Ethnomethodology and Select Theoretical Perspectives

In this sub-section, I briefly discuss the parallels between select perspectives with ethnomethodology, in particular – pragmatism, conversation analysis, symbolic interactionism and phenomenology. This discussion highlights the common roots of the perspectives and serves to justify and ground the eclectic theoretical approach adopted in the thesis.

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There are thematic continuities between ethnomethodology and pragmatism in philosophy; they converge with respect to three essential themes highlighted by Emirbayer and Maynard (2011) – privileging social life as lived and experienced, in sociological inquiry; focussing on in situ creative problem solving – the shop floor problem (Garfinkel 2002, p. 108-112); and thirdly with respect to language as a topic in both pragmatism and ethnomethodology.

Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis are cognate with pragmatism insofar as they are concerned with understanding utterances both as context dependent in a local and temporally developing sense and as a site for social action and interaction – and intent on analysing them in a way that captures their pragmatically cooperative (or, in ethnomethodological terms, collaborative or co-produced) character (Emirbayer and Maynard 2011, p. 256).

With respect to the three themes mentioned above, Emirbayer and Maynard (2011) demonstrate the empirical development of the pragmatic impulse and spirit in ethnomethodological studies of work and conversation analysis that surpasses the vision of the early American pragmatists – Dewey, Pierce, James and Mead in developing the larger implications and promise of those themes (also see Clayman and Maynard 1995; Emirbayer and Maynard 2011, p. 221).

The roots of symbolic interactionism can also be traced to the pragmatism of James, Dewey, Pierce and Mead (Denzin 2004) and the development of the qualitative field research at the University of Chicago (Atkinson and Housley 2003). The phrase ‘symbolic interactionism’, points to the underlying linguistic symbols and emphasises the interactive aspect in human interaction.

…people do not act toward one another, but interact with each other.

(Denzin 2004, p. 83-84)

The three assumptions that form the basis of symbolic interactionism are described by Blumer (1969, p. 2-6) as follows –

1) Human beings act towards things on the basis of the meanings which these things have for them.

2) The meaning of things is derived from, or arises out of, or is formed in the context of social interaction between people.

3) Meanings are used, handled and transformed through, an interpretive process by the person during action.

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The symbolic interactionist approach rests upon the premise that human action takes place always in a situation that confronts the actor and that the actor acts on the basis of defining this situation that confronts him (Blumer 1997, p. 4).

Symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology have common shared strands that both are sceptical of theorising, prefer qualitative research methods for exploration, particularly ethnography and both reject the notion of objective description. However, there are tensions between these two sociological perspectives. Dennis (2011) differentiates the two perspectives by illustrating their differential approach to interaction by evaluating the concepts of actor, context and meaning utilising Garfinkel’s notion of the plenum. While ethnomethodology and interactionism agree that meaning is produced in social interaction, interactionists study the meaning/interpretations made and ethnomethodologists emphasize the ways in which meaning is produced, recognised and transformed during an interaction (Dennis, 2011, p. 351). In ethnomethodology, a social actor is a member and it studies interactional processes, ignoring the individual point of view as sociologically irrelevant (Dennis, 2011, p. 351), while the social actor occupies the central pride of place in symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism regards the concept of context as particular interactions as taking place in particular contexts (Dennis, 2011, p. 352), whereas ethnomethodology treats context as an interactional accomplishment by making salient how the context is invoked and made relevant in situ by the interacting participants.

Wallace asserts that ethnomethodology is clearly interactionist insofar as it embraces a theoretic viewpoint rather than a methodologic one (Wallace 1969). Maynard and Clayman (2003) expound the correspondences between symbolic interactionism, conversational analysis and ethnomethodology. The congruence between the three is essentially derived from the need to study life in situ from the perspective of the members. Similar to symbolic interactionism, meaning, language and interaction occupy pride of place in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Maynard and Clayman (2003, p. 174) profess that ethnomethodology and conversation analysis “can be seen as subjecting some of the most compelling aspects of Median social psychology to empirical analysis”.

The phenomenology of Schutz was invoked by Garfinkel in ethnomethodology; while Schutz’s focus is on projects and the conceptual organisation of perception and interpretation; for Garfinkel, the society’s members are embodied, engaged and interactive; action is reflexive

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and identities are situated in the phenomenal field (Rawls, A. in Garfinkel 2006, p. 19). For the relation of ethnomethodology to phenomenology, see Psathas (1968); Anderson et al. (1985).

Schutz (1967; 1973, 4th edition) combined and applied the phenomenological philosophy of Husserl (1970) with Weberian (1949) verstehen interpretive sociology and ideal types to the mundane social life-world and Garfinkel owed some of his inspiration for ethnomethodology to Schutz (see Psathas 2004).

Goffman’s interaction order exploring the analysability of interaction (see Drew and Wootton 1988 (2003 edition)) and Garfinkel’s intersubjective reflexivity (1967, 2011 edition) have contributed to Conversation Analysis (Heritage 1998) founded by Harvey Sacks (1989, 1992).

While examining the transcripts and tapes of calls made by suicidal persons to a suicide prevention centre, it occurred to him that there might be a method adopted by the callers to prevent giving their name, even when the staff member at a suicide prevention centre had already provided theirs. This was the beginning of conversation analysis which studies the sequential order of interaction, adjacency pairs, turn taking, sequences, speech exchange systems, membership categories and the ilk in fine grained detail (see Atkinson and Heritage 1984; Schegloff 1988, 2003 edition; Boden and Zimmerman 1991, 2003 edition; Ten-Have and Psathas 1995; Hester and Eglin 1997; Schegloff 2007).

The diversity of ethnomethodology is reviewed by Maynard and Clayman (1991). The authors discuss the diversity of the subfields of ethnomethodology; they address theory, phenomenology, cognition, conversation analysis, research in institutional settings, studies of science and applied research (ibid., p. 385). The authors highlight the diversity in ethnomethodology with respect to theory, method and area of focus. The increasing diversity among researchers undertaking research in the ethnomethodological vein has been noted elsewhere (see Zimmerman 1978). Atkinson (1998) notes that ethnomethodology is not homogeneous and critiques empiricist conversation analysis in particular. Maynard and Clayman (1991) articulate and describe the range and variety of subfields within ethnomethodology and clarify the shared assumptions of the subfields along with the distinctions between them.

The concurrences between the perspectives discussed in this section serve to ground the justification of the epistemology of the study discussed further in section 2.7. The following

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section discusses the interaction order as articulated by Rawls (1987) based on Goffman (1967;

1983) and its convergence with the work of Garfinkel and Sacks.