Causal inference in ethnographic research: Refining explanations with abductive logic, strength of evidence assessments, and graphical models.

ABSTRACT: In their classic accounts, anthropological ethnographers developed causal arguments for how specific sociocultural structures and processes shaped human thought, behavior, and experience in particular settings. Despite this history, many contemporary ethnographers avoid establishing in their work direct causal relationships between key variables in the way that, for example, quantitative research relying on experimental or longitudinal data might. As a result, ethnographers in anthropology and other fields have not advanced understandings of how to derive causal explanations from their data, which contrasts with a vibrant "causal revolution" unfolding in the broader social and behavioral sciences. Given this gap in understanding, we aim in the current article to clarify the potential ethno

SUBMITTER: Snodgrass JG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11075859 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature