virtual,as forexamplein historicalinterpretation;real, as in participantobservation;or some combina-tion of the two, as in the clinical interview.But there is anothercomplication.Not onlydoes each situationalexperienceproduceits own "situationalknowledge,"butthat knowl-

6This distinctioncan be extendedto the naturalsciences. There arephilosophersof the naturalsciences, suchas Michael Polanyi (1958), who refuse the separationof subjectand object. His theoryof personalknowledgegives centralityto the naturalscientist who makes contact with and dwells in "nature."Similarly, Evelyn FoxKeller(1983, 1985)makes the case that naturalscientists,like social scientists,may also be partof the worldtheystudy,thatthey have a humanrelation to the objectsunderinvestigation.In her feminist view, whatis distinctiveis not the objects of science but the genderedway we approachthem. Finally, from a realist standpoint,RoyBhaskar(1979) insists on interventionand experimentas central to both the naturaland social sciences. Thedistinctionbetween reflexive andpositive science does not have ontological foundations;it does not dependonthe natureof the world being studied.The distinctionbetween the two models lies not in its object (humanasopposed to nonhuman)but in the relationof scientist to object.

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THE EXTENDEDCASE METHODedge maybe discursive or nondiscursive.If the discursivedimensionof social interaction,what we may call narrative,can be reachedthroughinterview,the nondiscursive, that isthe unexplicated,unacknowledged,or tacitknowledge, sometimes referredto as practicalconsciousness, which underlies all social interaction,calls for more. It maybe discoveredthrough"analysis,"forexample,or throughparticipation,"doing"thingswithand to thosewho arebeing studied (Garfinkel1967).The task of reflexive science does not stop with situationalcomprehension,with therecoveryof situationalknowledge. First,there arealways multiple knowledges, reflectingthepositionof differentactors withina social situation.Reflexive science would be impos-sibly cumbersome if its goal were the displayof multiplenarratives,multiple voices. Butworse still, situationalknowledge is knowledge located in a specific space andtime. Nei-ther space nor time can be frozen and so situationalknowledges are in continualflux.Therefore,like any otherscience, reflexive science has to performsome reduction.In thisinstance the reductionis an aggregation-the aggregationof situational knowledgeintosocial process. Just as surveyresearchaggregatesdatapoints from a largenumberof casesinto statisticaldistributionsfrom which causal inferences can be made, reflexive sciencecollects multiplereadingsof a single case andaggregatestheminto social processes. Themove from situationto process is accomplisheddifferentlyin differentreflexive methodsbut it is always reliant on priortheory.Below we will see how it works with the extendedcase method.

3. StructurationThe thirdcontext is the externalfield withinwhich the interviewoccurs. The field cannotbe held constant, so the purpose of replicationis thwarted. It is not simply that socialscientistsshapethe worldthey studyin idiosyncraticandthereforenonreplicableways butthat the external field has its own autonomousdynamic. This wider field of relationscannotbe bracketedor suspended,yet it is also beyond the purviewof participantobser-vation. We thereforelook upon the external field as the conditions of existence of thelocale withinwhich researchoccurs.Wethereforemove beyondsocial processes to delin-eate the social forces that impress themselves on the ethnographiclocale. These socialforces are the effects of othersocial processes that for the most partlie outside the realmof investigation.Viewed as external to the observerthese social forces can be studiedwithpositive methodsthatbecome the handmaidensof reflexive science.7Reflexive science insists, therefore,on studyingthe everyday world from the stand-point of its structuration,thatis by regardingit as simultaneouslyshapedby andshapingan externalfield of forces.8This force field may have systemic features of its own, oper-ating with its own principlesof coordinationandcontradiction,and its own dynamics, asit imposes itself on multiple locales.

7In otherwords I follow Abbott (1992a, 1992b) and Somers and Gibson (1994) in distinguishingthe "narra-tive"of social processfromthecausalityof social forces,butwheretheywant to replacethe second with thefirst,I insist on retaininga place for social forces as methodological expedient and experientialreality framingandconfining social processes.8AnthonyGiddens(1984) has made structurationthe leitmotif of his work. He seeks to transcendthe dualismof subject and object, agency and structure,micro and macro by substitutingthe notion of duality in whichpractices simultaneouslyreproducethe conditions thatenable them. He stresses how structurefacilitates ratherthanconstrainsaction, much as languageallows speech. In the end, intuitive notions of structureevaporateandwe are left with a voluntaristvision thatemphasizes the controlwe exercise over ourworlds. I returnto a moreconventionalnotion of structurationin which "structure,"or "social forces,"really do confine what is possible,although they arethemselves continuallyreconfigured.Whathe understandsas "structuration"is closer to whatI call "process,"buteven here I will give morecentralityto structuresof micropowerthatarebeyondthecontrolof individuals.

