Human Organization, Vol. 73, No.

3, 2014
Copyright © 2014 by the Society for Applied Anthropology
0018-7259/14/030224-11$1.60/1

Of What is This a Case?: Analytical Movements in

Qualitative Social Science Research
Christian Lund
Case studies are often presented as self-evident. However, of what the material is a case is actually less evident. It is argued
in this article that the analytical movements of generalization, speciication, abstraction, and concretization can make us more
conscious of what our work might be a case, and that the same data have the potential to make different cases depending on
these analytical movements. An analytical matrix is developed, and the four movements and various pitfalls are discussed.

Key words: case study, analytical movements, generalization, abstraction, theorization

Introduction a distinction between concrete micro situations, which are

immediately accessible to the researcher, and more abstract
o, what is it a case of? As I was inalizing a book and aggregated cases. By micro cases, he refers to events

S on land struggles in Northern Ghana, the publishers

asked me to write a couple of abstracts. They asked
for abstracts for the libraries, the catalogue, the booksell-
ers, and the marketing department of 150, 90, 50, and 15
words, respectively. After working on the book for years,
producing such succinct abstracts proved more dificult than
imagined. The book dealt with the complexities of conlicts,
the cultural idioms of ownership and obligation, the impor-
tance of national policies, the ambiguities of local histories
and politicking, the violence of political competition, the
gerrymandering by electoral commissions, the elasticity of
ethnicity, the illegal government land acquisitions, and it
analyzed people’s dexterous reconiguration of public and
private. But of what was it a case?
A case is an edited chunk of empirical reality where
certain features are marked out, emphasized, and privileged
while others recede into the background. As such, a case is
not “natural,” but a mental, or analytical, construct aimed at
organizing knowledge about reality in a manageable way.
This covers many forms.1 Olivier de Sardan (2008) makes
Christian Lund is professor at the Department of Food and Resource
Economics at the University of Copenhagen. Comments and questions
from many people have helped to structure the argument. In particular,
input from Jesse Ribot, Alice Kelly, Anja Nygren, Ben Jones, Benedikt
Korf, Eric Hahonou, Erin Collins, Iben Nathan, Jean-Pierre Olivier de
Sardan, Jens Friis Lund, Louise Fortmann, Mariève Pouliot, Muriel
Côte, Pauline Peters, Pierre Petit, Siddharth Sareen, Tobias Hagmann,
Tomas Martin, and Veronica Gomez-Temesio (who initially prompted the
writing), have improved the text. The author also owes a debt of grati-
tude to the three reviewers for illuminating and instructive comments
and suggestions. The remaining errors and infelicities are his alone.
and problems that the participants as well as the observers
are able to discern as relatively discrete sets of events and
actions. Cases of this nature could be a land conlict, a lo-
cal election, a cockight, or even an opening of a bridge in
modern Zululand.2 More aggregated and abstract cases such
as “the economy of France” or “corruption in Indonesia” are
established through concepts. The participants may well ex-
perience them, but they are not readily or easily discernable.
While scale matters, and while this distinction is intuitively
appealing, the common feature for both kinds of cases is,
however, that they are intellectually constructed—either by
participants, observers, or both.
Case studies are often presented as self-evident. How-
ever, of what the material is a case is actually less evident. In
this article, I will discuss elements for a conceptual strategy
to help answer that question. Hence, the present article is not
about case study design or planning how to engage a ield
in a systematic and formal way. There is a broad “design”
literature where hypotheses and variables are explicitly linked
to particular cases and sub-cases and where principles of data
collection are examined.3 The present text is more an attempt
to investigate the potential of one’s work once research has
begun. While the planning and design of case studies are
important before the ield is entered into, the data is often
somewhat unwieldy and full of generous surprises. In this
situation, it is important to be able to rethink of what one’s
work is a case as part of the research process. The following
pages provide elements for a conceptual strategy to help in-
vestigate this. An analytical matrix of different dimensions of
this kind of research is laid out. Subsequently, I discuss some
of the dificulties of generalizing, abstracting and theorizing
from a particular case.

224 HUMAN ORGANIZATION

 An Analytical Matrix
To know what our case studies are about, it is useful to
locate their contents between the very speciic and the very
general. It is equally useful to know where they sit between
the very concrete and the more abstract. Two open-ended
continua stretch between speciic and general, and between
concrete and abstract, respectively. This enables the organiza-
tion of our research in a matrix.
There is often a conlation between terms. In more ca-
sual language, we often mistake the speciic for the concrete
and the general for the abstract. However, they are not the
same, and it pays to be precise, so let us irst establish what
they actually mean. It may be easiest to think about some
synonyms for each:
Specific: Circumscribed, limited, particular, precise,
restricted, singular, special, unequivocal,
unique…
General: Common, commonplace, extensive, pervasive,
prevalent, ubiquitous, universal, widespread…
Concrete: Actual, authentic, corporeal, in-context, not for-
malized by the analyst, real, palpable, tangible…
Abstract: Conceptual, decontextualized, detached, ideal,
ideational, intangible, transcendental…
The continua are open-ended rather than two sets of absolute
binary opposites. Things can be more or less speciic or gen-
eral—more or less concrete or abstract. Most claims about
our cases are a combination of speciic, general, concrete, and
abstract, and it is the movement between these dimensions—
generalization, speciication, abstraction, and concretiza-
tion—that makes us conscious of what our work might be a
case. In the simplest form, one might argue that the different
combinations of abstractions and generalizations represent
different—connected—intellectual enterprises: immediate
observations, observations of patterns, conceptualizations,
and theorizations (Table 1). When we analyze data, we are
breaking a complex substance into smaller parts. However,
we are not always suficiently aware of what goes where.
