Critical Realism and Contrastive Ethnography

Abstract

Abstract Though critical realism has been featured in sociological debates about the philosophy of science, its relevance to methodological considerations, and especially to ethnographic scholarship, is quite limited. This chapter combines an extended case method approach to ethnography with a critical realist approach to comparison. Critical realism augments ethnographic comparison in two ways: 1) by showing that one can compare across both events and causal mechanisms due to ontological stratification; and 2) by considering the conjunctural and contingent nature of causality. However, critical realism’s emphasis on causality is also complicated by ethnographic research, which sheds light on the mutual causal relationship between structures and actors. This chapter, therefore, considers what critical realism has to offer ethnography and what ethnography, in turn, offers critical realism. It does so by comparing the experiences and beliefs of Somali refugee communities in Minneapolis and Toronto, who are contending with high rates of autism spectrum disorder and have forged epistemic communities united around an etiology, ontology, and treatment protocol that challenges mainstream science.