The Ethnomethodology Program: Legacies and Prospects

It's been more than fifty years since Harold Garfinkel created the field of ethnomethodology--a discipline that offers a new way of understanding how people make sense of their everyday world. Since his book Studies in Ethnomethodology published in 1967, there has been a substantial--although often subterranean--growth in ethnomethodological (EM) work. Studies in and appreciation of ethnomethodological work continue to grow, but the breadth and penetration of his insights and inspiration for ongoing research have yet to secure their full measure of recognition. This volume celebrates Harold Garfinkel's enormous contributions to sociology and conversation analysis, exploring how ethnomethodology emerged, the empirical consequences of Garfinkel's work, and the significant contemporary work that has resulted from it. Douglas W. Maynard and John Heritage bring together experts from a wide range of theoretical and empirical areas to create the first comprehensive collection of work on EM that encompasses its role in "studies of work," in Conversation Analysis, and in other subdisciplines. Chapters highlight ethnomethodology's distinctive forms of ethnographic inquiry and its influences on a host of substantive domains including legal environments, science and technology, workplace and organizational inquiries, survey research, social problems and deviance, and disability and atypical interaction. The book explains how EM especially helped to set the agenda for gender studies, while also developing insights for inquiries into racial and ethnic features of everyday life and experience. Still, there is much of what Garfinkel called "unfinished business," which means that ethnomethodological inquiries are continuing to intensify and develop. Harold Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology ddresses this unfinished business: not only drawing attention to past accomplishments in the field, but also suggesting how these accomplishments set the stage for future endeavors that will benefit from EM-inspired approaches to social organization and interaction.

Table of Contents:
Chapter One: Introduction: Garfinkel and the Ethnomethodology Movement John Heritage and Douglas W. Maynard SECTION ONE: ANTECEDENTS AND THEORY Chapter Two: A Comparison of Decisions Made on Four 'Pre-Theoretical' Problems by Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schuetz Harold Garfinkel Chapter Three: Harold Garfinkel's Focus on Racism, Inequality and Social Justice: The Early Years 1939-1952 Anne W. Rawls Chapter Four: Garfinkel's Studies of Work Michael E. Lynch SECTION 2: EMPIRICAL IMPACT Chapter Five: Ways of Working: An Introduction to the Study of Naturally Organized Ordinary Activities Harold Garfinkel Chapter Six: Rules and Their Enforcement "For Another First Time": Policing the Sidewalk Geoffrey Raymond, Lillian Jungleib, Don Zimmerman, and Nikki Jones Chapter Seven: The Co-Operative, Transformative Organization of Human Action and Knowledge Charles Goodwin Chapter Eight: Sex and the Sociological Dope: Garfinkel's Intervention into the Emerging Disciplines of Sex/Gender Kristen Schilt Chapter Nine: Garfinkel, Social Problems, and Deviance: Reflections on the Values of Ethnomethodology Darin Weinberg Chapter Ten: Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis: Mutual Influences Steven Clayman, John Heritage, and Douglas W. Maynard SECTION 3: GROWTH POINTS Chapter Eleven: The Situated and Methodic Production of Accountable Action: The Challenges of Multimodality Lorenza Mondada Chapter Twelve: Recovering the Work of a Discovering Science with a Video Camera in Hand: The Electronically Probed/Visually Discovered Spectrum Philippe Sormani Chapter Thirteen: Research with Numbers Michael Mair, Christian Greiffenhagen, and Wes Sharrock Chapter Fourteen: The Sherlock Experiment Eric Livingston and John Heritage Chapter Fifteen: Technology in Action Christian Heath and Paul Luff Chapter Sixteen: Occam's Razor and the Challenges of Generalization in Ethnomethodology Iddo Tavory Chapter Seventeen: Ethnomethodology and Atypical Interaction: The Case of Autism Douglas W. Maynard and Jason J. Turowetz Index