Our research has the potential to be a case of many things
depending on the coniguration of our speciications and
generalizations, and our concretizations and abstractions. It is
through these analytical movements that the case is produced
out of seemingly amorphous material.
Different disciplines may put more emphasis on one
movement, as it were, than others, and different inquiries
also begin at different places in the matrix. However, most
research entails activity in all four directions, and few social
science inquiries can afford to be oblivious to any of these
dimensions. The social sciences are the empirical sciences of
historical reality. A discipline is essentially historical when
its statements cannot be completely severed from the context
from which data were drawn. It is the distinguishing feature
of social sciences, which, contrary to natural sciences, cannot
“control for context” (Dilley 1999; Passeron 2006). Proof,
VOL. 73 NO. 3, FALL 2014
Table 1. Analytical Matrix
Concrete Abstract
Speciic Observations Concepts
General Patterns Theories
prediction, and cumulative accretion of knowledge—some of
the key virtues of the natural sciences—are not possible for
the social sciences as context dependent empirical enquiries
of human activity. This does not mean that social science
does not produce knowledge, but it is historical and not un-
equivocal. Yet, the epistemological ethos of natural sciences
has managed to dominate as an ideal of all scientiic activity.
This is unfortunate as it may lead to conjecture that social
science is science of a lower quality.4 It need not be. But it
is a different science.
An Example—Who Owns Bolgatanga?
To explain the navigation between these different types
of claims, let us take the point of departure with a speciic
and concrete case, namely land conlicts in Bolgatanga in
Northern Ghana and the institutional implications of a con-
stitutional change that restructured land ownership (Lund
2008). In 1979, the Ghanaian government worked to change
the country’s constitution. In order to gain support for dif-
ferent policies, the government promised parliamentarians
from the northern constituencies that they would modify the
constitution. Hitherto, the land tenure regime had been vastly
different between the South of the country and the North.
While chiefs were considered owners of the land in the South,
land was “held in trust by government” in the North. This dif-
ference dated back to when the Gold Coast and Ashanti were
a colony, while the Northern Territories were a protectorate.
In need of the “northern vote,” the government promised
to “return land to its original owners” by a constitutional
amendment. However, when the law was passed, it transpired
that the chieftaincies of the North, who saw themselves as
the obvious original owners of the land, had rival claimants.
Spiritual igures, earthpriests, and their families came forth
and claimed that whereas chiefs might well have been the cus-
todians of land in most of the country, they had never played
that role in the northernmost parts of what was now Ghana.
Instead, earthpriests had historically been allocating land,
sanctifying its use, and endorsing transactions. Consequently,
they claimed to be the “original owners.” Things came to a
head when government had to pay compensation to “owners”
whose property had been appropriated illegally. It required
that the government identiied, and by that token, recognized
either the chiefs or the earthpriests as rightful owners. In the
end, the courts ruled in favor of the earthpriests.
225
 Somebody is ighting somebody else over a piece of land.
This is a speciic event (or set of events); it takes place at a
precise place in a circumscribed slice of history. It is unique
in the sense that this struggle took place then and there. The
case is also concrete. This actual conlict was played out
between real people in an actual place. Now, while this is
a good starting point, a concrete case of a speciic struggle
is not very interesting in and of itself from a social science
perspective. Social inquiries—as empirical and historical
sciences—become truly interesting only when they relate
to other inquiries. The question was, of what is this a case?
To answer this, we need to move to considerations about
generalizing, abstracting, and theorizing.
Resonance
Information and knowledge are different. The difference
lies in what we as analysts do to the information. Sometimes,
especially in policy and consulting work, we encounter per-
functory claims to objectivity, such as: “let the naked facts
speak for themselves.” However, no “naked facts” ever spoke
to anyone except through concepts, however vaguely deined.
This line of thinking has roots in Kant’s work. He argues
that rather than insisting that our cognition relects “real”
objects, we may try to see “real” objects as conforming to our
cognition. That is, we “see” things through a lens of a priori
concepts formed through experience; these newly observed
things then become part of our new experience, and we can
have another, new, look. This suggests a never-ending, itera-
tive approximation between a priori concepts, cognition of
“the world,” and the formation of renewed a prioris.5 By not
questioning the concepts and categories with which we read
the “naked facts,” it is easy to make a set of observations look
speciously unequivocal and pervasive. This does not qualify
as scholarly work.
