In Generally Speaking, Eviatar Zerubavel introduces a method of theorizing designed to reveal abstract social patterns. He examines the theoretical and methodological process by which generic social patterns can be distilled from the culturally, historically, and situationally specific contexts. Zerubavel further draws on numerous examples from diverse cultural contexts, historical periods, and social domains to show what constitutes data in formal
theorizing, how to collect that data, and how this approach works in concert with ethnography and historical forms of social inquiry.