Action theories: Ethnomethodology

Question 1

What do Schutz and Garfinkel both reject?

Answer 1

• the very idea of society as a real objective structure ‘out there’

Question 2

In contrast to Parsons, how does Garfinkel explain order and meaning?

Answer 2

• he believes social order is an accomplishment - something that members of society actively construct everyday using their commonsense knowledge

Question 3

How does EM differ to interactionists when it comes to meanings?

Answer 3

• interactionists are interested in the effects of meanings whereas EM is interested in the methods or rules we use to produce the meanings in the first place

Question 4

Garfinkel sees meanings as always potentially unclear and that everything depends on the context - what does he call this characteristic?

Answer 4

• indexicality

Question 5

Why is indexicality a threat to social order?

Answer 5

• if meanings are inherently unclear or unstable, communication and cooperation become difficult, and social relationships may begin to break down

Question 6

Though indexicality suggests that we cannot take any meaning for granted as fixed/ clear - what do we actually do?

Answer 6

• we take meanings for granted everyday

Question 7

What does Garfinkel believe is the thing that enables us to behave as if the meanings are clear and obvious?

Answer 7

• reflexivity, this refers to the fact that we use commonsense knowledge in everyday interactions to construct a sense of meaning and order, to stop indexicality from occurring

Question 8

What is something of vital importance in achieving reflexivity?

Answer 8

• language

Question 9

How does EM suggest we use language?

Answer 9

• when we describe something, we are simultaneously creating it
• our description gives it reality, removing uncertainty about what is going on, and making it seem clear, solid and meaningful

Question 10

Although language gives us a sense of reality existing ‘out there,’ in fact what have we done?

Answer 10

• construct a set of shared meanings

Question 11

What did Garfinkel and his students do in seeking to demonstrate the nature of social order?

Answer 11

• they carried out a series of ‘breaching experiments’

Question 12

Give some examples of ‘breaching experiments’ that Garfinkel and his students used to demonstrate the nature of social order

Answer 12

• they acted as lodgers in their own homes: being polite, avoiding getting personal etc
• tried to haggle at the supermarket

Question 13

What was Garfinkel’s aim in their ‘breaching experiments’?

Answer 13

• to disrupt people’s sense of order and challenge their reflexivity by undermining their assumptions about a situation

Question 14

What kinds of reactions did Garfinkel and his students get to their ‘breaching experiments’?

Answer 14

• parents of students acting as lodgers were bewildered, anxious or angry

Question 15

What did Garfinkel conclude through his ‘breaching experiments’?

Answer 15

• that his experiments show that orderliness of everyday situations is not inevitable but is actually an accomplishment of those who take part in them

Question 16

In Garfinkel’s overall view, how is social order produced?

Answer 16

• it is ‘participant produced’ by members themselves

Question 17

What is Garfinkel’s initial reflection on coroners making sense of deaths?

Answer 17

• coroners select features from the infinite number of possible ‘facts’ about the deceased - ie. mental health, employment status etc.
• they then treat these features as a real pattern eg. they might assume a typical suicide is caused by mental illness etc

Question 18

What does Garfinkel believe humans are always trying to do? Why is this futile? Relate this to the example of the coroner

Answer 18

• strive to impose order by seeking patterns
• these patterns are really just social constructs eg. the seeming pattern that suicides are mentally ill become part of the coroner’s taken for granted knowledge about suicides

Question 19

What faced with future cases will similar features, because the knowledge that suicides are mentally ill, what will the coroner do?

Answer 19

• he will interpret them as examples of the assumed pattern ‘deceased was mentally ill so must have committed suicide’

Question 20

Cases fitting the pattern will be classified as suicides, and will seem to prove the existence of the pattern. Does this assumed pattern tell us anything about external reality?

Answer 20

• no, the assumed pattern becomes self-reinforcing but it tells us nothing about any external reality

Question 21

How does Garfinkel criticise conventional sociology?

Answer 21

• he accuses it of merely using the same methods as ordinary members of society to create order and meaning

Question 22

If conventional sociology does use the same methods as ordinary members of society to create order and meaning as Garfinkel accuses, what does this mean?

Answer 22

• conventional sociology is little more than commonsense, rather than true and objective knowledge

Question 23

Positivists such as Durkheim take it for granted that official stats are social facts telling us the real rate of suicide, how does Garfinkel see them? What effect does this have on the perspective of sociologists?

Answer 23

• sees them as merely the decision made by coroners using their commonsense understandings of what types of people kill themselves
• the supposed ‘laws’ positivists produce are just an elaborate version of the coroners’ commonsense

Question 24

How could Craib criticise EM for being trivial?

Answer 24

• findings spend a lot of ‘uncovering’ taken for granted rules that turn out to be no surprise to anyone eg. finding out that in phone conversations, only one person speaks at a time

Question 25

Expand on how Marxists critique EM for ignoring how wider structures of power and inequality affect the meanings that individuals construct

Answer 25

• ‘commonsense knowledge’ is really just ruling class ideology which serves to maintain capitalism