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SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY4. ReconstructionThefourth contexteffect relates backto the second,thepriorityof the social situationoverthe individual,whichproblematizessamplingon the basis of individuals.If representationis not feasible, is thereanyotherway of producinggenerality?Insteadof inferringgener-ality directly from data,we can move from one generalityto another,to more inclusivegenerality.We begin with our favorite theorybut seek not confirmationsbut refutationsthatinspireus to deepen thattheory.Insteadof discovering groundedtheorywe elaborateexisting theory.9We do not worryabout the uniqueness of our case since we are not asinterestedin its "representativeness"as its contributionto "reconstructing"theory.'?Ourtheoreticalpointof departurecan spanthe rangefromthe folk theoryof participantsto anabstractlaw. We requireonly that the scientistconsider it worthdeveloping.But whatdistinguishesa "progressive"ratherthana "degenerate"reconstruction?Fol-lowing KarlPopper(1963, chapter10) and ImreLakatos(1978) we seek reconstructionsthat leave core postulatesintact,thatdo as well as the preexistingtheoryuponwhich theyarebuilt,and thatabsorbanomalieswithparsimony,offeringnovel anglesof vision.Finally,reconstructionsshould lead to surprising predictions, some of which are corroborated.These are heavy demandsthat are rarelyrealized but ones that should guide progressivereconstructionof theory.Dialogue is the unifying principleof reflexive science. It is dialogicalin each of its fourdimensions.Itcalls forinterventionof the observerin the life of theparticipant;it demandsan analysisof interactionwithin social situations;it uncovers local processes in a relationof mutualdeterminationwith external social forces;andit regardstheoryas emergingnotonly in dialoguebetween participantandobserver,but also amongobserversnow viewedas participantsin a scientific community.Theoriesdo not springtabularasafromthe databut are carried forwardthroughintellectual debate and division. They then reenter thewider world of participants,there to be adopted,refuted,and extended in intended andunintendedways, circulatingback into science.'1 Science offers no final truth,no certain-ties, but exists in a state of continual revision.IV.THE EXTENDEDCASE METHODReflexive scienceis to the extendedcase methodwhatpositivescience is to surveyresearch-the relation of a model to method, legitimating principleto situatedpractice.Just as wecodified survey research so we must now do the same for the extended case method. Ireturnto my Zambianizationstudyto illustratethe extendedcase method,pointingto waysin which it mighthave benefitedfromgreatermethodologicalself-consciousness. In Sec-tionV,I will use my case studyin the oppositeway,to cast lighton inherentlimitations ofreflexive science.1. Extending the Observer to the ParticipantIn the positive view participantobservationbrings insight through proximitybut at thecost of distortion.The reflexive perspectiveembraces participationas interventionpre-

9There is a substantialbody of philosophy of science, informedby historical explorationof the growth ofknowledge,arguingthatsciencemoves forwardthroughtheabsorptionof anomalieswithinparadigms(Kuhn1962)or researchprograms(Lakatos 1978), as well as throughcompetition among paradigmsor researchprograms."?RebeccaEmigh (1997) has made the critical distinction between "deviantcase" analysis, in which the out-liers increase the generalizabilityof our theory,and "negativecase" analysis, which increases the "empiricalcontent"of theory,what I have called theoryreconstruction."iAgain, AnthonyGiddens(1992) has made much of this interchangebetween academicandlay theory, argu-ing thatsociology appearsnot to advance because its discoveries become conventionalwisdom. The reflexivityof social theory,he argues, is one of the distinctivefeaturesof modernity.

