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Ethnomethodology

Author: Dr Simon Moss

Overview

Ethnomethodology was promulgated by Harold Garfinkel, an American sociologist, in his book "Studies in Ethnomethodology" (Garfinkel, 1967). Ethnomethodology is a descriptive study of how individuals derive meaning from the world and communicate this understanding to cultivate social order. That is, scholars in this field study the methods that members of a society deploy to generate social orders and accepted practices. Scholars apply a variety of methods to achieve this objective (see also Heritage, 1984).

Philosophical underpinnings

Divergence from other sociological philosophies

Ethnomethodology departs from Functionalists, Marxists, and Symbolic Interactionists, all of which assume the social realm is fundamentally and naturally ordered. That is, patterns of social interactions and behaviors, according to these perspectives, is systematic rather than haphazard. This order, according to functionalists, evolves from the consensus of values that pervades societies. According to Marxists, however, this order derives from the subordination of one class to another class-and hence social order is susceptible to revolution. According to symbolic interactionists, order is recreated everyday from the multiplicity of social interaction.

In contrast, ethnomethodology assumes that social order is illusory. The social world appears to be ordered, but is potentially haphazard. Social order itself is a social construction, existing in the minds of individuals in society.

Documentary method and extracted patterns

According to Garfinkel, individuals apply a psychological process, called the documentary method, to identify patterns and order in the social world. That is, they identify features of a social setting that seem to conform to some pattern. They then attempt to understand how these features relate to this underyling pattern. They apply this pattern to appreciate the significance of additional features or facts that arise.

To demonstrate this method, Garfinkel asked studies in the psychiatry department to participate in a study about a novel form of psychotherapy. The students were encouraged to discuss their personal issues over intercom with someone who was veiled behind a screen, called the "advisor" who could answer only yes or no. Unbeknownst to the students, these responses to the questions were random.

Although the responses were random, the students were able to extract meaning and patterns from these answers. In general, they felt the advice was helpful. Regularities were extracted even though some of the responses might inevitably have contradicted other answers. That is, the responses to almost the same question were often different. Garfinkel maintained that students were somehow able to extract some patterns from a chaotic situation. If the responses were especially bizarre, the advisor was regarded as antisocial-to ensure that some pattern could be established.

Garfinkel identified a series of processes, under the rubric of the documentary method, that individuals apply that generate this meaning. The patterns we construct direct our subsequent attention. We might not notice an event that violates these patterns-like the husband who does not notice when his wife has changed her hairstyle.

Thus, according to ethnomethodology, the meaningful, regular, and orderly nature of collectives demands constant work to achieve. In these contexts, individuals develop shared methods and procedures to maintain this order. Hence, social order is identical to the procedures that members of a society or collective, such as footballers, apply to manage a particular setting. In other words, social orders are generated within a specific setting or context and manifested through observable accounting practices of the group members to maintain this order.

Techniques and processes

The primary aim of research in this discipline is understand the methods and procedures that individuals apply to cultivate this sense of shared order (Taylor & Cameron, 1987). However, these methods and procedures are largely inadvertent and unconscious. Researchers, thus, need to distill these methods and procedures from the patterns that emerge in conversations

To fulfill this objective, ethnomethodology has introduced some interesting practices into scholarly work. One approach is breaching experiment-violating a social imperative such as driving down the wrong way of road, to reveal useful insights about patterns in social settings. The results of such violations can highlight the forces that maintain accountability. These practices expose assumptions that individuals have accepted unconditionally over many years.

In one experiment, for example, Garfinkel encouraged his students to behave as though they were visitors in their own homes. They were asked to record the reactions of their family, who could not comprehend the abrupt change to the relationship patterns that had evolved over many years.

Second, ethnomethodologists often apply thinking-aloud protocols to investigate the methods and processes that individuals apply when they read an extract (Long, 1989). In particular, individuals are asked to express their thoughts and feelings as they read or write a literary piece. These articulations provide an insight into the knowledge or perspectives that readers or writers apply as they attempt to derive meaning about themselves and their actions. The information shows how readers and writers account for their behavior. Often, while reading or writing, the facial and body movements of participants are also recorded.

