Ethnomethodology

Question 1

What is the main difference between PM and EM?

Answer 1

• Ethnomethodologists agree with the phenomenologists
• However, EM figures out how we come up with this shared knowledge
• Garfinkel is interested in how social order is achieved (like functionalists) but argues it comes from a bottom-up approach

Question 2

Describe indexicality

Answer 2

• Every meaning is unclear and unfixed
• This is threat to social order as if meaning are unstable, communication and cooperation become difficult and social relationships break down

Question 3

Describe reflexivity

Answer 3

• Commonsense knowledge
• We use reflexivity to help us understand society and make it appear fixed, and stop indexicality from happening

Question 4

Describe Garfinkel’s view on the case study on suicide

Answer 4

• He criticises Durkheim study into suicide.
• Durkheim used statistics to come up with patterns of suicide and found that, depending on how integrated a social group was, they were more/less likely to commit suicide. Garfinkel argues statistics are a product on the coroner’s interpretation of suicide.
• Death could be labelled a suicide when it wasn’t, or vice versa. Meaning our ‘truth’ about the rate of suicide isn’t real. So, it’s more important to figure why and how coroners label deaths as suicide

Question 5

How are indexicality and reflexivity shown the case study on suicide?

Answer 5

• Garfinkel argues when coroners are faced with uncertainty of death (indexicality), they use common sense categories (reflexivity) to decode if death was likely to be a suicide
• By studying coroner’s reports and conducting interviews and observations, he found a coroner is more likely to label a death as a suicide if it has a certain features (suicide note, location of death, biography of deceased - mental health history.)

Question 6

Describe the conclusions of the case study on suicide

Answer 6

• Common sense knowledge helped coroners to find patterns which were their socially constructed idea of what suicide is.
• However, it made it easier for them to understand the social world and come up to a reasoned conclusion
• Assumed patterns prove the existence of the originally constructed pattern, but tells us nothing about external reality.
• Understanding this process means we understand how social ‘reality’ is constructed

Question 7

Give a disadvantage for EM

Answer 7

• It ignores how structures of power affects the meanings that individuals construct.
• e.g. Marxists argue ‘commonsense’ knowledge is a ruling-class ideology, and the order it creates serves to maintain capitalism