Table Of ContentThe perspective of ethnomethodology
THE PERSPECTIVE
OFETHNOMETHODOLOGY
Douglas Benson
and
John A. Hughes
LONGMAN
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©Douglas Benson and John A. Hughes 1983
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First published 1983
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Benson, Douglas
The perspective of ethnomethodology.
1. Ethnomethodology
I. Title II. Hughes, John A.
301 HM24
ISBN 0-582-29584-X
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Benson, Douglas.
The perspective of ethnomethodology.
Includes index.
1. Ethnomethodology. I. Hughes, John A.,
1941-. II. Title.
HM24.B3867 1983 306'.01'8 82-10113
ISBN 0-582-29584-X (pbk.)
Set in 10/llpt Linotron 202 PlantinRoman
Printed in Hong Kong by
Astros Printing Ltd
CONTENTS
J>rej(ace v1
1. An invitation to ethnomethodology 1
2. Ethnomethodology and the submerged tradition: a
biographical version 36
3. Sociological research: problems of phenomena and
their description 70
4. Indexicality and the reflexivity of accounts 99
5. The use of categories and the display of culture 128
6. Conversation analysis 154
7. Conclusion 192
Index 203
v
PREFACE
What we have tried to do in this volume is present an account of
ethnomethodology for those who have litde or no knowledge of its
antecedents, and what, as .a sociological discipline, it aims to
achieve. Even though its birth as an identifiable discipline is only
recent, we have by no means covered all the aspects of the enter
prise, or been as comprehensive in our coverage as the considerable
amount of ethnomethodological work allows. Instead, our aims
have been more modest, and restricted to giving, as faithfully as
possible, a taste of what is involved in ethnomethodology in as com
prehensible a way as possible. Accordingly we have restricted
ourselves to only a relatively small segment of the work available,
hoping that the reader will be encouraged to follow up the further
readings.
As far as the organization of the book is concerned, we have
assumed that most readers will have some acquaintance with what
we call, not pejoratively, 'conventional' sociology. Accordingly, we
have taken a great deal of space contrasting ethnomethodology with
many of the theories and methods which will be more familiar. The
reasons for this are mainly heuristic not polemical. So, Chapters. I,
2 and 3 constitute a section in which we are concerned to·show the
differences between 'conventional' sociology and ethnomethodology
from a number of different directions .. Chapter 1 is suggestive of
ideas and concepts used in ethnomethodology. Chapter 2 deals
more formally with the 'submerged tradition' which has informed
ethnomethodology, and Chapter 3~ from another direction, rein
forces many ideas already mentioned and prepares the ground more
directly for a discussion of the central ideas and some of the work
done in ethnomethodology. Chapter 4 is organized around the basic
ideas and concepts of ethnomethodology, while Chapter 5 deals, in
the main, with some of Harvey Sacks' work. In this chapter we try
to give an idea of the breadth of style of ethnomethodological work
'Dt
Preface
as displayed by one of its most important figures, and his investi
gations of 'practical reasoning'. Chapter 6 deals with the more prolific
of investigative areas in ethnomethodology, namely, conversation
analysis. It is perhaps time for someone to write a text solely de
voted to this work, especially since it is so very technical. What we
have done is to wander, we hope informatively, through some of
the more interesting topics in this field, and, by doing so, to have
illustrated its relevance for the ethnomethodological enterprise.
The final chapter tries to indicate some other areas which have not
been fully dealt with in the earlier parts of the book and which
might be of some interest to the reader.
Although the situation has changed, much of the early
ethnomethodological work was only available in mimeo form and,
therefore, not widely or easily accessible. To date the most serious
gap is the lectures which Harvey Sacks gave through the 1960s un
til his tragic death in 1975. We have, accordingly, minimized the
number of references we give to these even though some of the
ideas found there do appear in the book. Here we can only record a
general debt to his influence and hope that the lectures soon appear
in published form.
One other presentational point. Much of the data ethnomethodo
logists present, especially that from conversations, is heavily anno
tated with transcription symbols. Where we felt it appropriate, we
have simplified these.
There are, as always, many people we need to thank for their
contributions, both direct and indirect, to this book. We would
specificially like to mention two members of the Manchester Bod
dington's Appreciation Society and Boozing Team, Wes Sharrock
and Bob Anderson, both of whom appear throughout in various
guises, some grotesque, some plagiarized, some acknowledged.
