Spiral Case Study

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

Going to the cinema is an example of a familiar social practice, one that we perform with greater or lesser frequency. Let us use Harold Garfinkel's technique to defamiliarize this practice by asking ourselves: When does the practice “going to the cinema” begin? When we enter the cinema, when we buy the ticket, when we arrange with our best friend to go and see the film? Does it finish with watching the film, or is talking about the film afterward over a beer, or some time later with a group of friends, part of the practice of “going to the cinema”? The pleasure of going to the cinema continues and is renewed through discussion of films that we have seen. Going to the cinema is therefore connected with other sociability practices that form the texture of being together and link with identity practices to show others that we are abreast of the facts of the world. Talking about the films that we have loved or hated, discussing the reasons and the aesthetic categories that account for our cinematic tastes, associating ourselves ideally or materially with others who express appreciation similar to our own, becoming collectors of a certain genre of film, and calling ourselves “amateurs” of a cinematic genre are all activities that we recognize as being part of the same social practice. This social practice is founded on a set of activities, on the processing of an individual aesthetic experience, on its discursive sharing within social settings—and therefore on the development of aesthetic categories that enable its communication. It produces specific subjectivities (e.g., “fans of police thrillers”) within a broader community of “film buffs.” We can continue our reasoning on the institutional and organizational level to stress how film clubs are organized, film libraries are formed, and university courses on cinematography are institutionalized. From the individual aesthetic experience to the institutionalization of cinematographic representation as a socially legitimated form of production of knowledge about society [Page 883]there extends a field of practices connected together and sustained by connections in action.

Application

A spiral case study may be developed from this example: We may start with a case study focused on individual strategies of practicing going to the cinema, then shift the focus on the organizational implications of people going to the cinema, then shift again to the production/consumption industry. Perhaps we wish to finish with a focus on the institutionalization of the values and policies supporting the individual practices of going to the cinema.

Whereas traditional sociology treats this process as a matter of social levels—individual, collective, organizational, interorganizational, and institutional—the aim of a spiral case study is to understand how all of them are connected in action and how a texture of practices link individuals and institutions at the same time and within the same practice. Therefore, we can define the spiral case study as a research strategy that focuses on understanding the dynamics present within interconnected settings. It follows an understanding of case study research as a way of organizing social data so as to preserve the unitary character of the social object being studied, as Kathleen Eisenhardt states.

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