The Essential Tension Between Particularism and Generalization

As a researcher at the Cross-Cultural Cumulative Coding Center, I worked closely with Murdock in developing the codes and coding the data for the settlement patterns/community organization and theories of illness codes. While there I experienced the angst of accommodating my training in the particularistic tradition of British social anthropology to Murdock's emphasis on the cross- cultural method and generalization. In reconciling these seemingly disparate perspectives, I received not only an invaluable education in cultural patterns worldwide but also a theoretical and methodological perspective that encourages a meticulous interdisciplinary examination of the concepts, data, and conclusions used to support generalizations in social science.