Multi-Sited Comparison of "Doing Regulation"

George Marcus (1995) emphasizes that multi-sited ethnography embodies within itself a comparative dimension. For our general understanding of comparison, however, multi-sited ethnography lacks a crucial component: a grounding or tertium comparationis. This article proposes a multi-sited comparison which does not take as its point of departure any tertium comparationis but instead identifies this as an outcome. The method of comparison was developed amidst a multisited ethnography of "doing regulation," here with reference to computer games and the regulatory purpose of protecting minors from harmful media content.