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SOCIOLOGICALTHEORYworld one studies. It is a processof successive approximationthatcan,of course,go awry.Wild perturbationsbetween observations and expectations signify poor understanding,while occasional shocks force one into a healthy rethinkingof emergenttheorizing.At thislevel theorizingis compiling situationalknowledgeinto an account of social process.Howdoes this work?Situationsinvolve relationsof copresence, providingthe conditions for practicesthatreproducerelations.The archetypeof this conceptualizationof social situations is theMarxiantreatmentof production.As workers transformnatureinto useful things, so theysimultaneously producetheirown means of existence (necessarylabor)and the basis ofprofit (surpluslabor),thatis they reproducethe workeron one side andthecapitaliston theother.But thisprocesscontinues;thatis, laborersreturnthenextday,becausethey have noalternativesource of survival.They are thereforesubjectto thepowerof capital,or whatIhave called the political regime of production,which regulatesthe division of labor,themobility between positions in the division of labor, rewards,andso on. The point is sim-ple:productionbecomesreproductiononly undera particularstructureof power.'3Wecancompile situationalknowledgeintoanaccount of social processbecauseregimes of powerstructuresituationsinto processes.This can be appliedto my case study.Zambianizationtakesplace under the erosionof"colonialdespotism"toward a less punitiveproductionregime but one still based on thecolor bar.Workingwith the vocabularyof Giddens(1984) and Sewell (1992), one can saythat, within this political regime, resources (money, skill, education,prestige, etc.) aredistributedalongraciallines supportedby schemas(norms,beliefs, theories,etc.) of racialsupremacy.The Zambianizationprocess is set in motion when a Zambianis promotedtoreplacean expatriate.The expatriateseeks to preservehisjob (a resource)and looks uponthenew incumbentas inferiorto himself (schema).Managementintervenesto open a newjob for the expatriate,who takes with him some of his old authorityand responsibility,leaving his successorwith fewer resources.The successor's subordinates,seeing him as adiminished version of his predecessor,withdrawtheirsupportandconfidence.Unable orunwillingto seek supportfrom his whiteboss, the new Zambiansupervisorresorts to moreauthoritarianrule, which confirms his subordinates'worst suspicions. In their view thenew Zambian successor is worse thanhis white predecessor-he is tryingto recreatethedespotismof the past. Subordinatesfurtherwithdrawcooperationand the cycle continuesuntila new equilibriumof force and consent arereached.The regimeof power, that is thecolor bar,is reproduced.Three issues arenoteworthy.First, a social situation becomes a social processbecausesocial action presupposes and reproducesits regime of power. It is by participatinginterms of the color bar that the color baris reproduced.Second, in the strugglesaroundtheregime of power,historyandmacrostructuresareinvoked as resources andschema withinthe social situation.The Zambiansuccessor complains that whites continue to rule theroost, that independence has broughtno change. Zambianworkers see their new blackboss as recreatingthe despotic pastor imposing a new tribalsupremacy.Third,interven-tions from outside the social situation have consequences structuredby the regime ofpower.Managementmay createpositions for displaced expatriatesas "aids"to the Zam-bian successor but the effect is to weaken him. Managementmay recruithigh schoolgraduatesto improve the quality of personnel managersbut its effect is to exacerbateconflict between Old Timers andYoungTurks.

3ThusI am closer to BourdieuandFoucault than Giddensand Sewell who have little to say about how powerentersinto the constitutionof the conditionsof our existence.

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THE EXTENDED CASE METHODThe reproductionof the color bar causes hierarchicalsocial relationsto change:rela-tions between black and white become more distant and indirect while relations betweenblack and black become more tense and conflictual. Reproductionof the regime of power

is assured from the inside throughthe deployment of resources and schemas. It is alsoreproducedfrom the outside, beyondthe realm of participantobservation,but thisrequiresthe analysis of social forces.

3. Extending Out from Process to ForceI could have closed my studyof Zambianizationwitha demonstrationof the generallaw ofthe color bar: however the organization changes, authorityalways flows from white toblack. I could have given the law even morepower by drawingon evidence fromthe verydifferent context of the United States,wheregenderand racial lines also have an uncannyway of reproducingthemselves.14This would be the strategyof inductivegeneralization,namely to seek out common patterns among diverse cases, so that context can be dis-counted. This might be called the segregativeor horizontalapproach,in which cases areaggregatedas though they were independentatoms. The extended case method,on theother hand, deploys a different comparative strategy, tracing the source of small differenceto externalforces. This might be called the integrativeor vertical approach.Here thepurpose of the comparison is to causally connect the cases. Instead of reducingcases toinstancesof a generallaw, we make each case work in its connection to othercases.TheColourof Class offered two suchconnectedcomparisons.The dominantone was acomparisonof ZambianizationafterindependencewithAfricanAdvancementundercolo-nial rule. The second, much less developed, comparedthe bottom up Zambianizationofthe mines with the top down Zambianizationof government.In order to understandwhythe color barremainedon the copperbeltdespite democratizationandthe formaldissolu-tion of racism, I dug back into history.Under colonial rule the mining companies hadpersistently tried to "advanceAfricans" into positions hithertomonopolized by whites.What little was accomplishedtookplace throughjob fragmentationanddeskilling of whitejobs. Africantrade unions were always ambivalent aboutthis view of African Advance-ment since the majorityof their members were more interestedin wage increases andimproved workingconditions. The colonial regime was pressuredby the mining compa-nies and the colonial office in London to support gradualAfricanAdvancement,as muchas a safety valve for frustratedaspirationsas for profit.The white settlercommunitywasan influentialcounterweightthatopposed any upwardmobilityforAfricans. Forthe mostpart,the colonial statetried to keep out of the fray,entering only as adjudicatorwhen themachineryof industrialrelationsbrokedown.The successor Zambian government,no longer tied to London, became even morebeholden to the mining companies as a majorsource of revenue. While white managerslost theirformalpolitical power, theirleverage remained since the mines dependedupontheir expertise. For its part, the Zambianpolitical elite retainedexpatriatesin the com-manding heights of the copper industrybecause it did not want to depend on an indig-enous, potentiallyrival, economic elite. Still, the postcolonialgovernmenthad to respondto nationalistclamorthatZambiansruntheirown country.Itdid so, notby a morevigorouspursuitof Zambianizationbutby nationalizingthe mines, which left internalorganization