Scholarly inquiry is not objective; we have objectives
with our research, that is, certain concerns we want to in-
vestigate. Science itself cannot tell us whether an issue is
signiicant or not. As investigators, we establish frames of
inquiry through which we understand the world. This fram-
ing establishes, and is established through, the language we
employ to speak about our concerns. This includes the choice
of concepts and theoretical questions. Words like “wealthy,”
“poor,” “farmer,” “migrant,” “government,” “risk,” “rights,”
and “property” all have simple colloquial meanings in our
daily interaction. None of them are unequivocal, but this
rarely poses big problems in our everyday use of them. As
concepts, however, they require the precision that theoretical
pedigree can afford them. Concepts illuminate certain dy-
namics, processes, and relations, while they occlude others.
Hence, concepts are politically charged by the simple fact that
they orient our inquiry. This requires explicit relexivity so
that the reader is made privy to our generalizations, abstrac-
tions, and theorizations.6
Historical, empirical, research is, strictly speaking, about
singular events. However, most such studies situate their
226
indings in a comparative perspective of time and place. I
deliberately use the word “comparison” loosely. Some dis-
ciplines have developed very rigorous, systematic regimes
of comparative analysis. That is ine.7 In the present context,
I basically look for resonance with other cases in different
localities or different times, or both8. By resonance, I mean
that different elements, dynamics, and relations could be
recognized from one case to the other. Such cases are not nec-
essarily similar. Indeed, they may be quite different, yet there
are some elements that resonate between them. For example,
one may work on land conlicts in Africa and ind stimulat-
ing resonance with the works on primitive accumulation by
Thompson (1975) and Marx (1954). Thompson and Marx’s
works do not explain African land grabs. They may even
operate with concepts that are dificult to transpose from one
context to another. Nevertheless, certain dynamics of resource
control and the ex-post legalization of illegal land appropria-
tion may echo between these distinct (con-) texts. In fact, it
may be the difference in contexts that make the particular
qualities of organization, dynamics, and relations resonate
and be mutually illuminating. Resonance can inspire us to
look for elements, which we had not initially thought about
but which are obviously signiicant in work by others. And
it may help us to generalize, abstract, and theorize our own.
Generalizing
The speciic and concrete study in question was about
land reform and ownership in Ghana. But what was the
general signiicance of groups of people ighting over land
ownership in and around Bolgatanga at that particular time?
Different kinds of generalization are usually possible and
useful, and often case studies combine several kinds. However,
it is important irst to distinguish generalization from abstrac-
tion. Generality can refer to empirical as well as analytical
generalization.9 Empirical generalization is an extrapolation.
Here, knowledge of a limited number of events are claimed to
be valid for a larger group. Analytical generalization, on the
other hand, is an identiication of fundamental or constituent
properties in an event or phenomenon. I refer to the latter as
“abstraction” and deal with it in the following section.10
But even when we deal with generalization in restricted
sense as empirical, several forms of inferences are possible.
The kind we often think about is formal generalization. One
will never be able to talk to, or get data from, everybody in
the studied group. Hence, generalization from some observa-
tions to the group as such is inevitable.11 The research on land
conlicts in Bolgatanga included a large number of cases in
order to map out what conlicts are typically about, who is
typically involved, what authorities are typically engaged,
how claims are typically argued, and how conlicts typically
unfold. A common error is to let one or few informants speak
on behalf of the entire group or to present one incidence as
typical without conidence in the data. It was therefore impor-
tant for the credibility of the research that it gave some basis to
see patterns. Conidence is established through iteration and
HUMAN ORGANIZATION
triangulation until a certain degree of saturation is reached.
That is, through iterative interviews (or other forms of data
collection), information becomes increasingly predictable,
and surprises peter out (Bauer and Aarts 2000; Olivier de
Sardan 2008). Data from many single cases or samples thus
construct a corpus and enable one to say something about
the typicality and rarity of particular observations. Formal
generalization therefore also relates to relevance. It could
show that the research problem was not insigniicant—that it
was not an entirely exceptional occurrence—and that it had
general relevance.
Generalization, from the phenomena observed in one
context to another, depends on the purpose of the analysis. In
arguing for the general validity in comparative settings of a
phenomenon we have studied, there is a risk—a temptation—
to overreach and universalize. Or rather, if we are compelled
to universalize, there is a risk that we will argue for the general
validity of our analysis. Most times, we will fail.12
A way to reduce this risk is to reassess (or recall) why
the case is studied. Often, attempts to make universal claims
are misguided. In most instances, the purpose is not to make
universal declarations,13 and listing caveats to cover oneself is
to akin to scratching where it doesn’t itch. Generalization out
of the close historical and geographical context is, rather, to
enter into a dialogue where one’s research resonates with other
works. The work of others may serve as a basis for a form
of triangulation, not in order to establish actual validity but
to suggest likelihood and probability. As a form of scholarly
communication, generalizations are provisional propositions,
such as: “The apparently simple solution of conferring land
to customary igures is not so simple because the opportunity
will make competing customary igures emerge, and complex
competitions will ensue.” Others’ work will afirm or contra-
dict this proposition’s generalizability, as one’s will theirs. It
is in the tension between contextualization of one’s work in
the broadly accepted literature and at the same time saying
something new that adds, challenges, or changes it, that new
knowledge is produced. Our work should make sense as well
as new sense. Sometimes new sense may look like non-sense
(or indeed, nuisance) if it is too unfamiliar. This increases the
“burden of persuasion” of one’s argument.
