| Summary: | The purpose of this article is to show how an asymmetry in one's data can be turned to one's heuristic advantage. I draw on an ethnographic and socio-historical research which compares non-profit organizations against domestic violence in France and in the United States, and more specifically on the experience of having to use asymmetrical data. Indeed, while I could observe the daily work of shelters for domestic violence survivors in France, I was not given such direct access to workers’ practices by shelter workers in the United States. However, this methodological hurdle became an opportunity in that it shed light on the different processes of institutionalization of a public problem, as well as on the terms and mechanisms of comparative research.
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