The Ethnographer as Detective: Indiciary Paradigm and Abduction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60923/issn.1971-8853/23315Keywords:
Indiciary paradigm, Evidential paradigm, Ethnography, Abductive reasoning, Carlo GinzburgAbstract
The paper reflects on the use of the indiciary paradigm in ethnographic research. Ethnography, and social research more broadly, must address the invisibility of action’s meaning and the definitions of situation. For accessing these “internal states” — beliefs, meanings, values — a semiotic orientation toward reading traces, signs, clues, and minor details is essential. The specificity of this reading practice emerges through comparison with medical diagnosis, revealing a critical difference: unlike patients who collaborate in diagnosis, research participants deploy dissimulation and simulation as self-protection. Drawing on Becker’s insight that participants orient performances toward more consequential audiences (superiors, peers) rather than ethnographers, and Anteby’s analysis of resistance strategies, the paper illustrates how the indiciary paradigm addresses this opacity through attention to “expressions given off” and unwitting testimonies. The paper subsumes the indiciary paradigm under abductive logic, thereby addressing Ginzburg’s ostensible resistance to this framing. Ethnographic fieldwork becomes the theatre where indiciary paradigm and abductive inference operate together. Following Peirce’s classical definition, enriched by Walton and Eco’s contributions, the paper adopts Eco’s distinction of three abductive types: overcoded, undercoded, and creative. Each type is illustrated through Sherlock Holmes’ adventures — Ginzburg’s exemplar of the indiciary paradigm — and through the author’s ethnographic studies on nature sacralization in Italian communities and childhood vaccine hesitancy across seven European countries. The paper concludes that the indiciary paradigm guides the ethnographer’s gaze toward marginal details and unwitting testimonies that trigger abductive reasoning — the core engine of ethnographic practice.
References
Accetto, T. (2021). Della dissimulazione onesta. OMBand Digital Editions (Original work published 1641).
Agar, M. (2006). An Ethnography by Any Other Name… Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 7(4), Article 36. https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-7.4.177
Anteby, M. (2024). The Interloper: Lessons From Resistance in the Field. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Becker, H.S. (1998). Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While You’re Doing It. Chicago, IL. The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226040998.001.0001
Becker, H.S. (2017). Sociological Work: Method and Substance. London: Routledge. (Original work published 1970).
Bloch, M. (1953). The Historian’s Craft (P. Putnam, Trans.). New York, NY: Vintage Books. (Original work published 1949).
Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Hoboken, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Borel, E. (1962). Probabilities and Life (M. Baudin, Trans.). Garden City, NY: Dover Publications. (Original work published 1943).
Bourdieu, P. (1993). Sociology in Question (R. Nice, Trans.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (Original work published 1984).
Bourdieu, P., Chamboredon, J.C., & Passeron, J.C. (1991). The Craft of Sociology: Epistemological Preliminaries (R. Nice, Trans.). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. (Original work published 1968).
Burawoy, M. (1998). The Extended Case Method. Sociological Theory, 16(1), 4–33. https://doi.org/10.1111/0735-2751.00040
Cardano, M. (1997). Lo specchio, la rosa e il loto: Uno studio sulla sacralizzazione della natura. Roma: Seam Edizioni.
Cardano, M. (2011). La ricerca qualitativa. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Cardano, M. (2020). Defending Qualitative Research: Design, Analysis, and Textualization. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429464232
Cardano, M. (2025). An International Rapid Team Ethnography on Vaccine Hesitancy. Sage Research Methods: Data and Research Literacy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781036221805
Cardano, M., & Dubé, E. (2026). Navigating the (Perceived) Risk: An Evidence-based Typology of Parental Decision-making on Childhood Vaccines. In Health, Risk & Society, in press.
Cardano, M., Numerato, D., Gariglio, L., Marhánková, J.H., Scavarda, A., Bracke, P., Hilàrio, A.P., & Polak, P. (2023). A Team Ethnography on Vaccine Hesitancy in Europe: A Case Study of a Local Truth Construction. Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 64(4), 615–642. https://doi.org/10.1423/112399
Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing Grounded Theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Douglas, J.D. (1976). Investigative Social Research: Individual and Team Field Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Doyle, A.C. (1952). The Complete Sherlock Holmes. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Eco, U. (1983). Horns, Hooves, Insteps: Some Hypotheses on Three Types of Abduction. In U. Eco & T.A. Sebeok (Eds.), The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce (pp. 198–220). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Eco, U. (1989). The Open Work (A. Cancogni, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1962).