John Lee, who has the best wine cellar east of Runcorn, Paul
Drew, Nina, Nicole Marie-Claude, Graham Button, Ruth, Sue,
Terry, Bill Roper and members of Ronnies, all of whom in various
and kindly ways make their unknowing contributions. Maeve,
Wendy and Heather at Lancaster, Jane, Susanne and Kay at Ply
mouth, all bore the heavy responsibility for typing. Special thanks,
too, to Jacky, who had the unenviable task of looking after the only
two and a half year-old to have a trial for Wakefield Trinity during
the final stages. For all these we wish the book could have been
better.
D. B., J. A. H.
vn
DB - my parents
JAH- Jacky
to whom we are more than reflexively tied.
vm
Chapter one
AN INVITATION TO ETHNOMETHODOLOGY
In recent years the sociological community, especially in this coun
try, has witnessed a debate about the merits and demerits of an
approach to sociology known as ethnomethodology. For many, its
appearance on the sociological scene caused no little concern since,
on the face of it at least, ethnomethodology seemed to deny the
hard-won scientific status of sociology and challenged many of
'its cherished principles: a challenge met with some vigour and
anxiety.1 For others, the appearance of ethnomethodology was
largely greeted with indifference, its problems and concerns
seemingly too remote from the central issues of the discipline. More
recently, however, the debate has cooled somewhat and ethno
methodology has been embraced, if reluctlJlltly, by the sociology
community as another way of engaging in sociology. Like most
reasonably successful radical movements, with acceptance its criti
cal force appears spent and its practitioners tolerated as slightly
wayward, if not eccentric, members of the sociological profession.
Yet ethnomethodology seems as little understood today as it was
when Garfinkel first produced his Studies in Ethnomethodology in
1967.2 Now much of the turmoil has subsided it is perhaps a more
opportune moment to try to present some systematic account of
what ethnomethodology is and what its practitioners do.
In order to begin such an account, in this chapter we intend to
illustrate the approach of ethnomethodology by contrasting it with
.t he approaches taken by 'conventional' sociology to some traditional
sociological issues. The first of these is that of crime, the second
that of sexual identity, while the third concerns 'story telling'. We
are not claiming that these are in any sense 'typical' sociological
problems, whatever this might mean, merely that they provide us
with an opportunity to highlight some of the differences between
ethnomethodology and what we are calling for the sake of conveni-
I
The perspective of ethnomethodology
ence, 'conventional' sociology. 3 Our concern at the moment is to
note and discuss some of the observations ethnomethodology is
likely to make about the 'conventional' sociological treatment of
such topics, leaving fuller development of these for subsequent
chapters. We have avoided offering a sentence-length definition of
ethnomethodology mainly for the reason that such definitions are
rarely helpful to the reader until he has some insight to give the
definition life. This is the purpose of what follows.
CRIME
For sociologists, and social scientists generally, crime constitutes a
problem to be explained. While the nature of the explanation may
and indeed does vary, the questions asked about crime tend to be of
the following order: "What are the causes of crime?'; 'How much
crime is there?'; 'How is it distributed amongst the population?';
'Is the volume of crime increasing or decreasing?'; 'How can crime
be prevented?' and so on. The first thing to notice about these
questions (and this is a point which will be developed later in the
discussion) is that they are the kind of questions and concerns that
an ordinary member of society might ask. Despite this similarity of
concern, it is claimed that the sociologist, as a social scientist, has
access to methods which enable these questions to be answered pre
cisely, systematically and theoretically: in short, scientifically. In
other words, involved here is a distinction between the kind of
knowledge of the social order produced by the sociologist as social
scientist and the common-sense knowledge produceq or acquired
by the ordinary member of society. One of the ways. in which this
distinction is made and warranted is in terms of the data the
sociologist brings to bear on the questions asked ~ompared with
that used by the ordinary member who, it is argued, makes judge
ments on the basis of inadequate empirical materials. The ordinary
person is often subjective in his selection and treatment of those
materials, not to say prejudiced, is unlikely to have a perspicuous
view of the social order and its workings, and, finally, is generally
atheoretical: in short, is unscientific in approach.
How then does the sociologist go about answering the questions
just posed? An important, indeed an essential requirement of any
sociological answer to the questions is an adequate empirical data
base. Clearly, what this data base will consist of, its content if you
like, will depend upon the particular question asked. If the ques
tion concerns the social and geographical distribution of crime
2