14Thereis a large literaturehere startingfromRosabethKanter's(1977) analysis of organizationprocesses toRuth Milkman's (1987) analysis of the forces shapingthe position of the gender line to Linda Blum's (1991)class analysis of the contendingforces of affirmativeaction andcomparableworth(parallelto thetwo meaningsof AfricanAdvancement).

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SOCIOLOGICALTHEORYuntouched.Zambianizationfrom abovein thecapitalpropelledZambianizationfrom belowon the copperbelt.Farfrombeing independent,the two cases inverselydetermineeach other.The roots ofcolor bar persistenceon the copperbelt lie in its erosion within government.This is theprincipleof structuration-locating social processesat the site of researchin a relationofmutualdeterminationwith an externalfield of social forces. But can we go furtherand askwhetherthese extralocal forces exhibit a processualcharacterof their own? Do they havea certain"systematicity"that tends to reproduceitself? Once more we can only proceedtosuch questions with the aid of theory,in this case Marxist theory.The Colour of Classpartookin a debate aboutthe capitaliststate,arguingthatthe postcolonialstatepreservedthe overall class structurenot because it was an instrumentof capitalbut because it wasinstitutionally autonomous from but dependent upon capital. Here was an emergent under-standingof the structuringof class forces-a tendencyfor them to be reproduceddomes-tically on the basis of a nationalregime of power.I could have extended the principleof structurationby regardingthe arrangementofstate and classes within Zambia as a structured process nested in an external constellationof internationalforces.InsteadI stoppedat the nationallevel and lookedupon"internation-al forces"not as constraintsbutas resources mobilizedby the rulingelite to legitimateitsdomination. The new African elite focused on forces beyond nationalcontrol-terms oftrade,priceof copper,Westernexperts,transnationalcorporations-in orderto obscure theclass characterof postcolonialism.The African governing class deployed "neocolonial-ism"in theirown versionof the extended case method,denyingtheirown class powerbyclaiming impotence before external forces. This perspectiveof the new elites found itsrepresentativewithin academicdiscourse as underdevelopmenttheory,popularizedby PaulBaranand then GundarFrank. Laterit would be challengedby comparativestudies thatfocused on the capacityof the state to engineer"dependentdevelopment"withina chang-ing world economy.The debate continuestodaywith the emphaticrejectionof the entire"developmentalist"projectas destructiveof third worldcountries(Escobar 1995).However,my interestat the time lay in confronting"neocolonialism"and underdevel-opment theory with class analysis, which confined both the local and the extralocal tonationalboundaries.Lookingback now I underestimatedthe importanceof internationalforces.Zambia'sdependenceon a single commodity,copper,whose pricehascontinuedtofall on world markets,broughtit underthe spell of the IMF andits structuraladjustmentprograms.Twenty-five years after nationalizingthe copper mines, the Zambiangovern-mentis now tryingto sell themoff, to reprivatizethem.They havebroughtbackexpatriatemanagersto make the minesmoreattractiveto foreigninvestors. The Zambianeconomy isbeing recolonizedat the behest of its own Africangovernment.4. Extending TheoryOur first three "extensions"-intervention, process, and structuration-all call for priortheory.But our stance towardtheory is kamikaze. In our fieldwork we do not look forconfirmationsbut for theory's refutations.We need first the courageof our convictions,then the courageto challenge our convictions, and finally the imaginationto sustainourcouragewith theoreticalreconstruction.If these reconstructionscome at too greata costwe may have to abandonour theory altogetherand start afresh with a new, interestingtheoryfor which our case is once more an anomaly.I was not methodologically self-conscious about theory extension in The Colour ofClass, but the strategy pervadedthe monograph.The very concept of succession was

