Ethnomethodology since Garfinkel Paul Attewell Theory and Society, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer, 1974), 179-210. Stable URL: fttpflinksjstor.orgsicisici=0304-242 1281974229201 %3A2%IC179%3 AESO%3E2.0.CORSB2-P Theory and Society is currently published by Kluwer Acadernic Publishers. ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hhupvful-jstor-orp/abouv'terms.himal. ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have ‘obtained prior permission, vou may not download an entire issue of a joumal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial us. Please contact the publisher cegarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at bhupsfuk-jstor-orp/journals/kluwer.hen, Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transtnission. ISTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving.a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding ISTOR, please contact jstor-info@umich edu. hupsfuk.jstor.org/ Wed Mar 17 08:33:22 2004Theory and Society, 11974) 179-210 179 © Blevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam ~ Printed in The Nedhe:lands ETHNOMETHODOLOGY SINCE GARFINKEL PAUL ATTEWELL, From one perspective the history of sociology can be seen as the artempt to impart the rigor of scientific analysis to an elusively objective social world. ‘This effort has sesulted in various sociologies whose common activity has been the objectification of the social world by developing unambiguous con- cepts and equally unambiguous variables for social measurement. It is the historical contribution of phenomenological sociology, especially ethnomethodology, that it reasserted the genuine ambiguity and arbitrariness which underlay orthodox sociology’s concepts and methodologies. As such it provided 4 necessary preventive against sociologieal reification. However, as ethnomethodology progressed from a critique into a sociology in its own right, it too kad to grapple with that elusively objective social world. This paper hopes to examine that process of objectification, and to note the transformation of ethnomethodolgy as it attempted the task. Goffman as forerunner Since ethnomethodology has become anathema to certain moral sociologists, and since ethnomethodologsts like to perceive their own efforts a8 cor stiuting radical break from prior sociologies, thete has been little attempt to link ethnomethodology to prior saciologies. Yet atleast in its early phase, ethnomethodoloay constituted an extension of antecedent sacialogies, and we shall examine it in tis sense, ‘The emphasis of the pre-ethnomethodological era was on symbolic intersc ism. However, due to the work of Erving Goffman, there had developed a new feeling of what interactionism was, The new interactionism presented an image of humans acting out numerous displays of an elaborate but regular structure, the purpose of which was the communication of images of self, definitions of the situation, and demonstrations of social membership and niveriy of Cafornia, Sam Diego130 solidarity. Even at this stage we can see that the early ethnomethodalogical concerns, Le. haw members attribute motives to one anather; how they give rationaiizations of ongoing action; how they satisfy proofs of membership, were issues which were logical extensions of interactionist topics, For our purposes, however, there was a more important aspect of Goffiman’s interactional madel. Goffman deseribed a realm af communicative action, by no means livited to speech, whase purpose was clearly something other than that of instrumentally accomplishing some physical task at hand, eg, digging ahole, serving a table, etc. 4 radical shift in emphasis had occurred away from the previous rationalistic models of social action, in which goal-attainment was the primary focus, and choice of means (decision-making) the primary social activity. Instead the new communicationsl-expressive model mainly dealt with ritualized modes of honoring selves, expressing solidarity etc. Such was the dichotomy between the rationalist model and the later communica: tional model, that sociologists committed to the earlier view, such as Blumer, complained that Goffiman’s analysis ignored the issue of the goal of some activity, and limited itself 20 questions of how some activity was being dane. (Blumer, 1972:72) This formulation of interzetionism after Goffman, a position I shall call “communicationalnomological”, is erucial for my perspective on early ethnomethodalogy. The communicational nomological ‘model crmphasized the importance of those aspeets of social interaction devoted to creation and sustenance of ideational structures: definitions of situations and selves, meanings, etc., at the expense of material aspects of interaction, 4t is understandable that such a perspective would alight on the study of public places, 2 realm where the material attainment of goals loses prominence, Crowds, queues, encounters and so on are singular in that they represent situations in Which numbers of people are not organized (0 attain some common physical or material goal. Cammmunicative-nomological action becomes the dominant form of action in such settings, compared, say, to a factory or office Beyond this emphasis on communication ané meaning-making, Goffman's