Ethnomethodology is the study of how social order is produced in and through processes of social interaction.Garfinkel, H. (1974) 'The origins of the term ethnomethodology', in R.Turner (Ed.) Ethnomethodology, Penguin, Harmondsworth, pp 15–18. It generally seeks to provide an alternative to mainstream sociological approaches.Garfinkel, H. (1984) Studies in Ethnomethodology, Polity Press, Cambridge. It can be seen as posing a challenge to the social sciences as a whole, as it re-specifies the assumed phenomena of those sciences as being themselves social achievements.Garfinkel, H. (2002) Ethnomethodology's Program: Working out Durkheim's Aphorism, Rowman & Littleford, Lanham. Its early investigations led to the founding of conversation analysis, which has found its own place as an accepted discipline within the academy. According to Psathas, it is possible to distinguish five major approaches within the ethnomethodological family of disciplines (see ).Psathas, G. (1995) Talk and Social Structure' and 'Studies of Work, in Human Studies, 18: 139–155.
Ethnomethodology is a fundamentally descriptive discipline which does not engage in the explanation or evaluation of the particular social order undertaken as a topic of study.Wes W. Sharrock, Bob Anderson, R. J. Anderson (1986) The ethnomethodologists. London: Taylor & Francis. . Page 18 It seeks "to discover the things that persons in particular situations do, the methods they use, to create the patterned orderliness of social life". However, applications have been found within many applied disciplines, such as software design and management studies.Rooke, J. & Seymour, D. (2005) 'Studies of Work: Achieving Hybrid Disciplines in IT Design and Management Studies', Human Studies 28(2):205–221. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226883594_Studies_of_Work_Achieving_Hybrid_Disciplines_in_IT_Design_and_Management_Studies
Definition The term's meaning can be broken down into its three constituent parts: ethno – method – ology, for the purpose of explanation. Using an appropriate Southern California example: ethno refers to a particular socio-cultural group (for example, a particular, local community of surfers); method refers to the methods and practices this particular group employs in its everyday activities (for example, related to surfing); and ology refers to the systematic description of these methods and practices. The focus of the investigation used in our example is the social order of surfing, the ethnomethodological interest is in the "how" (the methods and practices) of the production and maintenance of this social order. In essence ethnomethodology attempts to create classifications of the social actions of individuals within groups through drawing on the experience of the groups directly, without imposing on the setting the opinions of the researcher with regards to social order, as is the case with other forms of sociological investigation.Michael Lynch, Scientific Practice and Ordinary Action: Ethnomethodology and Social Studies of Science, Cambridge UP, 1993.
Origin and scope The approach was originally developed by Harold Garfinkel, who attributed its origin to his work investigating the conduct of jury members in 1954. His interest was in describing the common sense methods through which members of a jury produce themselves in a jury room as a jury. Thus, their methods for: establishing matters of fact; developing evidence chains; determining the reliability of witness testimony; establishing the organization of speakers in the jury room itself; and determining the guilt or innocence of defendants, etc. are all topics of interest. Such methods serve to constitute the social order of being a juror for the members of the jury, as well as for researchers and other interested parties, in that specific social setting.Garfinkel, H. (1984) Studies in Ethnomethodology, Polity Press, Cambridge
This interest developed out of Garfinkel's critique of Talcott Parsons' attempt to derive a general theory of society. This critique originated in his reading of Alfred Schutz, though Garfinkel ultimately revised many of Schutz's ideas.Cuff, E. C., Sharrock, W. W. & Francis, D.W. (2006) Perspectives in Sociology (fifth edition) Unwin Hyman, London. Garfinkel also drew on his study of the principles and practices of financial accounting; the classic sociological theory and methods of Durkheim and Weber; and the traditional sociological concern with the Hobbesian "problem of order".Anne Rawls, "Harold Garfinkel", Blackwell Companion to Major Social Theorists, ed. G. Ritzer. Blackwell: London, 2000.
For the ethnomethodologist, participants produce the order of social settings through their shared sense making practices. Thus, there is an essential natural reflexivity between the activity of making sense of a social setting and the ongoing production of that setting; the two are in effect identical. Furthermore, these practices (or methods) are witnessably enacted, making them available for study. This opens up a broad and multi-faceted area of inquiry. John Heritage writes: "In its open-ended reference to [the study of] any kind of sense-making procedure, the term represents a signpost to a domain of uncharted dimensions rather than a staking out of a clearly delineated territory."Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge, U.K: Polity Press. Page 5.