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THEEXTENDED CASE METHODdrawn from Alvin Gouldner's (1954) case studyof the organizationalreverberationsof amanagerialsuccession.'5But where his was a "naturalsuccession,"Zambianizationwas acase of "forcedsuccession," imposed from above and resisted from below. The Zambiansuccessor had to contendwith suspicionfromhis subordinates,resistanceor indifferencefrom his supervisor,as well as his own doubts abouthis abilities.Theorizationof social processwas extended to theorizationof thebroadersocial forces.First,I deconstructedthe government'sZambianizationreport.Hiddenbehind its datalaythe real processes of forced succession underthe color barprinciple. Contraryto the im-plicationsof thereport,expatriateswere as firmlyin controlof the industryas ever. Ontheotherhand,I drew back fromthe"neocolonial"thesis thatblamedZambia's continuedback-wardnessonaconspiracyof internationalforces.Againthepointwas notthattheclaimswerewrong-obviously Zambiawas held in the vice of multinationalsandinternationaltrade-but ratherthat theirpartialityobscured the class interests of the new rulingelite.

I was moreforthrightin rejectingtheoriesthat attributedunderdevelopmentto the cul-turalbackwardnessof Zambianworkers or, as was more common, to their anomic andundisciplinedindustrialbehavior.RobertBates(1971), forexample,claimed thatthepostin-dependenceZambiangovernmenthadfailed to control the mineworkers.However,carefulexaminationof his andotherdataonproductivity,absenteeism,turnover,disciplinarycases,and strikesprovidedno basis for his claims. He had simply adoptedmanagement'sandgovernment'sclass ideology of the "lazyZambianworker,"blamingworkersfor the inef-ficiencies and conflicts whose sources lay elsewhere, such as in the continuingcolor bar(Burawoy 1972b).FrantzFanon's ([1952] 1968a, [1961] 1968b) theoryof the "postcolonialrevolution"guidedmy analysis.AlthoughI was not as explicit in my reconstructionas I wouldbe now,I sought to extend his theoryto Zambia,a colony without a peasant-basednationalliber-ation struggle.My analysis of the multinationals,mineworkers,Zambianmanagers,andexpatriatesparalleledhis dissection of the class interestsof the nationalbourgeoisie,intel-lectuals, andthe peasantry.I turnedthe government'sclaims of workerindiscipline,indo-lence, and anomie against the new ruling elite itself, whose extravagance and self-indulgenceemanatedfromrapidupwardmobility.As to the mineworkersthemselves, theywere the prototype of Fanon's labor aristocracy.They pursued their narroweconomicinterests,showed little concern for the color bar,andsaw nationalizationof the mines as agovernmentruse to impose harsherdiscipline. The Colourof Class did more than recastFanon's class categories, it set the class map in motion by connecting the macroforces,propellingthe movement fromAfricanAdvancementto Zambianization,to the micropro-cesses of succession.

Theoryis essential to each dimension of the extended case method.It guides interven-tions, it constitutessituatedknowledges into social processes, and it locates those socialprocessesin theirwidercontext of determination.Moreover,theoryis not somethingstoredup in the academybut itself becomes an interventioninto the world it seeks to compre-hend. Indeed, TheColourof Class became its own self-refutingprophecy.My man in theministry,then the media, andfinally the miningcompaniesall set out to changethe worldI haddescribed.They sought to overturnthe new governingelite's interest in reproducingthe color baron the copperbelt.15Startingfrom tensions within Weber's analysis of bureaucracyand refusingWeber's monolithic character-ization, Gouldnerdevelops three types of bureaucracy-mock, representative,and punishmentcentered. In sodoing Gouldnerbracketsthe context of his gypsum plantandmisses the historicalspecificity of his ideal types.The extended case method would have tried to locate the plant in its political, economic, and geographicalcontext (Burawoy 1982).

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THE EXTENDED CASE METHODourselves, we are on "our own side," always therefor ulterior reasons (Gouldner1968).Ourmission maybe noble-broadening social movements,promotingsocial justice,chal-lenging the horizonsof everydaylife-but there is no escaping the elementarydivergencebetween intellectuals,no matterhow organic,and the interests of their declared constitu-ency. In short,relations of dominationmay not be as blatantas they were in the raw racialand class orderof the Zambiancopperbelt,butthey are neverthelessalways there to renderour knowledge partial.2. SilencingThis bringsupthe second face of power-silencing. Ruling ideology presentsthe interestsof the dominantclass as the interests of all. The nationalistrhetoricof the Zambianizationreportconcealed diverse class and racial interests. How does one disclose this underlyingconfigurationof interests?As participantobserversin variousworkplaceson and off themines, we registeredthe discordantvoices of workers,expatriates,and Zambian succes-sors. This is the meat and potato of fieldwork. As I compiled our extended observationsmade in different situations into a social process-the process of Zambianizationunder-stood as forced succession-so these voices were reducedto, congealed into interests.Iwas able to disclose the specific andconflictual interests that stood behind the rhetoricofnationalism. But this new crystallizationof interests inevitably excluded, marginalized,anddistorted other voices.