ineractionism expresses another extzeme position which proved fundamental to ethnomethiodology. In his early work, especially in Presentation of Self tn Everyday Life, Agylums, and Stigma (Gottman 1959, 1961, 1963), interac tions are seen a5 individuals’ responses to their socal context: to institutional demands om them, to social values, to labelling, ete. The later part of Got man’s wask maves away from this consideration of interaction in context towards « study of interaction as a system, of, more specifically, of the syntax of interaction.What I am suggesting is that Goffinan pointed the way tovards an extreme division between the syntax of interaction on the one hand, and the semantics and pragmatics of interaction on the other. He seems consciously to have considered 2 study of the syntax of interaction to be possible: “I assume that the proper study of interaction is not the individual and his psychology, but rater the syotactical relations among the acts of diffecent persons mutually present to ore another.” (Goffman, 1967:1~3) Oras the cover blurb of his latest book announces: “This book is an extended attempt by a serious student of routine public order to apply to that domain the methods of linguistics and ethology. The syntax of contemporary inter- personal ritual is analyzed, and its central role in the organization of face-to- face dealings shown. Basic units of public life are defined; personal forms of territoriality are discriminated; supportive and remedial interchanges are examined in terms of the interactive sequence which makes up contact behavior, .." (Goffman, 197 cover) Goffman’s work expresses an increasing eancem with syntactic elements, ie, the units of interaction, how interactive processes fit together and so on. But we still find some attention given by Goffiman to the pragmatics and semantics of interaction: the “Why did the actor want to do that," and the “What was the meaning of an action for the actor,” respectively. Garfinkel work may be seen as an innovative continuation of that aspect of interac- tionism which asked the question: “How is interaction done? * It completed the division mentioned above by totally excluding fiom its concerns questions regarding the pragmatics (including power phenomena), the semnanties (symbolic systems and meaning), and, importantly, the causes of any interaction, Oar postion is that eady ethnomethadology, although it had many unique features, was nevertheless in the tradition of this communicational rnomologeal interectionism, As such it shared the flaws of that tration: 2 strong tendeney to study social action 28 if it consisted of commtnication ‘and reaning-making alone; an inability to cope with material constraints and goals of action; and especialy an insensitivity regarding the role of power and the normative system of symbolism, meaning, and legitimation, in moulding social ation, Ethnomethodology intensified the division between syntax and the semantic and pragmatic aspects of social detion, It became totally ior volved in the question: how is itezaction done? , and wholly unconcerned in questions like: why it gets done, how its being done results in institutions, ideas, societies, et, and how societies, institutions, and power, modify how Interaction itself gets done, 181182 At the outset then, ethnomethodology decided to study interaction out ofits social context of institutions, ideas, and power. It took a position analogous to the position of formal linguistics with respect to literatuce. It chose to study the structure of interaction itself rather than look upon interaction as a ‘medium through which society expressed its various aspects, But isn’t such a study of interaction excluded from its context of institutions, ideas, ete., bound to produce a stunted, idealized (and Idealist) image of interaction? To answer this question one shauld fist look at the discourse of ethnomethodology, and then at its empirical products, Garfinkel's Ethnomethodology The primary resource of anyone studying ethnomethodology is Gasfinkel's Studies in Ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967). This work is not a theoreti- cal manifesta as euch, however, and the various tenets of ethnomethodology ‘must be culled from the detail of experiments, demonstrations and accounts. The first iesue Garfinkel deals with defines the area of interest of ethnomethadalgy. It is the study of methods by which members (socially furetioning human beings) make sense out of their world. Hence we have at the outset a view of social action where the emphasis is on the organization of perception which results in action becoming meaningful. ‘Their study is directed to the tasks of learning how members’ actual, ordinacy activities consist of methods (o make practical actions, practical circumstances, common sense knowledge of social structures, and practical sociological reasoning analysable .. . (Garfinkel, 1967:vit—vii) ‘The second fssue to which Garfinkel attends concerns meaning and language. For Garfinkel, making sense ovt of a situation, and giving ordinary language accounts of that sense, are inextricably connected. At one level this means the following: @ large part of members’ abilities to make sense out of 2 situation is predicated upon their abilities to