A Dialog with Aaron Cicourel on Comparative Ethnography

In this chapter, eminent ethnographer and cognitive sociologist Aaron Cicourel shares insights gleaned from using ethnographic methods for the past six decades. In conversation with Corey Abramson, Cicourel addresses a number of important issues about both the practice of comparative ethnography and the academic contexts in which it takes place. Cicourel argues for attentiveness to an often-overlooked strength of comparative ethnography—the way cross-site ethnographic comparisons can be used to chart not just variation, but comparatively invariant aspects of human behavior in a way that captures real-time, localized behavior and language use. Cicourel explains how his approach consequently draws upon diverse traditions ranging from cognitive linguistics to behavioral ecology to produce a more integrated form of comparative sociology that encompasses multiple levels of social and physical reality. In the process, Cicourel proceeds to voice his current position on topics including approaches to comparison, ecological validity and levels of analysis, language use, the historical connection of his approach to ethnomethodology, team science in contemporary academia, analogical and digital approaches to inquiry, the role of theory, and what he hopes future ethnographers will learn from his career.