Thus, if I had been truerto the earlierFanon of BlackSkin,WhiteMasks ratherthan thelater The Wretchedof the Earth,I might have exploredthe formation of colonial subjec-tivities,especially the Zambiansuccessor,who is theprototypeof Fanon's "colonialNegro,"caught up in a white world thatrejects"him"as a racial inferior.If my own color had notpreventedit, I could have examinedthe way the colonial andpostcolonialregimesinducepathologiesthatincapacitatethe successor andtherebyreproducethe Manicheanworldofwhite andblack,turningAfricanagainstAfrican. Since silencingis inevitable,we mustbeon the lookout for repressedor new voices to dislodge andchallengeourartificiallyfrozenconfigurations,and be ready to reframe our theories to include new voices but withoutdissolving into a babble.

3. ObjectificationIn the extended case method, the second extension from voices in social situations tointerestsin social processes is followed by a thirdextension from interests in social pro-cesses to the forces of social structure.Structurationinvolves locating social processes inthe context of theirexternaldetermination.Thus, Zambianizationfollowed the color bar,despitebeing antitheticalto nationalistideology,because of the balance of externalforces,which appearall-determining.Objectification,thatis hypostatizingsocial forces as exter-nal and natural,is an inherentdanger of this approach.There are simply limits to thetemporaland spatialreach of participantobservation,beyond which we substituteforcesfor processes.Objectificationis more thana methodologicaldevice, however;it also reflects the veryreal powerexercisedby political, economic, andculturalsystemsover lifeworlds (Haber-mas 1987). But theirpowershould not be exaggerated.First,forcesarealwaysthehyposta-tizedeffects of concealedprocesses;thatis, eachsystem dependsupontheshiftingprocessesof its own internal lifeworld. Second, lifeworlds-both those we observe directly andthosewe reduceto forces-are themselves traversedby power, generatingneeds thatescapeinto the social sphere.Around such discursive need formationcongeal social movements

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SOCIOLOGICALTHEORYthat can dislodge systemic forces (Fraser 1989). Finally, systemic forces contain their owncontradictions,which burst forth unexpectedlyas when my man in the ministryencour-aged a public attack on the mining industry's conduct of Zambianization.Even as weembraceobjectification,we should be always preparedfor subterraneanprocesses to eruptand breakup the field of forces.4. NormalizationFinally, reconstructingtheoryis itself a coercive process of doublefitting.On the one side,complex situationsare tailored to fit a theory.The field site is reducedto a case, albeitonethat is anomalousvis-a-vis theory.On the other side, theoryis then tailored to the case,recomposedto digest the anomaly.This mutualfashioningcreates an apparatusfor reduc-ing the world to categoriesthat can be investigated,sites that can be evaluated,people thatcan be controlled.17In order to assimilateZambianizationto a form of managerialsuccession, I expandedGouldner's theory by introducingthe distinction between naturaland forced succession.Usual attritionleads to "natural"succession but Zambianizationwas a forced succession.In normalizingwhat was in effect a transferof controlI played straightinto the hands ofthe mining companies. Racial succession gave them the conceptualarsenal to disciplinetheirown managers.In his review of my book, Ben Magubane(1974: 598) picked up onthis normalizingeffect of "succession" which overlooked the "intense but silent classstruggleof decolonization,"the fact that Zambiawas being held to ransomby expatriates.Magubaneoverlookedthe other side of my analysis,the applicationof Fanon's theoryof decolonizationto the Zambiancase, the extensionbeyondthe microdynamicsof Zam-bianizationto the class forces upholdingthe color bar.But here, too, normalizationwas atwork.It was astonishingto see how a refashioningof Fanon's theoryof postcolonialismcould be harnessedpolitically by the very forces it condemned.Yet one should not beentirely surprised,given Marxism'shistoryas a tool of despotism.There are formal features of Fanon's analysis of colonialism, however, that do lendthemselves to adoptionby multinationalcapital.He presumes,for example, the destruc-tion of precolonial cultures and thus the fragility of "local" or subjugatedknowledges(Lazarus 1993). I, too, gave scant attentionto cultural contestationthatdrew sustenancefrombeneathcolonialregimesof power,modes of resistancediscoveredand celebratedbysubalternand postcolonial studies. Challengingor temperingnormalizationwould haverequiredembeddingthe analysis in perspectivesfrombelow, takingtheircategoriesmoreseriously,and, in short, working more closely with those whose interests the study pur-portedto serve.'8These four power effects only add grist to the mill of postmoderncritics. If contexteffects demonstratethe impossibility of science, power effects show how dangerousandself-defeating it is. But abandoningscience altogetherleaves power unaffectedand thehegemonyof positive science untouched.Postmodernism's dismissalof all science ignoresthe pivotal distinctionbetween positive and reflexive models.'9 A self-critical positivescience concentrateson context effects but therebyobscures the functioningof power.Constructing"detachment"and "distance"depends upon unproblematizedrelations ofpower.A self-critical reflexive science, on the other hand, takes context for granted,but

