Comparisons play a central role in socio-spatial and cultural localizations. They are a necessary condition for establishing difference which actors need to locate themselves. In this article I discuss an empirical cultural-scientific perspective on comparisons and, in particular, shed light on the role of anticipation and relationality in comparisons. For this purpose, in a first step, criteria of quantitative and qualitative comparison are discussed. Then their relationship to expectations is questioned in order to approach concepts of rationality and the contingent content of comparisons. On this basis, the significance of anticipatory and relational dimensions for comparisons is outlined. The article concludes with a plea for an empirical cultural-scientific perspective on comparisons as anticipatory and relational practice.

Keywords
comparison, anticipation, relationing, socially comparative action orientations