Eco, U., & Sebeok, T.A. (Eds.). (1983). The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Elster, J. (Ed.). (1986). The Multiple Self. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gadamer, H.-G. (2004). Truth and Method (D. Weinsheimer & G. Marshall, Trans., 2nd rev. ed.). London: Continuum International Publishing Group. (Original work published 1960).
Geertz, C. (1983). Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Geertz, C. (1988). Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.
Ginzburg, C. (2013). Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm (J. Tedeschi & A.C. Tedeschi, Trans.). In C. Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method (pp. 87–113). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. (Original work published 1979).
Ginzburg, C. (2023). Il filo e le tracce: Vero falso finto (2nd ed.). Macerata: Quodlibet.
Ginzburg, C., Barbera, F. & Catino, M. (2026). Carlo Ginzburg in Conversation with Filippo Barbera and Maurizio Catino. Sociologica, 20(1), 111–124 https://doi.org/10.60923/issn.1971-8853/23260
Ginzburg, C., & Lincoln, B. (2020). Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf: A Classic Case in Comparative Perspective. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Glaser, B.G., & Strauss, A.L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. New Brunswick, NJ: AldineTransaction.
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Goffman, E. (1983). The Interaction Order. American Sociological Review, 48(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095141
Goffman, E. (1989). On Fieldwork. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 18(2), 123–132. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124189018002001
Hammersley, M. (2008). Questioning Qualitative Inquiry: Critical Essays. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9780857024565
Hand, D.J. (2015). The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day. London: Corgi Books.
Harrowitz, N. (1983). The Body of the Detective Model: Charles S. Peirce and Edgar Allan Poe. In U. Eco & T.A. Sebeok (Eds.), The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce (pp. 179–197). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Heyl, B.S. (2001). Ethnographic Interviewing. In P. Atkinson, A. Coffey, J. Lofland, & L. Lofland (Eds.), Handbook of Ethnography (pp. 369–383). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781848608337.n25
Holstein, J.A., & Gubrium, J.F. (1995). The Active Interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412986120
Levi, G. (2001). On Microhistory. In P. Burke (Ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing (pp. 97–119). University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.
Locke, K., Golden-Biddle, K., & Feldman, M.S. (2008). Making Doubt Generative: Rethinking the Role of Doubt in the Research Process. Organization Science, 19(6), 907–918. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1080.0398
Lofland, J. (1971). Analyzing Social Settings. San Francisco, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Macagno, F. (2017). The Logical and Pragmatic Structure of Argument from Analogy. Logique & Analyse, 60(240), 465–490. https://doi.org/10.2143/LEA.240.0.3254093
Mason, J. (2002). Qualitative Researching (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Mills, C. W. (2000). The Sociological Imagination (40th anniversary ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1959).
Peirce, C.S. (1931–1958). Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vols. 1–8 (C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss, & A. W. Burks, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Piasere, L. (2002). L’etnografo imperfetto: Esperienza e cognizione in antropologia. Roma–Bari: Laterza.
Popper, K.R. (2002). The Logic of Scientific Discovery (K.R. Popper, J. Freed, & L. Freed, Trans.). London: Routledge. (Original work published 1935).
Reichenbach, H. (1938). Experience and Prediction: An Analysis of the Foundations and the Structure of Knowledge. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Reichertz, J. (2007). Abduction: The Logic of Discovery of Grounded Theory. In A. Bryant & K. Charmaz (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Grounded Theory (pp. 214–228). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781848607941.n10
Rocke, A.J. (2010). Image and Reality: Kekulé, Kopp, and the Scientific Imagination. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226723358.001.0001
Sebeok, T.A., & Umiker-Sebeok, J. (1983). “You Know My Method”: A Juxtaposition of Charles S. Peirce and Sherlock Holmes. In U. Eco & T.A. Sebeok (Eds.), The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce (pp. 11–54). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Simmel, G. (1950). The Sociology of Georg Simmel (K.H. Wolff, Trans.). New York, NY: The Free Press. (Original work published 1905).
Sperber, D. (1985). On Anthropological Knowledge: Three Essays. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1982).
Tavory, I., & Timmermans, S. (2014). Abductive Analysis: Theorizing Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226180458.001.0001
Topolski, J. (1976). Methodology of History (O. Wojtasiewicz, Trans.). Dordrecht/Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company; Warsaw: PWN–Polish Scientific Publishers. (Original work published 1973).
Van Maanen, J. (1979). The Fact of Fiction in Organizational Ethnography. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(4), 539–550. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392360
Vindrola-Padros, C. (2021). Rapid Ethnographies: A Practical Guide. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108623568
Walton, D. (2004). Abductive Reasoning. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
Zerubavel, E. (2021). Generally Speaking: An Invitation to Concept-Driven Sociology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197519271.001.0001
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Mario Cardano
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