A third kind of generalization combines with the above
two. Cases, if carefully selected, can be used to debunk exist-
ing general understandings.14 For the research in question, it
was worth inspecting the emerging general view that land
tenure reforms in Africa would be more successful, if they
reintroduced customary categories and principles, because,
it was assumed, “custom” would be widely shared by people
concerned.15 If a study of a situation, where this is most likely
to be true, shows that it isn’t, then it would suggest that it
generally is not true.
However, carefully selecting the case poses no small
problem. How and when does one know whether or for what
a case is critical? How will one even know what it was about
before it is studied? The honest answers are: “gradually,”
“late,” “one doesn’t,” and more generally, “with the help of
VOL. 73 NO. 3, FALL 2014
others.” Some of the most important “others” often prove to
be the informants, people in the area, the interlocutors. Their
reactions to the questions, their counter examples, and their
willingness to point out yet other people to meet, played a
bigger role in shaping up my case than I had dared to suggest
in the research proposal (see Fortmann 2008; Herzfeld 2001).
Truth be told, it is often only quite far into the research process
and after many conversations in situ, that one can see what
kind of work the case can do. Thus, the opening questions
are merely a irst step in a long series of gradual precisions,
and one often ends up answering a slightly different question
from what one set out to ask.
The choice of historical and geographical perspective is
important here. There is no right or wrong, only more or less
pertinent and convincing. This choice is ours, as analysts.
My study could have compared two similar towns and areas
in the Upper East Region of Ghana. It could even have been
contextualized with the Norman Conquest of England and
the creation of the Doomsday Book in 1086 or to other more
recent restructurings of land tenure.
Eventually, the research in Bolgatanga was about restora-
tion of a customary authority and about reversal of colonial
policies and entitlements, and it was about legal infrastruc-
ture. The most relevant context in which to view the research
seemed to be the colonial legacies of land legislation in Africa,
however. It made sense to see the tribulations in Bolgatanga
as a case of post-colonial land reform that reinstated custom
(whatever that might be) as a leading principle for organizing
land ownership and control. The research produced a general
argument, that in a context of legal and institutional pluralism
and rising competition over land, restoration of property may
hold the promise of greater command over the beneits of land
for the “original owners” but is likely to simply relocate the
tension to a conlict over the deinition of “owner.” Thus, a
reversal of land tenure (like what took place in 1979 in Ghana)
opens a hornet’s nest of potential conlict over land claims and
over competing claims as to who has the authority to settle
such conlicts. In short, the analysis produced a general argu-
ment that this type of land legislation is likely to be far from
“successful,” almost regardless of success criteria.
Abstracting
So, of what is this work a case in a more abstract way?
The point of departure may well have been the speciic and
concrete, but any study is analyzed through a set of concepts.
Even “pure” description relects some editorial principles,
which are in fact, conceptual. By using concepts, we abstract
and edit the data. We make particular inherent qualities of it
prominent. “Social scientists do not discover new events that
nobody knew about before. What is discovered is connections
and relations, not directly observable, by which we can un-
derstand and explain already known occurrences in a novel
way” (Danermark et al. 2002:91). The empirical material as
such is not our responsibility, but the choice of concepts and
the rigorous collection of data is.
227
 Our choice of concepts—just as our choice of historical
and geographical contextualization—partly deines a case.
There are many concepts, which will make only modest
sense in a given case, but there is usually more than one set
of concepts that will make a lot of sense. Again, the choice of
an appropriate lens falls to the researcher. Here, experience,
creativity, and imagination play an important role. One’s
experience from previous research continues to “ferment”
and bring questions, perspectives, and connections to the
observations that do not simply emerge from the data itself.
Moreover, in addition to comprehensive knowledge about
alternative theories and frames of interpretation, abstraction
requires a creative reasoning process to “discern relations
and connections not evident or obvious, to formulate new
ideas about the interconnections of phenomena, to think
about something in a different context, […] to ‘see something
as something else”’ (Danermark et al. 2002:93). This is not
without complications, however. One fundamental problem
is how to be open to the unexpected, to what one was not
already looking for. Researchers of all stripes have often made
“discoveries,” which were absolutely analogous to what they
already knew (Eco 1998). For example, it could be argued
that the experience of the “large abstraction” we choose to
call capitalism always arrives in “quite personal, concrete,
localized, and mediated forms” (Scott 1985:348). However,
this does not mean that all personal, concrete, localized ex-
periences can meaningfully be abstracted into “capitalism,”
although many have tried. This relates to the Kantian idea that
we observe, interpret, and infer through a prioris. There seems
to be no clean escape except to be as inclusive and honest
and open as possible in one’s observations, interpretations,
and inferences (Olivier de Sardan 2008). Strongly deductive
reasoning carries with it the risk of permanent “re-discovery”
of the concept or the model in the empirical material. This is
a safe, yet ultimately boring, undertaking.
