Ethnomethodology

Question 1

EM

Answer 1

Garfinkel rejects the idea of society as a real objective structure

Question 2

Comparison to Parsons

Answer 2

• Like Parsons, hes interested in how social order is achieved but gives a different answer
• Parsons argues that social order is made possible by a shared value system into which we are socialised, wheras Garfinkel argues social order is created from the bottom up
• Social order is an accomplishment - something that members of society actively construct in everyday life using their commonsense knowledge

Question 3

Indexicality and reflexivity

Answer 3

• Like Schutz, EM sees meanings as always potentially unclear - a characteristsic Garfinkel calls indexicality
• Nothing has a fixed meaning: everything depends on the context
• Indexicality is a threat to social order because if meanings are inherently unclear or unstable communication and cooperation become difficult
• Indexicality suggests we shouldn’t take meanings for granted, yet this is what we do. For Garfinkel, what enables us to behave as if meanings are clear is reflexivity - we use commonsense knowledge in everyday interactions to construct a sense of meaning

Question 4

Experiments in disrupting social order

Answer 4

• Garfinkel sought to demonstrate the nature of social order by a series of so called breaching experiments
• E.G. they acted as lodgers in their own families
• Aim was to challenge their reflexivity by undermining their assumptions about the situation. For example, parents of students who behaved as lodgers became bewildered, anxious, embarrased or angry
• Concludes that by challening people’s taken for granted assumptions, the experiments show how the orderliness of everyday situations is not inevitable but is an accomplishment

Question 5

Suicide and reflexivity

Answer 5

• Garfinkel is interested in the methods we use to achieve reflexivity
• In the case of suicide, coroners make sense of deaths by selecting particular features from the infinite number of possible ‘facts’ about the deceased
• For Garfinkel, humans constantly strive to impose order by seeking patterns, even though these patterns are really just social constructs e.g. the pattern that suicides are mentally ill becomes part of the corners taken for granted knowledge
• Thus, when faced with future cases with similar features, the coroner interprets them as examples of the assumed pattern
• Garfinkel is critical of conventional sociology. He accuses it of merely using the same methods as ordinary members of society to create order, if so then conventional sociology is little more than common sense

Question 6

Evaluation

Answer 6

Craib:
* Argues that its findings are trivial. Ethnomethodologists seem to spend lots of times ‘uncovering’ taken for granted rules that turn out to be no surprise to anyone

Em ignore how wider structures of power and inequality affect the meanings individuals construct