Abstract
How can ethnographers access and assess macro-sociological influences on everyday life? This article extends Burawoy’s multi-case solution, which illuminates structural forces through case comparison, by using then critiquing it. I compare non-sanctioned fight events in two US states and ask why one organizes combat with self-regulation while the other utilizes a rationalized rule set, initially theorizing state regulation as the driver of contrasting niche markets. Yet to solve the first puzzle I must address another: why do organizers talk about avoiding governmental intervention when neither fears investigation? Drawing on ethnomethodology, I show how ‘the state’ becomes a resource for organizational boundary work. My contribution to micro-macro analysis is to reconcile the two frames: actual structural pressures disclosed by multi-case logic and the false discourse of ‘the state’ observed in interaction. Eschewing polemics over ‘relational’ versus ‘comparative’ approaches, I demonstrate the necessity of pluralism to see ‘the macro’ in ethnography.
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