This information, for example, often shows how individuals assume a variety of roles during these activities, ranging from a judge, such as mentioning that a figure should be included in the book, to a subject, in which they refer to their own behavior and discomfort. They tend to switch roles frequently. The environment and character of individuals affect the likelihood of these shifts in roles. If readers assume a role that was not intended by the author, they often misconstrue the messages in these extracts.

Applications and examples

Ethnomethodology has spawned many qualitative approaches, such as conversation analysis (Sacks, 1972;; see also Fairclough, 1992;; Have, 1999) and discursive psychology (Edwards, 1994, 1997;; Edwards & Potter, 1992, 1993;; Wetherell & Potter, 1988). That is, these approaches all examine real social interactions to characterize the processes that individuals enact to understand the world and extract meaning.

Indeed, conversation analysis-in which the precise conservation is analyzed in detail-is a tool that is often applied to understand how individuals develop a sense of social order. A researcher, for example, might examine a conversation in which the first person asks a question, the second person pauses, the first person then infers an answer, all of which demonstrates the responses that arise when anticipated turn taking is violated, for example. Thus, scholars in ethnomethodology, especially if they apply conversation analysis, typically examine only brief conversations.

Ethnomethodology has been applied to a diverse range of disciplines, such as psychotherapy (Freeman, 1987). In a therapeutic setting, the client and counselor attempt to cultivate a sense of shared meaning about the context. If they cannot cultivate this sense of shared meaning, and the need for clarification arises, they cannot focus on their primary objective-to enhance the wellbeing and functioning of the client.

Accordingly, even though they will never derive the same meaning from some event-because of differences in perspective and psychology, clients and counselors must nevertheless assume that some common meaning prevails. If they do assume such a shared understanding, they can focus on their actual work-in this instance, processes to facilitate improvement in the client-rather than reestablish this understanding.

Critique

Sometimes, ethnomethodology is regarded as a form of relativism, because no objective patterns or regularities are assumed. As a form of relativism, ethnomethodology cannot address moral issues such as inequality and power.

Nevertheless, some scholars argue that ethnomethodology is not a purely relativist endeavor. Researchers who engage in this approach must develop rules and principles for this endeavor and assumes that readers will understand this work, implying some shared frameworks and order.

References

Coates, L., Bavelas, J. B., & Gibson, J. (1994). Anomalous language in sexual assault trial judgements. Discourse & Society, 5, 189-206.

Edwards, D. (1994). Script formulations: an analysis of event descriptions in conversation. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 13, 211-247.

Edwards, D. (1997). Discourse and Cognition. London: Sage.

Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1992). Discursive Psychology. London: Sage.

Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1993). Language and causation: A discursive model of description and attribution. Psychological Review, 100, 23-41.

Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and text: linguistic and intertextual analysis within discourse analysis. Discourse & Society, 3, 193-217.

Freeman, S. (1987). Verbal communication in medical encounters: An overview of recent work. Text, 7, 3-17.

Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall.

Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J.L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics: Vol. 3. Speech acts (pp. 41-58). New York: Academic Press.

Have, P. T. (1999). Doing conversation analysis. London: Sage

Heritage, J (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge, England: Polity.

Potter, J. (1996). Representing reality: Discourse, rhetoric and social construction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Long, S. A. (1989). The effects of reader and text characteristics on imagery reponed during and after reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 24, 353-332.

Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology. London: Sage.

Sacks, H. (1972). Lectures on conversation, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Blackwell.

Sacks, H., Schegloff, H., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simple systematics for the organization of turn taking in conversation, Language, 50, 696-735.

Taylor, T. J. & Cameron, C. (1987). Analyzing conversation. Oxford: Pergammon.

Wetherell, M., & Potter, J. (1988). Discourse analysis and the identification of interpretative repertoires. In C. Antaki (Ed.), Analysing everyday explanation: A casebook of methods (pp. 168-183). London: Sage.

Wood, L.A., & Rennie, H. (1994). Formulating rape: The discursive construction of victims and villains. Discourse & Society, 5, 125-148.



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Last Update: 6/16/2016