Methods in Ethnomethodology

1. Methods in Ethnomethodology

2. The Problem of Order: How is Society Done? • Parson’s solution: Impose a theoretical foundation to organize what appears to be disorganized. • Garfinkel’s solution: Examine how social activity is already organized. • Garfinkel named his enterprise ETHNOMETHODOLOGY, the “study of member’s methods.

3. Some Basic Concepts in Ethnomethodology • Whatever we understand “society” to be, it is the outcome of concerted reality-making work on all our parts. • As such, EM does not presumptively impose theoretical, non-empirically-observable working concepts as interpretive tools. • EM is rigidly inductive and empirical. • EM (in all its variants) concerns the study of the “seen but unnoticed” aspects of social life.

4. The Methods of Ethnomethodology: Breaching “Experiments” • What “breaching” is intended to accomplish • The Tic-Tac-Toe experiment • The “boarder” experiment • The “what do you mean” experiment • The telephone answering experiment

5. Micro-Ethnographic Studies of Work • Focus on “reality” as collaborative accomplishment • Require “unique adequacy” to report from insiders’ perspectives • Have examined (eg) science environments to expose how scientific discoveries are socially constructed phenomena by examining scientific work in minute detail.

6. Conversation Analysis • Harvey Sacks sought a “natural observational” sociology • Technology permitted the microscopic study of one aspect of social life • CA entails • minutely transcribed conversational materials • recurrent listening/viewing • the search for sequential patterns, such as turn-taking and question-answer formats • rigid attention to speech fragments and their roles in social interaction • the “bracketing” of interpretations, including sociological theories • Have been used in both “casual” and institutional settings, including survey labs.

7. Manzo, John; Lee Xenakis Blonder, and Allan F. Burns. 1995. "The Social-Interactional Organization of Narrative and Narrating among Stroke Patients and their Spouses." Sociology of Health and Illness 17:307-327 14 I: And then what happened? Did you fall down? 15 H: I fell down. 16 W: uh huh. 17 I: And that was the first stroke? 18 W: That's the first stroke that he had. 19 I: And how long ago was that? 20 W: Aw (.) that was May the fifth. 162 I: When do you- what do you first remember, what is your first 163 memory after the stroke. 164 H: oh, uh, I uh, I, huh-huh, I just st- remember 165 W: We- well but go back, I mean, remember when you were at rehab 166 and you came home here, for a Sunday? 167 H: yeah, yeah. 168 W: What do you remember before that? 169 H: nah, nothin'. 170 W: during all of rehab? 171 H: yeah