I’d actually say this is a variety of qualitative research. At least in the main academic areas I follow, though, it seems a lot more common to read and write up small numbers of detailed case studies (often selected for being especially interesting) than to read and write up large numbers of shallow case studies (selected close to randomly).
This seems to be true in international relations, for example. In a class on interstate war, it’s plausible people would be assigned a long analysis of the outbreak WW1, but very unlikely they’d be assigned short descriptions of the outbreaks of twenty random wars. (Quite possible there’s a lot of variation between fields, though.)
Interesting ideas. Some similarities with qualitative research, but also important differences, I think (if I understand you correctly).
I’d actually say this is a variety of qualitative research. At least in the main academic areas I follow, though, it seems a lot more common to read and write up small numbers of detailed case studies (often selected for being especially interesting) than to read and write up large numbers of shallow case studies (selected close to randomly).
This seems to be true in international relations, for example. In a class on interstate war, it’s plausible people would be assigned a long analysis of the outbreak WW1, but very unlikely they’d be assigned short descriptions of the outbreaks of twenty random wars. (Quite possible there’s a lot of variation between fields, though.)