17Thecolonial encounterprovidesespecially vivid examplesof this close link betweenknowledge andpower.See, for example, Mitchell (1988) and Stoler (1995).18See,for example, Alain Touraine's"actionsociology," which insists on social scientists working togetherwith participantsin a social movement(Touraine 1983, 1988).19Fora nuancedsurveyandevaluationof differentapproachesto "qualitativemethods"which inclines towardpostmodernapproachesbut withoutbeing dogmatic, see Denzin and Lincoln (1994).

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THE EXTENDED CASE METHODdisplays the effects of power so that they can be better understoodand contained. Thelimits of reflexive science lay the basis for a critical theoryof society, by displaying thelimits of human freedom.VI. THE IMPLICATIONSOF TWOMODELS OF SCIENCEMethodological thinkingcan bringmore than Weberclaims, more than reflective under-standingof already proven practice.In codifying positive science, we subjectit to imma-nentcritique,highlightingthegapbetweenprinciplesandpractice.This directsour attentionnot only to the possibilities of improving positive methods but also to formulatinganalternativeconception of science. Table I summarizesmy argument,describing the twomodels of science andcorrespondingmethods,and in each case pointsto the gap betweenmodel and method.Thereis a circularitybetween the models: each takes as its own basisthe limits of the other. Positive science is limitedby "context"which supplies the founda-tion of reflexive science, while reflexive science is limitedby "power,"the hiddenpremiseof positive science. Knowing the liabilities of each model-method we can work towardtheir containment. If we accept this framework then we have to confront a new set ofquestionsandimplicationsto which I must at least allude.Technique, Method and ModelWhat is the relationshipbetween techniquesof datagatheringandmodel-methods?Doesparticipantobservation,thatis the study of others in theirspace andtime, have to followthe extended case method and reflexive science? Does the interview,that is the study ofothers in the interviewee's space andtime, have to follow surveyresearch and a positivemodel of science? In each case the answer is obviously no. The techniquesof participantobservation and interviewingcan be conductedaccordingto either reflexive or positivemethods, as presentedin TableII below.Participantobservation,conductedaccordingto positive principles,becomes groundedtheory,which bracketsinvolvement as bias andconcentrateson derivingdecontextualizedgeneralizationsfrom systematicanalysis of data (Glaserand Strauss 1967; Strauss1987;Becker 1958; Becker et al. 1961; Gans 1968). Here theory is the result and not the pre-conditionof research.Social scientists areoutsidersandethnographersareoutsiderswithin,strangerswhose objectivityis vouchsafedby distance.Nonparticipantobservationis pre-ferredover participantobservation.In other words, reactivityis proscribed.To achievereliabilityethnographersgatherandanalyzetheirdata in a systematicfashion.Coding andrecoding field notes into emergent categories providesthe prismfor furtherobservation.Replicationenters as a call for clarityin how categoriesarederivedfrom data andis lessconcerned with the replicabilityof datacollection. It createspressuresto suspendcontextso as to make cases comparable.Finally,to establish the representativenessof theirresults,ethnographersshould maximize variationwithin the field throughconstantcomparison,searchingfor extremecases in what is called "theoretical"sampling.20

20ElsewhereI have elaboratedthe distinctionbetween the extended case method andgroundedtheory (Bura-woy et al. 1991: chapter 13). A contemporaryexemplar of groundedtheory is Martin Sanchez Jankowski's(1991) Islands in the Street-a ten-year study of 37 urbangangs in three metropolises. It is a remarkable,sustainedcommitment to positivism. First,he constitutes himself as ethnographerand outsider.He tries to min-imize his own involvement, althoughthis could never be complete, if he was to survive. Second, in seekinggeneralclaims across the threecities aboutgang organization,businessactivities, patternsof violence, as well asrelations to community,to the criminaljustice system, local politicians, and to the media, he has to standardizehis evidence and his categories, leading to thin ratherthan thick description,correlationsratherthanprocesses.Third,in makingthe cases comparablehe bracketsthe geographicalandhistoricalcontext-both the importanceof the specific urbancontext and changes duringthe ten-year period of the study. He homogenizes space andtime. Fourth,in building uphis theoryfrom the "ground"he systematicallycodes andclassifies all the evidence.He tends to reject(or sometimes endorse)othertheories butrarelyenters into sustaineddialogue with them.