announce to themselves and to others what meaning they are getting out of the situation. Thus fac the image 1s very Goffmanian: as actors announce (o one another the situation as they see it, so the meaning of the situation becomes clear, concrete, and shared. Given this concern, a Jatge part of ethnamethodology becomes the study of how members build accounts of social action, while doing that action. Theaspect of action which is of interest to Gaefinkel becomes accounts and the situations in which chase accounts are made. The image is a dynamic one however: the accounts are developing within and as part of the social situation which they descrize, a situation which itself is constantly changing, However, Garfinkel does not simply settle on an image of members on the cone hand making sense out of continuing situations and then on the other independently telling that sense. He sets up an important equivalence between the making Sense of situations ard the telling of that sense. He says of his studies: ‘Their central recommendation is that the activities whereby members produce and manage settings of organized everyday affairs are identical with members’ procedures for making those settings “account-able” .. When I speak of accountable my interests are directed to such matters as the following. I mean observableandepartable, je. availble to members as situated prectices of lookingandelling. (Garfinkel 1967-1, my emphasis) ‘The above states Garfinkel’s equivalence, that to “do” interaction is to “tell” interaction, This equivalence is expressed in terms of “procedures,” the ptimal unit of ethnometh adological termirology. The procedures by which wwe “produce” interaction are identical to the procedures by which we “describe” tat interaction. However, the equivalence is even more extreme than that. For Garfinkel also sets up an equivalence between understand and explaining that understanding, Members, he tells us, have methods “tos taking those sime activities visibly-ationsl-andteportable-or alk practical purposes, ie, “accountable,” as organizations of commonplace everyday activities.” (Garfinkel, 1967:vil) Garfinkel uses the nusnees of English to express this equivalence between making sense of something and explaining that sense, The word “account” exties this equivalence; to account for same: thing is both to make understandable and to express that understanding. Mearing which members make out of a situation is for Garfinkel, at the outset meaning meant for tlling to others, Thus we have triple equivalence: to “Go” interaction is to “tll” about an interaction, Before continuing, it is necessary 10 express a crveot, ‘The statement that perception of social interactions (and making meaning af social interactions) Involves the same procedures as giving linquistic accounts of social interac- tions, is erucial to Garfinkel's book, It is, however, a correspondence which thas been rejected, or at least modified, by other ethnomethadotogists. This is not erucial at this stage: what should be noted is the equivalence: pereeption ix3194 = explanation, which is signified in Garfinkel’s wark by the words “aecount" and “accountable.” The Garfinkel quotation above contains a second concept whose meaning presumes an important axiom of ethnomethodology. The words “setting” and “situated” lead us to examine the ideas of action and context ‘The Contextual or Situated Determination of Meaning. Determined is used hero nor in the serse of determinism, ie. no choice of action, but in the sense that meaning is created during and out of interactions within a given situation. Meaning and contest become an established interest in sociology in the work cof the non-positivist symbolic interactionists. For the pasitivist/behaviorist/ structuralist symbolic intetactionists, meaning was determined by factors external (0 the individual. Meaning and the symbols by which we express meanings were seen as being inculeated in the child during socialization, Interaction thereafter consists of the juxtapositioning, rearranging, etc., of sch fixed symbols and meanings in order to serve the situation-at-hand ‘The non-positivist symbolic interactionists disputed the above view. Blumer, sm particular, stressed is interpretation of Mead — thet meanings are the result of interactions throughout one’s life, and that interactions occur in social settings. Thus, in Socieay as Symbolic Interaction, Blumer stated - interpretations of new situations are not predetermined by conditions antecedent to the sitions but depené on what is taken inta account ard sssesed in the actual situations in which behavior is formed. ...