Our preferred concepts are, sometimes, quite abstract—
sometimes so much so that they do not really have an im-
mediate precise empirical reference (it is the very nature of
abstraction). We are therefore obliged to track and explain
the movement back and forth between concrete manifesta-
tions of abstract phenomena and be explicit about how we
operationalize the concepts. The question is what did we
actually observe that made us think that we saw these phe-
nomena? Some concepts may be so abstract (like “state,”
“hegemony,” or indeed, “capitalism”), that we may even
need to disaggregate their constituent concepts before they
become empirically visible. Abstraction and concretization
are translations. And it generally pays to pass through opera-
tional steps. Going back and forth between abstract concepts
and empirical observations in the progressive approximation
of both helps to better discern the phenomenon empirically
and describe it conceptually.
The events in Bolgatanga could have been decontextual-
ized by a focus on how cultural idioms give value to certain
representations and narratives. Likewise, different forms of
228
power and force concentrating in the hands of the few could
have been examined through a lens of political economy. The
most rewarding concepts through which to draw exciting
insights seemed, however, to be property and access linked to
the concepts of authority and power. In the abstract, the study
was a case of the mutual production of rights and authority.
By analyzing property conlicts as constitutive of political
authority, it began to make sense how both property and
authority are created through recognition of the legitimacy
of the respective claims. The inherent properties of the land
conlicts were, indeed, “recognition of claims as rights.” This
allowed a recontextualization of the land conlicts as dynam-
ics of recognition between and among claimants of land and
claimants of authority.
Yet, even if one is convinced that “property” is relevant
to study, what should one actually look for? “Property” is
too abstract a term to immediately observe. It is dificult to
imagine a “phenomenology of property” because property
is already an abstraction, and the chances are slim that the
researcher and the people (s)he talks to (all) share an under-
standing of that word. One might try to imagine coming home
one evening during ieldwork, happy and content, because
today “property” was encountered in the ield: what, then,
would one have actually seen? One could have seen (heard
about) transfers of land between people, heritage and sales,
occupations and evictions, deeds and documents of planning
and taxation, of protest and petition, and narratives of dispute.
Property in itself is dificult to see, however. It is a practical
exercise to deconstruct and operationalize key concepts such
as “property” into many observable, empirical elements sig-
nifying different aspects of the “whole.” This exercise works
well for most concepts, such as “contention,” “corruption,”
“exclusion,” “honor,” “neo-liberalism,” etc.16
Conceptual claims are not easy to prove. The proof of
this pudding is in its utility. If the conceptual framework can
make sense of the analyzed data, and especially, if it can
help others to better understand their own work in different
contexts, it is very successful. It might be useful to illustrate
with a fragment of ethnography at this point:
Box 1. The Incident of Mrs. B, the Earthpriest, and the
Royal Hotel
In 1977, Mrs. B bought a small hotel and about seven
acres of land in Bolga. The seller had been given the land
by the government as compensation for land he had had to
give up when the dual highway was constructed in town.
Initially, Mrs. B walled but a small part of her land, letting
the rest lie undeveloped. This land was cultivated by the
local inhabitants of the village and had been so for as long
as anyone could recall. Over the years, the Royal Hotel
and Mrs. B prospered, and at one point in the late 1990s,
she decided to wall all of her land in view of developing it
further. This caused great discontent with the local people,
who saw themselves as illegitimately dispossessed. To
them, the initially walled compound was tolerable, though
essentially squatting on their land—land they had never
HUMAN ORGANIZATION

ceded with consent. Moreover, since 1979, land seized by
government without proper acquisition was to be handed
back to its original owners—the earthpriests to distribute
to land users. To Mrs. B, the opposite was equally clear.
She had a 99-year lease signed by the—at the time—ap-
propriate authority, the chief; she had paid land rent for
all seven acres; and she had a site-plan approved by the
Town and Country Planning Ofice.
The local earthpriest and Mrs. B discussed the issue,
but no settlement was reached. The situation remained the
same for a few years. The earthpriest and the population
found it futile to pursue the matter as long as Mrs. B was
well connected to the political establishment of the town
as the regional treasurer and large-scale patroness of the
ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC). To resign
is not to acquiesce, however. Hence, on the day follow-
ing the defeat of NDC in the national elections in May
2001, the villagers mobilized and knocked down the wall
shielding the seven acres and the Royal Hotel. Cultivation
was resumed the same rainy season, and only debris now
marked Mrs. B’s claim.
Signiicant leads can be teased out of the concrete incidents
and events surrounding Mrs. B’s land conlict. First, both Mrs.
B and the villagers could justify their claims with reference to
history, legal documents, and new legislation. They identiied
different authorities that could recognize and validate them. The
incidents also vividly demonstrate that these authorities’ power
varied over time and that the recognition of their legitimacy was
crucial for the effective validity of their endorsements of land
claims. What is “new” in the research is not that “somebody
is ighting somebody else over a piece of land.” Rather, the
novelty was to establish the connection between competing
land claims and competing claims to authority. It conveyed
a new, additional dimension to a known occurrence of land
conlict. It was to see something as something else. Some 40
cases of this sort were studied in depth to establish a pattern
of events and knead the concepts into shape.