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Table I. The GapBetweenPrinciplesandPractice of SciencePOSITIVESCIENCE R

PositivePrinciplesReactivityReliabilityReplicabilityRepresentativeness

SurveyResearch MethodStimulus/ResponseStandardizationStabilizationof ConditionsSampleto Population

ContextEffectsInterviewRespondentFieldSituation

ReflexivePrinciplesInterventionProcessStructurationReconstruction

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THE EXTENDED CASE METHODTable II. Four Methods of Social Science

Models of ScienceTechniquesof Research Positive ReflexiveInterview Survey Research Clinical ResearchParticipantObservation GroundedTheory Extended Case Method

Just as participantobservationcan follow positive principles,interviews can follow thepreceptsof reflexive science, in whatI call the clinical method.Thepsychoanalyticvariantis a prototype, especially when the analystis seen as reflexive anthropologist(Chodorow,forthcoming).The relation between analystandanalysandis dialogic and interventionist.Each reconstitutes the other.Second, the analysttries to recover andworkthroughsitua-tionally specific experiences via dreamanalysis and free association.Process is the leit-motif of psychoanalysis.The thirdelement of structuration,that is locatingpsychologicalprocesses in their wider social context, may not always be present. But here Fanon is anexemplar.His brilliantessays on colonialism,which derive fromclinical work in Algeria,demonstratethe interdependenceof psychic processes andeconomic, political, social, andculturalcontexts.Finally,the analystworks with a priorbody of theorythat is continuallyevolving throughattentionto concrete cases. Theoryis reconstructed.2' The clinical inter-view not only instantiatestheprinciplesof reflexive science butthematizes its limitations:domination of analystover analysand,silencing of the past, objectificationof personalitystructures,while the theoryitself is heavy on normalizing.

Extending to Historical ResearchCan this binary view of science be extended to techniques other than interviewing andparticipantobservation?Whatdoes it mean to extendreflexivescience tohistoricalresearch?This is no place to offer an extensive treatment,but let me illustratewith the comparisonof Skocpol's and Trotsky's approachesto the study of classical revolutions (Burawoy1989). They are both concerned with a comparisonof successful and failed revolutions.Beyond thattheirapproachesarediametricallyopposed-the one following positive prin-ciples and the otherreflexive principles.WhereSkocpol situatesherself outsidehistorytodiscover the necessary conditionsof revolution,Trotskystandsat the center of historytoreconstructMarx's theoryof revolution.WhereSkocpol standardizesrevolutions in orderto discover the three universalfactors that make for their success, Trotskymakes everyrevolutiondistinct in revealing its defining social processes. Where Skocpol develops asingle explanationof revolutionthat spansthreecenturiesas thoughhistoricaltime wereof no importance,Trotsky shows how the movement of world history-combined anduneven developmentof capitalismon a worldscale-sets off differentprocesses for eachrevolution. In the one case detachment,factor analysis, decontextualization,and induc-tion; in the othercase intervention,process, structuration,andreconstruction.Once morewe have two models of science and two methods.

Again I have chosen SkocpolandTrotskyto highlightthecontrastbetweenpositive andreflexive methods. But one need go no furtherthanMaxWeber'sanalysisof the originsof21Feministshave also explored this clinical or dialogical approachto interviewing. See, for example, Oakley(1981) and De Vault(1990).

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SOCIOLOGICALTHEORYcapitalismfor an illustrationof the extended case method.In askingwhat it means to be ascientist in a disenchanted, rationalized world and then asking where that world camefrom, he is placinghimself within history.Virtualparticipationgives him the psycholog-ical processes linking Calvinist predestinationto the spirit of capitalismwhich he thenlocates within a broadarrayof historical forces, including the rise of a legal order,sys-tematicaccounting,andwage labor.Throughouthe was engagingwith andbuilding uponmaterialisttheories of the origins of capitalism. Of course, historians are usually lessself-conscious in theirmethodologicalprecepts,and theirwork cannotbe so easily dividedinto one or othermodel of science. The purposehere, however, is to open up the imagi-nationto differentways of doing social science ratherthanabandoningscience altogetherwhen the 4Rs seem out of reach.

Industrial and Craft Modes of ScienceHavingestablishedtwo models of science we must now ask wh

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