“Interrogating Ethnography”: The Alice Goffman story

I came across this book from 2018, Interrogating Ethnography: Why Evidence Matters, by law professor Steven Lubet. It’s a crisp (137 pages) and fascinating discussion of the role of evidence in qualitative social science, and I think it should be of interest to many of you, as it parallels so many discussions we’ve had over the years regarding the role of evidence in quantitative research.

Sometimes I’ve had negative reactions to writings by law professors on social science, but in this case Lubet’s expertise is relevant, as so many legal cases turn on evidence.

Lubet discusses several examples, focusing on sociologist Alice Goffman’s controversial 2015 book On the Run. As we discussed a few years ago, it’s a problem of trust. Goffman offers no documentation for her extraordinary claims and thus must rely on her readers and colleagues to trust her statements and treat them as fact. In this case, trust is brittle, and once the trust is gone, not much remains.

One reason Lubet’s book is interesting is that he gets into the details and presents things very carefully. Just for example, from page 131:

It is unfortunate that ethnographers have so seldom essayed revisits to others’ research sites. Despite the obvious difficulties, there are cases in which the impediments can be readily overcome. It would not take long for an ethnographer to interview personnel at the hospitals in West Philadelphia where Alice Goffman claims to have seen police cordons at the entrances. Moreover, there are only six hospitals in Philadelphia with maternity services, so it would be possible, even now, to fact-check Goffman’s story of having observed the arrests of three new fathers on the same ward in a single evening.

I’m guessing that this maternity ward falls into the same category as Marc Hauser’s monkey tapes, Brian Wansink’s bottomless soup bowl and his 80-pound rock, Diederik Stapel’s survey forms, Mary Rosh’s survey forms, Michael Bellesiles’s probate inventories, Matthew Walker’s National Geographic video, the Surgisphere dataset, and Dan Ariely’s paper shredder. But all things are possible.

The other thing notable about Lubet’s book is its even tone. Some of the stories in the book are funny, others are kinda shocking, and Lubet manages to convey all this without himself ever expressing amusement or outrage. There’s nothing wrong with expressing amusement or outrage—I do it all the time!—; it’s just impressive to me how he wrote this entire book with a straight face. I recommend it.