Theorizing
How do we combine generalizations and abstractions
to move in the direction of theorization? Of what would the
work be a case, if generalized and abstracted? What claims, if
any, could possibly be made from work in and on Bolgatanga,
that could have purchase in times and places and possibly
ields beyond land conlicts in that small place? Recall that
generalization is an attempt to see resonance with events
and processes, largely at the same level of abstraction but in
different temporal or spatial contexts. Abstraction, in turn, is
an attempt to identify inherent decontextualized qualities or
properties in the studied events. Theorization, inally, is about
moving from observation of empirical events, through con-
cepts, to be able to say something about the inherent qualities
and dynamics in contexts other than the ones studied. That is,
there is both an element of decontextualization or abstraction
and an element of transfactual corroboration in the process.
The litmus test for any social science research is to what extent
the indings and statements at various levels of abstraction and
VOL. 73 NO. 3, FALL 2014
generalization are plausible (Passeron 2006). This is, in fact,
an empirical question. Sometimes, our constructions collapse,
and we have to start over. Pre-ieldwork and post-ieldwork
ideas, for example, rarely look alike. Fortunately!
Theorization has its challenges. Some research seems to
venture forth with very ixed theoretical ideas about certain
dynamics or relations. They engage empirical data in order
to conirm the theoretical propositions. Sometimes, the use
of theory becomes rather ritualistic, and the speciic and
concrete indings easily end up as apt illustrations of exist-
ing knowledge. Some pieces of ethnography that claim to be
inductive in their approach are really rather deductive (Becker
1986; Mitchell 1983). There is no shortage of studies where
applications of Marxist, Foucauldian, Weberian, or other
fashionable frameworks essentially end up merely conirm-
ing that Marx, Foucault, Weber, and others were clever.
The actual knowledge does not change or evolve by such
“application.” It is not put on the line, as it were, and theory
has merely been fuelled by data as a machine. This also goes
for more contemporary work. Fashion in science can hardly
be avoided, but it is odd how some writers become virtual
talismans without reference to whom one’s argument cannot
be considered valid or serious among peers (Cribb 2005).
Does this mean that we should avoid grand theory and
never wrestle with Weber and others? Not at all. But theory
can be wrestled with in many different ways. It is useful to
operate with a distinction between explanatory and heuristic
frameworks. As an explanatory framework, theory is a set of
interrelated substantive statements venturing to say something
new about the social world, either for a circumscribed sec-
tion of it or, in some cases, attempting a systematic theory of
society. A heuristic framework, in contrast, is a set of concep-
tual tools, which, rather than telling us anything substantive
about the social world, suggests ways of approaching it. The
value of this type of theory must be assessed in terms of what
questions are asked and how they interrogate the empirical
phenomena. In short, we may distinguish between substantive
propositions and propositions that are predominantly meth-
odological, that is, heuristic (Lund 2010; Mouzelis 1995).17
In reality, most works do both. Most works have substantive
and heuristic elements. Most works say something substantive
about the world they cover (be it “land in Africa,” “the In-
dustrial Revolution,” or “Modernity”) and something—often
implicitly—about how to get to know that.
Grand theorists, such as Marx, Foucault, and Weber, are
therefore not irrelevant or incommensurable with research
on a dynamic context removed from the contexts that once
inspired their work. They provide a repertoire of possible
factors, forces, and relations one may not have thought of and
may not observe if one is not aware that they may be at work.
However, they do more than that. It often pays handsomely
to look to such theories more for their heuristic utility and
conceptual adequacy than for their substantive propositions as
if they were an inventory of universal connections or general
causalities. In short, to understand the political economy of
rural Africa, it may be very productive to look to Marx for
229
Table 2. Analytical Matrix—Now with Data
Concrete Abstract
Speciic Land reform Property-authority
Land conlicts Recognition
Reversal of colonial policies Institutional competition over jurisdiction
Legal infrastructure
General Post-colonial societies State formation through the mutual
Normative/institutional pluralism constitution of rights and authority
Re-invention of custom
the questions he asks about power, property, and control and
rather less rewarding to look at the (ultimately historically
contingent) answers he provides in his class analysis of 19th
century Europe. Likewise, to understand state-society rela-
tions in Indonesia, it may be a good idea to look to Foucault
for the questions he asks about discourse and power and less
inspiring to transplant his substantive propositions on prison-
ers and punishment in 18th century France to the archipelago.
We can often learn as much from how and why questions
have been asked in other circumstances as we can from the
historical answers they yielded. Other people’s work is a
spring-well of ideas about how to approach the world, even
if it is about something we do not work on ourselves. Con-
ceptual tools and incisive questions to investigate historical
realities have a lot of mileage, whereas the propositions of
substantive theories have variable expiry dates and seem to
have less new knowledge to offer once removed from their
contexts. For example, the argument about the dynamic in-
teraction between a generalized ethos and a particular form
of economic interaction in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism (Weber 2001) travels well if treated as a ques-
tion or inquiry. Other texts may have equivalent effects on
one’s thinking, even if they are about something completely
different. Obviously, our choice of questions conditions how,
and consequently also what, we can see, but by focusing on
questions, we may be less inclined to simply “re-discover”
somebody else’s model on our data.