[n for rmulating propositions af socal change, it would be wise to recognize that any giter, use of such change is mediated by acting units interpreting the situations with which they are confronted. (Blumer 1967:147-148) {In this school of symbolic interaction, actors derive meaning from the situations in which they interact, From now on, we shall use the words situation and context in their Widest sense. The participating individuals, the physical surroundings, the interaction itself, all constitute the stuation and context of any social setting. ‘One of the central features of any sociology of meaning then becomes the study of the ways in which meanings emerge from interactions within « particular situation, or, to put it anather way, the methods by which actors interpret their surroundings in a meaningful way.We now have to introduce the concept of indeviality. tndexicality ia con- cept which deseribes« property af language. It refers to the fae chat a word may have a meaning sich holds trie forall stations in which the word is used (eg. its ditionary meaning), but 2 word aio has meaning which relates to the particular sitution in which it is heing used. For example, “he was there” has different meanings for bath “he” and “there” depending upon the particular occasion or stuaton in which the sentence was said. More general ly, any sentence is understood in terms not erly of the literal meaning ofits swords, but in terms of the sucrosnding conversation and eowlegge of the people talking. A pice of tak does noe just deserbe an interaction therfore, it slands for, or indexes (herce indexical) some meaning feature of that particular stvation, Any piece of tale stands for or indexes more than it actually says. For example the interchange: “How is your wife?” “Much better, thanks." indexes a whole gamut of meanings which ae avaiable to the speakers. The wife has been ill with “fu She is now recovering. The interchange indexes al ofthis Extrapolating from purely linguistic materials, indexicality/eontextaality refers to the fact that accounts and meanings in any situation are dependent in large degree upon the nature of the situation of which they ace a part. So, for example, the meanings Which two people have in an interaction are uniquely linked t0 the location and time of the interaction, the persons present, the purpase or intention of the actors, their knowledge of each other'sintentions,and san, ‘The indexicel/contextual concept is a major focus of Garfinkel’s Studies in Ethnomethedology, and is crucial to much of the work dane as “ethno: methodology.” For social interaction is seen as inextricably linked to context (Le, “siuated”), and, 2s such, explicable only in context. Given this, one has an extraordinary epistemological. problem. [f meaning and zelion depend upon context, haw can any meaning be understood across contexts and be made shareable? Here is the first of a number of paradoxes ethnomethodo- ogists generate, From the above logie, one can have no complete under standing of social action out of context; equally, all individuals believe it is possible ca account for action outside ils context and act according to this belief T don’t intend to pursue this point. But it is important to note its conse. quences, The introduction to our paper noted the attempt at scientific rigor In sociology. One of the accepted properties of science jn jt rigorous forms is that the language of discourse is objective, in cantradistinction to indexieal. Scientific statements purport ta be context-free, Scientific statements are 188186 presumed to have a validity independent of the observer, independent of Fistorical time, and applicable 0 all situations; they are non-indexical. Garfinkel makes the point that wherever and whenever social scientists attempt to describe social phenomena within situations in objective terms Csubstitute an objective for an indexical expression”) they encounter tte problem of indexicalty. Implicily, if they do peoduce an abjective account, they do 0 by avoiding the contextual elements af their abject of study. Rather than attempt to pursue this line of reasoning, I propose to describe the attitudes of various ethnomethodologists to indexicalty, in order to high- light the significance of this problem. Zimmerman, Pollner, and Wieder Zimmermann, Wieder and Pollner have been described as radical situations lists, These ethnomethodologists emphasize the way in which meanings are created anew in each and every situation; that is, they stress the indexically situated nature of language and meaning, It is significant however thet they (ceat situations from the position of an individual's perception apparatus. In pacticular they develop the concept of a corpus with which the members approach @ situation. However, this corpus is nat a shared intersubjective thing, it i a consteuct of the individual consciousness. That they are talking oF individuals each ceeating his own corpus is not obvious from their language, but is highly significant in evaluating their swodel, ‘Their aim is to analyze “the family of practices employed by members t0 assetnble, recognize, and realize the corpusasaproduct.” This corpus, “the sceasioned corpus of setting features” is 2 concept used to dramatize the ‘unique, transitory, and contextual nature of the organizing features of inter By the use of the term occasioned corpus, we wish to emphasize that the features of socially organized activities are particuler, contingent accom plishments of the production and recognition work of parties to the activity. We underscore the occasioned character of Ue conpussin, contrast 10 a corpus of member's knowledge, skill and belief standing prior fo and independent of any actual occasion in which such knowledge, skill and belief is displayed or reengnized. (Zimmerman and Pollner 1970:44) 2iramerman and Pollner, in pursuing this notion, try to indicate that mem- hess do