“The extended case method applies reflexive science to ethnography in order to extract the general from the unique, to move from micro to macro, to connect the present to the past in anticipation to the future, all by building on persisting theories” (Burawoy, 1998, p.5)
The Extended Case Method (Van Velsen, 1967; Burawoy, 1991; 1998; 2009) is a methodology adopting a reflexive model of science using the participant’s observation as technique of research. Like Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1994, it aims to contribute to theory, not by trying to generate new ones, but by suggesting the reconstruction of the existing theories.
ECM is based on three main elements. First reflexivity, it recognizes and highlights the intersubjectivity of the researcher and the subjects under study.
Second, ECM celebrates the deepness and richness of the knowledge generated from particular cases and micro analysis in reconstructing existing theories. Thus, the uniqueness of each case is what drives to reconstruct and revisit existing theories. Third, while interpretative research in general disregards
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the macro context, ECM builds a bridge between the micro process and the macro forces. It stipulates that global forces shape the micro process and individual situations.
2.1.1.Reflexivity
The ECM’s main feature is the adoption of a reflexive model of science to explain and analyse phenomena; a “model of science that embraces not detachment but engagement as the road to knowledge” (Burawoy, 1998, p. 5).
To be honest, I was not fully conscious of taking a reflexive approach when I started my PhD. I was trying to convince myself that I was neutral and that I had no theoretical background that could interfere and bias my interpretation. I was also claiming being apolitical; being only interested in the individuals’ stories. In fact I was trying to be an ideal researcher as I was taught at school. Once on the ground I was asking myself if I was not taking part and influencing, somehow the experience of the other volunteers and locals. Sometimes, I was forcing myself to wear a mask and avoided even to react to some situations. But it was not possible. During my stay there, I lived with the locals, participated in the everyday life of the orphanage and took care of the kids. I took part in this very skinny matrix and got sick because of the cold water and the lice invasion. I had to share my life, my room and my stock of Swiss chocolate with the people I was studying. I also had to support Charlotte and wait for an email from her lover, and to convince Alison to stop consuming cannabis. I did all that while staying in that orphanage in Nepal. And overall, before being a researcher, I am a Tunisian woman, coming from the south to study the south in a western university. I am a woman from the south who, witnessed the Arab revolutions and worked in a refugee camp. After all, isn’t this global context of revolution, international aid intervention and personal engagement in Tunisian Red Crescent that motivates this PhD?
Obviously I was trying to apply a positivist approach to my participant observation. Again, it was not possible and not even recommended.
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Reflexive science and ECM, in contrast, engage in a productive dialogue between observer and informants. Intersubjectivity is considered as a ”gold mine” of information as it sheds light on hidden stories that could not be reached without proximity with informants (Burawoy, 2009). The uniqueness is extracted from this active engagement, and this is what Burawoy (1998; 2009) calls intervention.
However, the researcher has to be aware of her/his own engagement and the domination position within the context of study. “The intervening social science cannot avoid domination, both dominating and being dominated. Entry is often a prolonged and surreptitious power struggle between the intrusive outsider and resisting insider” (Burawoy, 2009; p.56).
In my ethnography, I had different domination relationships with my informants.
My status as a researcher and university teacher gave me some credibility and power with both volunteers and locals. I was respected and my advices were taken seriously. However, it was also for some informants a source of wariness.
Charlotte for example confessed that as soon as she knew that I was a researcher; she started being careful as she felt under observation. It was the same with the orphanage members. It was clear that I had a superior position compared to other volunteers but I also shared some intimate moments with them. The fact that I look like Indian, that I was always underlying my country of origin also helped to establish closer ties with them. At the same time, I was the oldest among the volunteers -almost nine years difference- and as mentioned; I was the “most educated” among all.
It is important to note that these particular relationships were very inspiring and helped me to shed light on some new sides of the volunteer tourism experience that were not reported in previous studies. The uniqueness of each situation informs the existing theory. In the following section, I will describe the second element of ECM.
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2.1.2.Connecting the micro to the macro
Unlike the grounded theory, ECM does not look for similarities among different cases to generate theories. It rather highlights anomalous cases that were dismissed by previous works. It then challenges existing work and try to reformulate/ reconstruct theories. “In constituting a social situation as unique, the extended case method pays attention to its depth and thickness. Causality then becomes multiplex, involving an individual connectedness of elements, tying the social situation to its context of determination” (Burawoy, 1991, p. 281).
Particular situations are then analyzed in depth and interpreted in their context of production. Thus, ECM links the micro process to the macro forces that shape them.
In my Ethnography for example, the volunteer tourism experience in an orphanage in Nepal is examined in relation to development discourse and the postcolonial context in general. Other theories are also used to illuminate the understanding of the experience. For example the Actor Network Theory (ANT) is used to show how the material poverty is central to the experience of volunteerism. The incident of having head lice, an unexpected case, informed the necessity to consider the non-human actors while problematizing this phenomenon. But in order to understand why it is important, it was fundamental to interpret this situation considering the power relationship between guest and host. This is how existing knowledge is challenged and alternative interpretation and linkage between micro and macro reconstruct theories.
2.1.3.Reconstruction of theory
Qualitative research and ethnography usually confront the critic of not being able to generate theories and generalities. ECM and Grounded theory have both tried to overcome this fundamental critic. Grounded theory uses a generic approach by comparing cases and gathers similarities to generate new theory. ECM has another way to consider theory; as explained before, it rather follows a genetic approach (Burawoy, 1991); it seeks anomalies, and distinctive cases and
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differences to challenge existing theories and reconstruct/ reformulate them. It actually draws on existing theories in order to understand a particular social situation. “The importance of the single case lies in what it tells us about society as a whole rather than about the population of similar cases” (Burawoy, 1991;
p.281).
For example, when one of my local informants told me that his children’s English is better than the one of normal people, I had to consider the postcolonial context and the particularity of Nepalese society based on caste system to enlighten his narrative and understand how locals perceive international volunteers and why learning English is so important in today’s world.
Overall, ECM advocates for extending theories and continually challenges existing knowledge rather than creating a new one. In the next section I will continue with a description of the field.