The research on Bolgatanga enabled theorization about
“property in Africa.” This conjoined generalization with the con-
ceptual abstractions. That is, it combined propositions about post-
colonial societies, African in particular, with propositions about
property and authority. This was in the cards with the research
concerns and the collected data. However, the study had even
wider (more general) and fundamental (more abstract) potential.
The abstractions of land conlicts into dynamics of property and
authority could possibly be abstracted another notch.
The relationship between property and authority is
mediated by a social contract of reciprocal recognition of
rights and legitimated political power. If this is so, maybe
the work could be a further theoretical contribution to the
body of work on state formation. Hence, possibly, we are
230
not merely talking about property rights but rights more
generally (property as well as citizenship, for example), and
then we are, possibly, not merely talking about post-colonial
Africa but society in general through time. This would lead
to propositions on how and why state formation is a dynamic
of rights and authority; how the value of material and human
resources vary in time and are captured in different ways;
and how legitimacy is not a ixed quantity but produced in
context. I will not go on about the substance here; I have
done that elsewhere (inter alia Lund 2011).
The Analytical Matrix Revisited
The same study has many dimensions of inquiry. Gen-
eralizing, abstracting, and theorizing produce many claims
of a different nature. The relative weight of the different
contributions from a study is likely to be quite uneven. The
research is a big contribution to the small ield of the speciic
and concrete land conlicts in Bolgatanga and a very small
contribution to the big ield of general and abstract state for-
mation. In a schematic form, the research could be organized
in the matrix (Table 2).
The answer to “of what is it a case?” is therefore: “it
depends.” The study used as an example in this article is a
case of land struggles in Bolgatanga. In a general sense, it is
a case of post-colonial land reform and the reconiguration
of customary categories of ownership. In a conceptual sense,
the work is a case of the mutual constitution of property and
authority. And, inally, in a theoretical sense, it is a case of state
formation and the production of public authority through the
production of rights. It is not the actual empirical phenomena,
which are a case; it is our efforts at generalizing, abstracting,
and theorizing that make a case of the phenomena. It is how we
string together words in convincing prose and not simply in a
matrix that produces an argued, reasoned, and compelling case.
Hence, of what it is a case lies outside of the data themselves.
From Neat Heuristics to Reiterative Practice
Up until now, the process has been described as open
inquiry and going from observations through patterns and
HUMAN ORGANIZATION
concepts to theory. This, of course, is not a true representation
of what actually happens. One does not end up in Bolgatanga
by pure accident. One does not begin the exploratory phase of
research with a completely open mind. And one is not equally
interested in all aspects of human life. One is already primed
by conceptual and theoretical impulses from scholarly work
on different places and issues. I had started thinking long
before I began to think about Bolga.18
Moreover, one is constantly, sometimes aimlessly, mov-
ing back and forth between observations, generalizations,
abstractions, and theorization rather than following a neat
trajectory from one square to the next as hopscotch from start
to inish. Methods are not as systematic as science claims
(Feyerabend 1975). The orderliness of one’s method is easier
to establish in hindsight as futile detours can be erased to make
it look more coherent and neat than it felt and was at the time.
But only by shuttling between larger theoretical questions and
detailed observations can we institute the problem and explain
it. It is the movement between them and their articulation that
produces epiphanies and analytical knowledge. Theoretical
questions help to deduce critical areas of inquiry, and detailed
ield research of an inductive nature allows us to investigate
concrete dynamics.19
The choices of sample, of concepts, and of theory and
the movements between them progressively narrow down
the range of possible arguments. Even seemingly innocuous
choices have effects in this vein. Serendipitous encounters
with informants lead interviews and discussions onto new
paths. Particular conceptual framings highlight certain dy-
namics while others dim as a consequence. Each small and big
choice forecloses certain, hitherto possible, perspectives, and
the arguments gradually irm up (Becker 1986). To discuss
one’s work with others on a regular basis may be the most
important practice to gradually hone in on the potentiality
for generalization, abstraction, and theorization of the case.
While it can be terrifying to expose one’s thoughts—half-
baked as they may be—to others, not least one’s informants,
the dividends are high. Others’ experience and their various
ways of making associations usually provide new perspec-
tives and insights about one’s work and the existing truths
worth taking up arms against. The most striking thoughts
sometimes come from places one would least expect, from
people working within and without one’s area, historical
period, ield, and discipline.
The frequent movement back and forth between the
speciic and the more general and between the concrete and
the more abstract usually leads us to read more conceptual
and theoretical work than we will ever be able to use con-
structively to present our results convincingly in a text. It
also leads us to collect much more evidence than we end up
using. Superluous theories and excess data are not amassed
in vain, though. It could be argued that expertise is achieved
on the basis of intimate knowledge of a very large number of
cases in an area and knowledge from a wider ield. Compre-
hensive conceptual consciousness allows us to be aware of
complementary and competing explanations, and it enables
VOL. 73 NO. 3, FALL 2014
us to argue for our choice of frame. And data saturation and
triangulation provide the necessary conidence in the material
and give a deep knowledge of the multiple elements and their
connections. We stare at the amorphous mass we call data, and
patterns begin to emerge. This is not so different from what
mathematicians in their technical language call solution by
inspection.20 Intense observation creates a gestalt of the whole,
and a solution simply clicks into place. Sometimes. When it
happens, it happens not simply by gradual, linear, theoriza-
tion but when enough concepts, enough material, and enough
inspection produce momentary clarity. It is what marks out
authentic and original scholarship. This may explain why it
takes so long….