not have a fixed set of elements which they compare to the elements of each new situation and so apply objective meaning to a unique situation,Elements, they explain, are “those features af the situation members rely on, ailend to, and use as the basis of action. ..” Rather than think of attribution of meaning as the above pattern-matching process, they see understanding as repeatedly created “from seratch.” Thus, in each new situation an occasioned corpus is assembled by means of a family of practices, and the imposition of this unique eccasioned corpus upon. per ception gives rise to understanding of a situation. The understanding process becomes, therefore, a dialectical relationship between contextual data and a uniquely organized “corpus” of elements set up by some (presumably in- variant) family of practices, The difficulties one encounters in deating with this type of model are sub- stantive, Indeed, unless one is schooled in the particular controversies within cethnomethodology, its language appears totally arbitrary. Why, for example, is there a need for an occasioned corpus, a new ane foreach occasion; why is the corpus understacd £8 a exeation of a set ef practices which reoccur on cach occasion? In short, why are we given a formal model whose only porpose isto state the problem of meaning in this way: Fach new and unique selling is understood in terms of an equally unique corpus. Corpuses, how ever, ate created by a set of practices which remain constant from situation to situation. The model achieves one thing: by setting up 3 levels of phenomena — cnntext, corpus, practices — we move from problems of uniqueness and lucemedial indexicalty at the context end, to a very much mete stable ubiquitous “family of practices” atthe other end. It might he suggested that, rather than solve the problem of how members understand unique events, Ziewmerman and Polines have simply shifted theis questioning to ask whether there exist a set of invariant processes which underlie any proces of under standing. Significantly, also, we seem to be dealing with 2 model of individusl perception. They talk of members’ practices, meaning that each member has the same practices, not that they are practices produced by several mesnbers in concert. The madel is one of monadie consciousnesses, each making ils ‘own meaning from the world Sacks Harvey Sacks is undoubtedly one of the most influential ethnomethado ogists, and he has worked closely with Garfinkel. In many ways, however, his ‘work pays least heed to problems of indexicality Sacks! work (Sacks, n.d.) consists, by and large, of analyses of linguistic materials , for example, tape recordings of conversations, or even written 187158 transcriptions of such recordings. In examining accounts and the propertias of situated (indexieal) language, Sacks deals with the problem of indexicaity in the following way. By asserting that in order to “do” language, actors must bbe aware of certain rules of language use, Sacks has succeeded in hypa- thesizing properties of spoken language which may be discovered by reference to exteraal features (ie. the accounts themselves) alone, irzespective of the meanings ofthe actor who made the account, “This allows Sacks to limit his analysis to cultucal productions, te, transcripts of language. His analyses do nat attend to the physical setting in which the language was produced, the intentions and perceived intentions of the speakers, ané s0 on, In short, he has abandoned all those aspects which we earlier stated as constituting the context in which indexical language was produced, and hy which it was understood. Further, the type of analysis he pursues is not dicectly interested in the semantic content of the talk itself, but rather he finds zepularities in talk which are not dependent on the “subject matter” of the talk. Such general properties consist of sequencing phenomena (A talks, then B, then A, etc.) and other regular structural patterns independent of the content of the cone versation. But to repeat a point, by analyzing the piece of talk, a thing in tel, Sacks has avoided the issue of its indexieal bond to the context in which it was produced, Probably this is thought to be acceptable hecause the structural properties Sacks finds are not indexically tied to the situation or context in which the alk was produced. Suck properties are presumed to be “trans situational,” objective features of “talk.” A further aspect of Sacks’ work concerns an early paper of hs, “Sociological Deseription” (Sacks, 1963), This is one of the few clearly epistemological ‘works to be written by an ethnomethodologist and constitutes an attack on previous sacialogies Sacks! paper starts with the promise of an attempt to reconstitute the relationship between sociological apparatus and sociological subject matter, Forther, he makes it clear that his concem is based upon his desire to make sociology 4 scientific discipline. Sacks’ basic point is that most sociotagists confuse topic and resource. That is, they use a language to undesstand social phenomena which is, in itself, part of Grose social phenomena. Put more generally, sociologists are using categories which contain an implicit members’ theary of society in their attempt to understand society. As such, they