CH 11: Looking at the Past and Across Cultures

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CH 11 Looking at the Past and Across Cultures

• pp. 293-312

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WHAT IS HISTORICAL-COMPARATIVE RESEARCH (HCR)?

• HCR places historical time and/or cross-cultural
  variation at the center of analysis
• HCR looks at how a specific mix of diverse
  factors come together in time and place to
  produce a specific outcome (e.g., war, social
  movement, migration, etc.)
• HCR makes big comparisons, of units like
  nation-states, societies, cultures, to see how
  they are similar and different
• HCR examines the same social process across
  several cultural or historical settings

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What research questions are suitable for HCR?

• Research questions that involve change over time
  and/or two or more sociocultural contexts
• When the goal is to understand/explain
  macro-level events
• e.g., a terrorist attack, a nation going to war,
  sources of racism, large-scale immigration,
  religious conflict, urban decay, etc.
• Do people who immigrate form attachments to their
  new country or stay connected across
  international borders?
• Others?

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H-C research uses a blend of research techniques

• traditional history, field research, interviews,
  content analysis, existing statistics

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H-C Research is similar to Field Research

1. They incorporate individual researchers point of
   view as part of the research process
2. They examine a great diversity of data types
   (diaries, maps, official statistics, newspapers,
   novels)
3. They focus on processes, time passage, and
   sequence
4. They use grounded theory
5. They make limited generalizations

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What is Unique about HCR?

• Builds on Limited and Indirect Evidence
• Interprets the Meaning of Events in Context
• Integrates the Micro and Macro Levels
• Uses Specific and Transcultural, Transhistorical
  Concepts

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Interpreting meaning of events in context
requires

• Supracontext awareness
• Coherence imposition
• Capacity overestimation

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HOW TO DO A HCR RESEARCH STUDY

• Acquire the necessary background
• Conceptualize the issue
• Locate and evaluate the evidence
• Organize the evidence
• Synthesize and develop concepts
• Write the report

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RESEARCHING THE PAST
Historians and social researchers study the past
in different ways

• Historians
• See collection of historical evidence as central
  goal in itself
• Interpret data in light of other historical
  events
• Are not overly concerned about developing theory

• Social researchers
• See collection of historical evidence as
  secondary
• Want to extend or build theory or apply social
  concepts to new situations
• Use historical evidence as a means to an end to
  explain/understand social relations

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Types of Historical Evidence

• Primary sources
• Running records
• Recollections
• Secondary sources

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Primary sources and their limitations

• primary sources sources created in the past and
  that survived to the present
• presentism the fallacy of looking at past events
  from the point of view of today and failing to
  adjust for a very different context
• ethnocentrism as applied in comparative
  research, the fallacy of looking at the
  behaviors, customs, and practices of people in
  other cultures narrowly from your cultures point
  of view

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Evaluating primary sources

• After locating documents, you must evaluate them
  with external and internal criticism
• external criticism evaluating the authenticity
  of primary source materials
• internal criticism evaluating the credibility of
  information in primary source materials

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Running records and their limitations

• Running records ongoing files or statistical
  documents that an organization such as a school,
  business, hospital, or government agency
  maintains over time
• Limitations
• organizations do not always maintain them
• organizations do not record information
  consistently over time

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Recollections and their limitations

• recollections a persons words or writings about
  past experiences created by the person some time
  after the experiences took place
• oral history interviews with a person about his
  or her life and experiences in the past
• Limitation because memory is imperfect,
  recollections and oral histories can be distorted
  pictures of the past in ways primary sources are
  not

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Secondary sources and their limitations

• secondary sources specific studies conducted by
  specialist historians who may have spent many
  years studying a narrow topic. Other researchers
  use these secondary data as sources.
• Limitations
• Holes or gaps in the historical record and few
  studies on your topic
• Inaccurate historical accounts
• Biased interpretations

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RESEARCH THAT COMPARES ACROSS CULTURES

• Comparative research is as much an orientation as
  a separate research technique
• The comparative orientation improves measurement
  and conceptualization
• Comparative research is more difficult, costly,
  and time consuming than other research

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Galtons Problem

• Galtons problem a possible mistake when
  comparing variables/features of units of
  analysis, in which an association among variables
  or features of two units may be due to them both
  actually being part of one large unit.

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Types of Comparative Data

• Comparative field research
• Existing qualitative data
• Cross-national survey research
• Existing cross-national quantitative data