Notes
1
Gerring (2004:342) even argues that the term is a “deinitional
morass.” Case may mean “qualitative,” “small N,” “ethnographic,”
“clinical,” that it investigates “single phenomena,” that it is “in ield,”
that it “traces processes,” etc. Illuminating works in social science
include Flyvbjerg (2001, 2006), George and Bennet (2005), Olivier de
Sardan (2008), Platt (1992), Ragin and Becker (1992), Stake (1995),
Vennesson (2008), and Yin (2003).
2
Cases of this ilk owe a debt to the Schools of Manchester (Ferguson
1999; Gluckman 1958; Mitchell 1983; van Velsen 1978) and Chicago
(Goffmann 1989; Platt 1992). See also Geertz (1973).
3
Bennett and Elman (2006); Flyvbjerg (2001); Gerring (2004);
Gomm, Hammersley, and Foster (2000); Ragin and Becker (1992);
Stake (1995); and Yin (2003) provide excellent overviews of what job
of knowledge production cases can perform.
4
For more elaborate lamentation, see Bourdieu (1977), Flyvbjerg
(2001), Gould (2003), Mills (2000), and Passeron (2006). Burawoy
(1998:12-16) shows vividly how natural science inspired methods (what
he terms “positive science methods”) in social science, despite the best
intentions, are inevitably compromised because of context, respondents’
relexivity, and the impossibility of perfect replication. This is no reason,
however, not to use quantiiable data as part of analyses.
5
For an entry into this, Wolf (1999) is excellent; Kant (1953) is
obviously excellent, also. For a more poetic take, have a look at T.S.
Eliot’s (1954) The Rock.
6
“Objectivity” is a perennial debate in science. For old classics,
see Taylor (1961) and Weber (1963); for a new one, see Butler (2009).
Bhaskar (2008) and the school of critical realism (e.g., Danermark et
al. 2002; Forsyth 2003; Korf 2006; Sayer 1992) attempt an ontological
understanding of social structures as “real”, that is, constructed and
produced but not imaginary, an epistemology that recognizes that it can
only relect a partial experience of reality, and inally, that the research
process is inevitably framed by social and political context.
7
See, for example, Geddes (2003), Lieberson (1991), Lijphart (1975),
and Sartori (1991).
8
For careful discussions about the usefulness of bringing different
cases together, see Burawoy (1998, 2009); Dilley (1999); Herzfeld
(2001); Hilgers (2013); Katzenstein et al. (1995); Moore (2005); Ragin
(1987); Tilly (1984).
9
Danermark et al. (2002) call them “empiricist” and “realist”; Yin
(2003) opts for “statistical” and “analytical,” respectively.
231
 10
The distinction between the two generalizations may blur. First,
even simple empirical categories immediately familiar to us are abstract
representations of the real and not the real they represent. Second,
we often generalize about complex rather than singular and simple
phenomena. With increasing aggregation, increasing abstraction tends
to follow. Still, it makes sense to distinguish between generalization at
largely the same level of abstraction and abstraction as decontextualiza-
tion of observations.
For a discussion of internal and external generalization, see Olivier
11
de Sardan (2008).
12
Failing to universalize may be the least of our peccadilloes, how-
ever. The very ambition to universalize is borne by an epistemology that
tends to dismiss positionality, situatedness, and the politics of knowl-
edge (Fortmann 2008). Feminist scholarship has dealt with these issues
extensively. Interesting places to start exploring the social construction
and contradiction of positionality are Butler (1990), de Beauvoir (2011),
and Haraway (1988, 1996).
13
Conspicuous exceptions are Marx and Weber’s historical theories
about capitalism and modernity. They have been subjected to deter-
mined efforts at universalization by some of their most prominent
interpreters, Althusser (1970) and Parsons (1951). For entertaining
critiques of these efforts, see Thompson (1978) and Cohen, Hazelrigg,
and Pope (1975).
14
See Flyvbjerg (2001, 2006) on different types of case studies (criti-
cal, extreme, maximum variation, and paradigmatic) and the structure
of argument they can each support.
15
After decades of advocating reform of land tenure systems in Africa
by eradication of custom, the World Bank (2003) and other international
organizations changed to a position where custom was seen as a possible
medium for equitable, functional, and affordable reform.
16
For works that attempt to operationalize these very concepts, see
Blundo and Olivier de Sardan (2006); Castree (2005); Hall, Hirsch, and
Li (2011); Stewart (1994); Tilly (2008).
The literature on these distinctions is rich. Mills (2000); Mouzelis
17
(1995); and Passeron (2000, 2006) are especially useful.
18
And we’re back to Kant again.
19
To engage with this huge debate, Burawoy (1998, 2009); Danermark
et al. (2002); Kuhn (1970); Mills (1953, 2000); Passeron (2006); and
Sayer (1992) are good starting points.
20
For interesting observations on mathematical beauty as “enlighten-
ing” rather than “true,” see Rota (1997).
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