aseusing as a resource something that should be a topic, that ‘something’ being language, Now this is @ general aspect of phenomenology. Husser!’s critique of positivism was that it didn’t understand that the very structures of perception “ed hoc-ed” their properties into positivists’ analyses. A similar point was made by Cicoutel about mathematical methods in sociology, that the ‘categories contained unexamined properties which became attributes of the thing studied, (Cicourel 1964ch. 1) The problem, of caurse, is how to escape this dilemma of inadvertently presiructuring one's gereeption of the sacial world while, according to phenomenologists, producing a truly scientific social science. ‘This leads us, however, to a basic property of the phenornenolagical sociolo- fies! ther general belief that a truly scientific analysis is possible only if we fiest do X. X varies from individual to individual. Sacks, with his interest in lenguage philosophers, believes that if we first understand language we may then attempt a social science without presuppositions (or atleast & social science where all the presuppositions are consciously krown). Hussel ind cates that if one understood the categories or properties of perception, then ‘one could construct a true seience. Thus we find the recurrent theme: if we abandon (or beacket) our present level of analysis and data, which is untor- tunately riddled with unexplicated categories and presuppositions, and instead, reduce or shift our analysis to some other level, then and only then shall we be able to carry out 2 touly scientific, objective, selfeflective study without presuppositions ‘The questions which come to mind concerning phenomenologists' belief that the level must be reduced to a scientific groundrack are several: Is there really 4 level of arcalysis where presuppositionless (or consciously presuppasitioned) Knowledge is possible? Or is one simply swapping a level of analysis which has some link 10 experienced reality for another level $0 reduced that it approaches idealist essences, e-., the essential properties of perception, the structure of the transcendental ego? Finally, can one return fram the reduced sphere (whether properties of the transcendental ego, or a knowledge of language) to the sociologically relevant sphere? The author of this paper questioned ethnomethodology’s (implicit) first reduction or bracketing, namely the decision that one had to “bracket” interaction from its context of institutions, ideas, power, etc. and to study It asa level af its own, But even this reduction leads one to suspect that a study of the syntactic steuctares of interaction will not allow one (0 usefully examine ceal interaction which ‘exhibits these contextual social properties. 189190 Does the phenomenological “bracketing” of whole levels of phenomena mean that one will ultimately return ta those levels with a scientific knowledge, or does it mean that one has “bracketed” away exactly the phenomena which are cnicial data for analysis and comprehension? But let us return to Sacks’ attempt (o place social science an a solid footing. Hi solution is interesting. Sociology cannot progress as a science, he suggests, s0 Tong as socially created language is turned unexamined upon the social world, But this formulation isn’t new, The reader should note that this is @ new formulation of exactly the point the logical positivists made. That is, that the scientific description of saciety is only possible in @ nozsocia, “objective” language, which they saw as mathematical logic, Sacks goes on: As scientists we seek: to produce a literal description of our subject matter. In order to describe, we construct (or adapt to our uses) a language. White to besin with our language may be crude, one rule must be constantly attended to; nothing we take as subject can appear as part of our deserip- tive apparatus unless i itself has been described. (Sacks, 1963:2) ‘The difficulty, of course, in accepting this is that it holds within it many tautologies. Language is a system, As a system, it has aa a priori existence, Explanation of any word of it necessitates explanation in terms of other words, themselves unexplained. In other words: where can we start? In fact, cone thing becomes obvious. We cannot advance at all if we take Sacks’ pros- cription literally — certain language must be left undefined in order to define the first few terms of our language. The word “nothing” in Sacks’ quotation above immobilizes us. The best that can he hoped for in language is the construction of a system in which the position of ary constituent word can be strictly elated to as many other words as possible, As a language of scientific discourse evolves, it binds its terms into ever more inflexible, unambiguous “filled-in” idencties. In practice, Sacks does not hold to his own proscription in his work, His analysis, for example, of “sequencing” demands of us an acceptance that 2 ‘certain phrase in his teanscript corresponds to a certain typification in his analysis. Such « correspondance can only be made by our understanding both the transeript-phrase and his analytic category. And both such under- standings are fusnished by our nonexplicit, non-described, socially constructed linguistic ability. Sacks’ attempt to bring scientism into sociology ‘moat clearly returns us to the pure language problem which averwhelmed thelogieal postvists. In its most extreme form, the proscription of natural language in analysis of social phenomena resembles 2 proscription of mind in the study of mind Js general terms, Sacks’ statement addresses an issue of import to all ethnomethocologists, that of topic and resource. In Tooking at members practices, ethnomethodologsts inevitably use their knowledge as members in (he same social world. They, therefore, use as a resource elements of theic topic. Not ta do so would require some permanent “epocke,” an impossible task ‘The position can be taken that as far as possible ethnomethodotogists should make explicit the members’ procedures (commonsense understandings) which they use in understanding the commonsense warld. That they cannot always do this i obvious, since the abjective articulation af such procedures is the goal of their quest. However, procedures may be adopted which bring to a minimum the aspects taken for granted inherent in their theory. Cicourel’s simulation technique, for example, demands thet insights and understandings, whether articulated or not, be brought to the sueface, in that the end result ofthese understandings must be some sort of simulation model ‘of an actor ina social setting which will satisfy outside members 2s being real ‘The “objectivication” of understandings in this concrete abject (the simula: tion) serves the Funetion of potting a check os topie-used-asresoutce, ‘Blum and McHugh ‘Alan Blum and Peter McHugh are ethnomethodologists whose commitment to natural language philosophy, and an Idealist epistemology, has (aken them fay away from the scientific ambitions of most ethnomethodalogists. They don't believe in a scientific language a la Sacks, because for them a language description has litle relation to an object or world “aut there." Questions of whether a description accurately grasps some real phenomenon in the world are nonsense, for they believe in language a8 an expression of mind, not as 2 systematic cojoining with external reality. As Blum puts it: ‘When we formulate the parameters, conditions, or rues for the production (recognition) of sm X, we are describing the X from within one particular language, the X itself is firelevant, since we never hope (0 exhaust the possibilities of its description; (that is, its relevance does mat ie in its statusasan object to be deseribed). .. (Blum, 1970313) What, then, is the relevance of Language? Its relevance Is that it expresses an 11lez internal world, a world of consciousness, and that languege-aets are the acts in which such 2 World is created and re-created. Given this Idealist position, cheory becomes a very sttange activity. Theory is not the attempt to eapture a world-out-there, Instead itis a world-creating activity: What activity is being done in the statement of the theory? Is it de- scribing? Is it reporting the facts? Is it making predictions? Let us see the theory as doing none of these things, and, instead, let us treat it as expres sing self, or as doing 2 display of mind. Through theorizing, the theorist searches for his self, and his achievement in theorizing is 2 recovering of this self, (Blum, 1970:304) In this view descriptions tell one something about the deseriber but not the thing described. But given that language refers to the user, how can a person bave knowledge of another person or thing? Blum and MeFlugh go one stage beyond other ethnomethodologists. Odier etknamethodologists criticize standad soctologies for ceifying members’ categories, in other words for using a language which itself prestructures existence. But these other etknometho- dologists always presume that by becoming self-conscious of their research procedures and of their language use, and by performing some kind of reduction methodologically, they as ethnomethodologists can gain. an abjec tive, scientific knawledge of phenomena. Blum and McHugh do not take this loophole to epistemologically legitimate their activity as “science” producing eruth.” They do not elsim an episteraologicaly privileged position, But since they don't claim a privileged position to save themselves from the ethnomethodalogical attack, they undermine their own position. They destroy any criteria for truth or evaluation of their work, or others’ work. ‘Thus we find Blum writing: Note in passing that the different sorts of questions that are asked of ‘theorizing in this game (Is it correct? Does it work? ) are senseless, for hhow do you speak of reacting to 2 display of mind. (Blum 1970a:304) Instead, they employ @ typical ethnomethodological procedure: they turn a sesaurce inta @ topic. Instead of looking for truth, they loak at members! procedures for persuading ane another that truth is achieved: ‘We must accept that there are ne adequate grounds for establishing criteria ‘of truth except the grounds that are employed to grant or cancede it ~ teuth is conceivable only as a socially organized upshot of contingent courses of linguistic, conceptual, and social courses of behavior. The truth‘ofa statement is not independent of the conditions of its utterance, and so to study uth 18 ¢0 study the ways truth may be methodically