Embedding Ethnographic Comparison

Comparison is at the core of social science. Sociological and Socio-anthropological knowledge, in particular, claims it is always and inherently comparative. Yet ethnographic comparisons have typically tended to avoid problematizing the very assumptions and tacit knowledge behind the act of comparing. In this paper I give a contribution to this literature by reflexively discussing the ways in which I failed to carry out my ethnographic comparative project. I intended to scrutinise the everyday representations of Roma in both a Romanian and an Italian city, and the ways in which those representations impacted on Romani communities' position in the urban space and more broadly in urban life. However, once back from both fieldsites, I realised how the very assumption of similarity between the two cities in my research design was largely flawed, and how my differenly perceived selves (not a co-citizen in Romania and not a co-urban-dweller in Italy) substantially influenced my informants' representations of local Roma. The paper is a reflexive analysis of this post-fieldwork epiphany, and employs Strathern's concept of "partial connections" to argue that we-ethnographers may benefit from reflexively understanding the extent to which we ourselves, in our very everyday fieldwork practices and thinking, embed and embody "partial connections" rather than, or along with, producing perfectly flawless comparisons.