Abstract
Analytical ethnography does not presume a principal analytical frame. It does not know (yet) where and when the field takes place. Rather, the ethnographer is in search for appropriate spatiotemporal frames in correspondence with the occurrences in the field. Accordingly, the author organizes a dialogue between conceptual frames and his various empirical accounts. He confronts snapshots of English Crown Court proceedings with models of event and process from micro-sociology and macro-sociology. A range of–more or less early or late, relevant or irrelevant, contingent or predetermined–processual events serves as the vantage point to access event and process relations. In this line, Crown Court proceedings serve as an introductory and exemplary field for analytical ethnography, because they involve both: (strong) events and their process and (strong) processes and their events.
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Notes
There are, however, some ethnographers who do not fit Hammersley’s critique. One may think of Rabinow (1977), Comaroff and Comaroff (1992), Hirschauer (1991), Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992), Hasturp (1995), Eriksen (2001), or Bourdieu (2003); all scholars who would engage in theorising and theoretical critique. Theorizing means (at least) two different things to these scholars: (1) using ethnographic data from the field to discuss disciplinary problems; (2) using disciplinary concepts to theorize on the field.
Hirschauer joins ethnographic description and theorizing as a dialogue: “This local transposition [of the observer, T.S.] is inspired by a scepticism that one could easily understand the natives without taking the risk of giving up a safe sociological ‘standpoint.’ Therefore, the second transposition is one of concepts: putting sociological concepts and ways of looking into surgery, and vice versa.” (1994, p. 344) Hirschauer’s dialogical position coincides with and moves beyond the common “ethnographically relevant strategies for theoretical development,” namely “discovery, extension, and refinement” (Snow et al. 2003, p. 194).
There are various uses of the notion: Lofland (1995) promotes a cognitive turn in contrast to an interpretative style; Hirschauer and Amann (1997) advocate a dialogue between empirical work and sociological theorizing; Snow et al. (2003) link “analytic ethnography” to grounded theory. Traditional anthropological studies distinguish between “descriptive and analytical ethnography” (Chaudhury and Das 1973).
There are many, amongst them “collaborative ethnography” (Lassiter 2005), “praxeography” (Mol 2002), “technography” (Anderson 1997), “focussed ethnography” (Knoblauch 2001), or “processual ethnography” (Moore 1987). Problematic here is the implicit othering: other ethnographies do not care for technology, praxis, etc.
The ethnographic project was conducted by our Emmy Noether research group, affiliated with the special research division “Performative Cultures” at FU Berlin and funded by the German Research Society (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). The ethnographic project explores criminal cases in Germany, the UK, the USA, and Italy, following the respective defense parties’ case work. The project is meant to provide grounding for a “comparative micro-sociology of criminal trials.”
The idea to focus on event and process relations shows some striking similarities to Moore’s “processual ethnography” together with her call to pay “ethnographic attention to events” (1987). However, her idea of process connotes big societal change that is often only illustrated by events rather than achieved by it. In comparison, I propose to analyse event and process in close relation.
According to William H. Sewell, Jr. (1996b), historical sociology uses “three temporalities“: chains of events (history occurs from one event to the next), teleological processes (history moves through events towards a final state), and path-dependent developments (a steadily moving history is only occasionally ‘derailed’ by revolutions, desasters, etc.). The latter variant is performed by Weber when he relates processes of rationalisation to charismatic situations (cf. 1980, pp. 654–687). Weber is particularly concerned about the transformation of charismatic situations into constant and stable forms of authority (pp. 681–687).
Mahoney himself offers the following explication: “Figure 1 offers a schematic illustration of the place of contingency in path-dependent, self-reinforcing sequences. In this example, three potential options…are available for adoption at Time 1. On the basis of the initial conditions present at this time, as identified by one or more explanatory theories, the eventual adoption of a particular option…cannot be predicted or explained. In this sense, given the initial conditions and certain theoretical understandings of causal processes, one could hypothetically ‘rerun’ history many times, and there would be no reason for believing option B would be adopted with any more frequency than the alternative options. The initial adoption of option B during the critical juncture period (Time 2) is therefore a contingent event. As the figure suggests, once option B is contingently selected, it is stably reproduced across time in future.” (2000, p. 513 f.)
Michel Foucault explains the Nietzschean genealogy as a certain event-process relation: “The wirkliche Historie transposes the relationship ordinarily established between the eruption of an event and necessary continuity. An entire historical tradition (theological or rationalistic) aims at dissolving the singular event into an ideal continuity—as a teleological movement or a natural process. ‘Effective’ history, however, deals with events in terms of their most unique characteristics, their most acute manifestations. An event, consequently, is not a decision, a treaty, a reign, or a battle, but the reversal of a relationship of forces, the usurpation of power, the appropriation of a vocabulary turned against those who have once used it.” (1977: 154)
The same argument is used by Elias and Scotson (1993) in order to demonstrate the applicability of the relation between establishment and outsiders on configurations “big and small alike.”
