The Tale of Two Ramadans: Crisis and Comparison in a Single-Case Ethnography

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Abstract

In ethnographic research, comparison is often framed in terms of case selection strategies—cross-national, cross-group, or multi-sited designs that aim to identify patterns across different contexts that overlap and diverge in consequential ways. But how do ethnographers incorporate implicit comparisons into fieldwork that focuses on a single site and/or group? And what are the analytical implications of the changes that we observe in our interlocutors and their practices over time? My paper explores these questions by drawing on fieldwork that I conducted between 2018 and 2020 with young Syrian men who came of age in exile in Lebanon’s Beqaa valley. It hinges on data gathered before, during, and after an unexpected regulatory crackdown that deeply destabilized my interlocutors’ lives and livelihoods. In the paper, I theorize this localized moment of crisis as an ‘eventful rupture,’ and I use it to explore the methodological implications of intra-case temporal comparisons in ethnography. I show how single-case ethnographies engage in implicit comparisons by tracking the reconfiguration of social life across time, particularly in fieldsites that are characterized by instability and rapid or unexpected change. I argue that ethnographers can leverage rupture to enable comparative analysis within a single case, tracking shifts in social practices, meaning-making, and decision-making in real time.

Author

• Samuel Dinger, New School for Social Research