Theory and methods
Ethnomethodology has often perplexed commentators, due to its radical approach to questions of theory and method.Doug Maynard & Steve Clayman, "The Diversity of Ethnomethodology", ASR, V.17, pp. 385–418. 1991. A survey of various ethnomethodological approaches to the study of social practices. Pages 413–418.John Heritage, Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology, Cambridge:Polity. 1991.(). Page 1 With regard to theory, Garfinkel has consistently advocated an attitude of ethnomethodological indifference, a principled agnosticism with regard to social theory which insists that the shared understandings of members of a social setting under study take precedence over any concepts which a social theorist might bring to the analysis from outside that setting.Harold Garfinkel 1967 Studies in EthnomethodologyGarfinkel, H. & Wieder, D. L. (1992) 'Two Incommensurable, Asymmetrically Alternate Technologies of Social Analysis', in G. Watson & R. M. Seiler (eds.), Text in Context, Sage, London, pp. 175–206.Harold Garfinkel (2002). Ethnomethodology's Program. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-1642-3. This can be perplexing to traditional social scientists, trained in the need for social theory. A multiplicity of theoretical references by Anne Rawls, in her introduction to Ethnomethodology's Program, might be interpreted to suggest a softening of this position towards the end of Garfinkel's life. However, the position is consistent with ethnomethodology's understanding of the significance of "member's methods", and with certain lines of philosophical thought regarding the philosophy of science (Polanyi 1958; Kuhn 1970; Feyerabend 1975), and the study of the actual practices of scientific procedure.Michael Lynch 1993 Scientific Practice and Ordinary Action: Ethnomethodology and Social Studies of Science, Cambridge University Press It also has a strong correspondence with the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, especially as applied to social studies by Peter Winch.Cuff, E. C., Sharrock, W. W. & Francis, D.W. (2006) Perspectives in Sociology (fifth edition) Unwin Hyman, London
Regarding theory, Garfinkel's work references the phenomenology of Husserl, Gurwitsch, Merleau-Ponty and, most frequently, to the works of the social phenomenologist Alfred Schutz.Harold Garfinkel 1967 Studies in EthnomethodologyHarold Garfinkel (2002). Ethnomethodology's Program. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-1642-3. Sociologists Talcott Parsons and Emile Durkheim are also frequently referenced.Harold Garfinkel 1967 Studies in EthnomethodologyHarold Garfinkel (2002). Ethnomethodology's Program. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-1642-3. However, the emphasis is upon 'misreading' texts, intended to refer to the activity of "misreading a description as instructions, the work of following which exhibits the phenomenon that the text describes."Harold Garfinkel (2002). Ethnomethodology's Program. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-1642-3. page 115, note 39 Ethnomethodology's policy of ethnomethodological indifference and its unique adequacy requirement of methods explicitly reject commitment to any sociological or philosophical theory.
Similarly, ethnomethodology advocates no formal methods of enquiry, insisting that the research method be dictated by the nature of the phenomenon that is being studied. Ethnomethodologists have conducted their studies in a variety of ways, and the point of these investigations is "to discover the things that persons in particular situations do, the methods they use, to create the patterned orderliness of social life".Harold Garfinkel (2002). Ethnomethodology's Program. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. . Page 4. Michael Lynch has noted that: "Leading figures in the field have repeatedly emphasised that there is no obligatory set of methods [employed by ethnomethodologists], and no prohibition against using any research procedure whatsoever, if it is adequate to the particular phenomena under study".Michael Lynch, The Social Science Encyclopedia, Routledge, 2nd Ed., 1989.Garfinkel, H. & Wieder, D. L. (1992) 'Two Incommensurable, Asymmetrically Alternate Technologies of Social Analysis', in G. Watson & R. M. Seiler (eds.), Text in Context, Sage, London, pp. 175–206.
Some leading policies, methods and definitions
The fundamental assumption of ethnomethodological studies As characterised by Anne Rawls, speaking for Garfinkel: "If one assumes, as Garfinkel does, that the meaningful, patterned, and orderly character of everyday life is something that people must work to achieve, then one must also assume that they have some methods for doing so". That is, "...members of society must have some shared methods that they use to mutually construct the meaningful orderliness of social situations." Ethnomethodology is an empirical enterprise Rawls states: "Ethnomethodology is a thoroughly empirical enterprise devoted to the discovery of social order and intelligibility [sense making] as witnessable collective achievements." "The keystone of the [ethnomethodological] argument is that local [social] orders exist; that these orders are witnessable in the scenes in which they are produced; and that the possibility of [their] intelligibility is based on the actual existence and detailed enactment of these orders." Ethnomethodology is not, however, conventionally empiricist. Its empirical nature is specified in the weak form of the unique adequacy requirement. The unique adequacy requirement of methods (weak form) is that the researcher should have a 'vulgar competence' in the research setting. That is, they should be able to function as an ordinary member of that setting. The unique adequacy requirement of methods (strong form) is identical to the requirement for ethnomethodological indifference.