Luhmann (2003) points out variations in systems integration here. According to this view, interactions and proceedings are differently integrated. The former are oriented towards conditions of co-presence, while the latter also operate with scriptural and electronic media for communication and storage.
Women are under-represented in this profession. They are rather to be found in the position of solicitors, handling cases in the lower Magistrates’ Courts or doing preliminary work for barristers. Cf. Scheffer (2007).
It seems as if the “public man” (Sennett 1992) did survive in the habitus of the barrister. Politeness, cultivated small talk, and discreet affectation all are manners that are expected of the barrister as a public figure. This may explain why there are biographies, monographs, cartoons, and criminal stories dealing with the figure of ‘the barrister’ (cf. Morison and Leith 1992). In comparison, other legal professions remain in shadowy existence, e.g., ‘the clerk’ (cf. Flood 1983), or ‘the solicitor.’
The English particularity of the two professions provides material for ongoing discussions. At times, “solicitors” demand the right to speak for the case in Crown Court as well. At other times, “barristers” demand the right to take clients directly. Their cooperation and division of labour also provides causes for mutual complaints: the “process lawyers” complain about bad, incomplete, and badly-researched instructions; the “street lawyers” complain about badly-prepared, little engaged, and not very fierce barristers. In their day-to-day sundries, both sides do harmonize very well vis-à-vis their clients: whilst one side is reassuring and motivating (solicitor), the other (barrister) does appeal to law and experience.
This scale reminds of the differentiation between discourses, as provided by Foucault: “In short, I suspect one could find a kind of gradation between different types of discourse within most societies: discourse ‘uttered’ in the course of the day and in casual meetings, and which disappears with the very act which gave rise to it; and those forms of discourse that lie at the origins of a certain number of verbal acts, which are reiterated, transformed or discussed.” (1972, p. 220)
See, on the primacy of immediacy in Foucault’s early writings, Pascal Michon (2002, p.188).
I was not allowed to carry recording devices inside the courthouse. Thus, my material is limited to field notes, documents, defence Counsel’s notes, and official court protocols (Scheffer 2005).
“The generic domain of conversation is not the only relevant backdrop against which singular events take on their specificity and sensibility.” (Lynch and Bogen 1996, p. 286) And by referring to their own empirical case: “While a spectacular case, when construed as an occasion of talk at work, may recall general properties identified by conversation analysts, such properties may be irrelevant to a consideration of the spectacle as such. Recognizable constituents of the event, such as a speaker’s presence on television, his wearing of a uniform, his being surrounded by cameras, and his speaking on behalf of the government, do not become materially irrelevant simply because the talk largely is composed of generic procedures that can be found elsewhere.” (Ibid 286 f.)
Similarly, it has been attempted to conceptualize phenomena such as delinquency or deviation as processes running through a series of developmental stages. „The conception of social problems as social process recognizes their essential constructive function in the adaption of a society and its culture to social change. …. The appearance and solution of social problems constitute the dynamics of the social process. The concept of social process transcends while it includes the concepts of social disorganization within the social process.” (Burgess 1961, p. 383) Events do not mediate contingency or tension with the overarching process; rather, they report on the achievements that process is capable of—time and again. Correspondingly, “cases” run through typified phases: „The term ‘societal process’ is used here to denote the organization, disorganisation, and reorganization of a society, community, or social group.” (385)
On the mechanism of binding in legal discourses, see Scheffer et al. 2007.
A key figure for this line of thought is supposedly Fernand Braudel and his concept of “longue durée” (1969). This is not to say that Braudel conceptualizes history as continuity. Rather, he follows “structural ruptures,” the “deep, silent, painless breaks”: “One was born within one particular state of society (that is to say, simultaneously, a mentality, some frames, a civilization and especially an economic civilization), which several generations have known before us, but everything can collapse before our life ends.” (quoted in Michon 2002, p. 187).
Ritual chains of events also seem to be subject to a goal. The task of analysing ritual chains of events is retrospective understanding: which sequence of events does—time and again—achieve this particular community and its emotional effects. The focus is not so much on eventfulness, but rather on the regular achievement of collectivisation. Cf. Collins (2004).
Henri Hubert (1999) describes the relation of process and event by help of different categories: intervals and critical dates. The “critical dates interrupt the continuity of time” (ibid., p. 51); “intervals bounded by two associated critical dates” (p. 53); “the critical dates are equivalent to the intervals they limit” (p. 56), etc. Hubert uses these concepts in order to understand the “representation of time in religion and magic” (p. 51).
Or as Mead put it, “the emergent event, that is, (…) the occurrence of something which is more than the processes that have led up to it” (1932, p. 1).
This point links up with Foucault’s “archaeology” (1972). This includes both event and process, and subsumes both under a third element, the discursive machinery. This discursive formation—being the element producing discourse(s)—utilizes both aspects. Foucault uses the central role of the event as envelope and contingency to oppose a historiography that is oriented towards linearity and progress, or a structuralism that solidifies into patterns of order. According to Mariana Valverde, Foucauldian discourse analysis is aiming “to find ways of analyzing events and processes that would not begin by presupposing a dichotomy between the surface and the depths …, between ‘appearances’ and ‘reality’.” (2003, p. 12).
