This is a recipe for disaster. It is essential that we have a clear research question before beginning a case study. Indeed we cannot even begin to select cases until we have a clear statement of the research question. We should be able to formulate some initial propositions-some initial answers to the question that the case studies will help us test. There will be those who urge that fieldwork should be free of theories since these impose our preconceptions and pre-existing categories on the data. Some will urge that we should go into the field free from theoretical encumbrances as these simply blind us to what we might otherwise see and make us deaf to what people are trying to tell us. Our job, they will say, is to allow others to tell us their story rather than us imposing a theoretical interpretation on their story, or using their story for theoretical purposes.
In my view this is not the task of the social scientist. It might be the role of a biographer, a novelist or an activist. The role of a social scientist is to develop and evaluate theoretical generalizations that enable us to understand whole classes of cases-not, in the final analysis, individual cases.
We do not have to have a well-formulated theory to test. Our questions may be such that there are no obvious theories to test. But this does not release us from the need to be well read and well prepared theoretically before going into the field. Pasteur observed that, ‘Where observation is concerned chance only favours the prepared mind’ (quoted in Mitchell, 1983: 204). If we are unaware of relevant theories, concepts, debates and the like, we will probably miss the significance of much of what we might come across. Without having some idea of what we are looking for we will not know what we have found.