Objective hermeneutics (Oevermann 1979) operates a reconstructive type of sequential analysis. Events confront a speaker with an obligation to decide. In order to go on, he/she must chose between options. The analysis unfolds the space of possibilities at any given point of decision by way of mental experiments. Sequential analysis is then charged with the task of reconstructing methods of choice in terms of the general laws of their operation.
Weick’s three phases remind of the unit of first, second, and third turn as it is conceptualized in CA (cf. Sacks et al. 1974). The first turn is followed by a reception, which is then corrected or (often tacitly) confirmed in the third instance. On this shared basis, the next turn-taking is performed.
On this, Weberian historical sociology provides an interesting point: “Not Julius Caesar, but Caesarism; not Calvin, but Calvinism is Weber’s concern.“ (Gerth and Mills 1957, p. 55) Weber is concerned with the routinisation of charismatic shocks, a charismatic person’s continuing effects (rather than their actions); however, charisma can only be analysed as an event against the background of a longue durée.
Mahoney cites the ‘speculative’ study by Larry W. Isaac et al. (1994) as an example: “To simplify their sophisticated event-structure argument, they show how [Martin Luther, TS] King’s death (Event A) caused the failure of the Poor People’s Campaign (B), which in turn led to massive summer riots (C), which …” (2000, p. 526) See Vayda et al.: “Those with a more restricted concept in mind sometimes use the term ‘process’ to refer to a set of connected events occurring according to specifiable rules and within specifiable parameters of time.” (1991, p. 319).
Such an analysis seems apt to different cultural techniques, such as PowerPoint presentations, playback, or memorizing. See, for a good example, Goffman’s chapter on the “lecture” (1981).
This demand is explicated by the government: “Until recently, there has been no clear accountability or system for ensuring that cases turn up at court ready to proceed. The Effective Trial Management Programme (ETMP) has produced a framework which sets out the roles and responsibilities of all parties to progress criminal cases; and a process which ensures that cases are properly prepared and ready to go ahead on the day they are listed to be heard.” (Office for Criminal Justice Reform 2004, p. 12)
During the period of my field research, defendants had to wait an average of 14.8 weeks before their trials. For clients in custody, this waiting time was 2 weeks shorter. Defendants on bail had to wait an average of 15.8 weeks before trial. The figures are collected and published by the home office.
Mahoney provides one example: “The contingency of conjunctures is precisely why some historical sociologists argue that ‘agency’ can be especially efficacious during these periods.” (2000, p. 546) “Conjuncture” refers to the intersection of two separate processes.
In light of this and while being positioned in ongoing processes, participants may retrospectively construct events as ruptures or jolts in order to justify errors, poor performance, or changes in the practical course (cf. Munir 2005). They may ask for more time, more resources, or for novel competencies to deal with the “unexpected situation.”
Geertz’s (1973) ethnography of “deep play” in Balinese culture mixes the two strategies. First, the ethnographer arrives at a secret place. He witnesses an extraordinary occurrence. Second, the ethnographer implies that cock fights are customary on Bali. They are performed in the described fashion time and again. The double strategy reflects the relation of home and field from the ethnographer’s point of view.
A nice example for this is provided by sports: Players and coaches alike tend to emphasize, following a series of promising test, that only the actual competition counts, and that achievements in training or exhibition matches do not accomplish a bit for “The Big Day.” In juridical practice also, there are irrelevant exhibition matches and relevant championship matches.
In 2003, this occurred in 63.4 % (12,444) of “cracked trials.” Out of a total of 81,766 cases dealt with in the UK, the appreciable number of almost 20,000 falls into this category of scheduled hearings that did not take place.
Many ethnographies or workplace studies gain their appeal from the opposite movement: they show how work steps that seem “irrelevant” and routine (“That’s just the way it’s done!”) are indeed contingent, local and indexical, and that there is something to be gained from a more intense look here. This also includes studies which focus on the reception of media products and mark this reception itself as creative, contingent events. On the fundamental position, see also Michel de Certeau (1988) and his appreciation of consumption as an active and creative activity, which he valorizes over strategic production with its (supposedly) overpowering formative effects.
This happens in 18.7% of so-called “cracked trials,” i.e. scheduled trials that never take place.
This abstraction refers to the notion of “non-place” by Marc Augé (1995).
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Acknowledgments
I thank Jan Schank who invested patience and know-how into the periodic editing of the developing text. I thank, furthermore, my colleagues Kati Hannken-Illjes and Alex Kozin who helped me with critical remarks on the form and content of early and late versions.
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Scheffer, T. Event and Process: An Exercise in Analytical Ethnography. Hum Stud 30, 167–197 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-007-9055-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-007-9055-8