confer- ‘red, ,, Rather, we need to study the ascription (or not) of truth to those theories insafar as those ascriptions are warranted hy socially organized criteria. Actually, this principle applies to any phenomenon of social onder, (Metiugh, 1970:329, my emphasis) ‘Actually, this approaches a philosophy of praxis. IF truth resides in the mem bers’ prectices that decide something is truthful, how can the theorist examine members! practices and decide if his examination is true oF adequate? What Blum and McHugh do by asserting their position, is to relegate themselves to members’ positions. This leaves those of us who either believe our knowledge to have sore sort of privileged position, and who are not members of Blum and McHugh’s epistemology, t9 ask how Blum and Mctluah’s own efforts may be evaluated. How, for instance, are we to evaluate Blurn’s conclusion: “We shall have adequately described sociology and accounted for its existence when we have deseribed these commonsense practices." (Bhim, 19706:336, my emphasis) But the issue is repeated: “adequately described” according to whom or what, o Blum satisfaction, to his practice, to out satisfaction, to members! satisfaction? ‘The tegresion is infinite once a theorist eanrot judge except as rember, or once truth is present simply because members judge it 10 be present Cicourel In contrast to the work of Blum and McHugh, is the ethnomethadology of Aaron Cicourel. Recently he distinguished his work from ethnomethodology and named it “cognitive sociology.” Cicourel is the mast productive of ethnomethodological thinkers; his works on, theoretical and practical issues are equally qumerous. ‘The first of these, Merhod and Measurement in Saciology, is bath a critique of other socialogies and some indication of a new ane. In the frst chapter, an examination is made at an epistemological level of measurement and mathematics in sociology, and the ghost of logical positivism is put to rest ‘The critique is two-fold. First, modern analyses of rratheruaties ae diseussed which indicate that mathematical logic i 4 system fall of its own propetties ‘which are native to it, and not the phenomena studied. Mathematical logic is Gust) another language and: “Language, then, and the cultural mesnings it signifies, distorts and obliterates, acts as a filter of arid for that which wail ‘pass as knowledge in a given era." (Cicourel, 1964:35) Mathematical logic is 193194 not the tabule rase upon which the unmediated truth ofthe socal world may bbe written. In this respect, the logical postivists were misinformed, Secondly, Cicourel details the ways in which mere quantification distorts social reality, In order to quantify adequately, equivalence classes have to be Set ups in doing so, one forgets that such classes are problematic in the social world. One suicide is not immediately, obviously, equivalent Co another, and the clumping of them in one set may be an imposition, rather than a measuce- ‘ment, For one thing, the “facts” upon which measurement categories depend ae frequently the results of long, complicated social processes. Far example, the suicides which the quantitative sociologist wishes to consider equivatent result from 4 galaxy of social decisions, starting in the mind of the presumed suicidee and ending in the calculation of a coroner. Upon such socially come plex typifications the unamibigoous sets of the statistician lie. Equally, the exigencies of mathematical manipulation influence the measure: ment process, The need t use parametric logic leads to parametric measure: rmient, whether or nat the phenomena warrant it. This becomes abvious in many instances of research; how often has a questionnaire been designed in which “very good, quite good, fair, bad, very bad” become interval data, simply because the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, respectively, were written next to the words? Sociologists stoop to the level of synipathetic magic; simply because the numbers accompany the words, they believe interviewees will impart interval properties ta theie perception of the semantic scale, Although this could be considered an attack on the weakest example (“there is aver all measurement theory”), quantification of all language phenomena involves such trarsformations; transformations whose validity is dubious. To sive one example, mathentatic lagie demands measurement fitted to either A ( nat A logic, the law of the excluded middle. That this property should be an inherent a prior! in measurement of social phenomena is to obliterate all possibility of knowing whether such a logic is true to ot fasfies social pheno Before discussing more of Cicourel’s work, we must return to Garfinkel’s idiosyncratic use of the term “account,” The reader will remember our point that Garfinkel uses the word to set up an equivalence between practices for ‘observing and practices for telling. Cicourel’s examination of multi-modal communication implicitly casts doubt on Garfinkel’s equivalence. Ethnomethodologists following Garfinkel have used accounts, written and verbal, for analysis in their pursuit of members?practices, Cicourel perceives a narrowntess in ths linguistic analysis, Percep- tion, he discovers, is multimodal; we perceive visually, we perceive avdially, and so on, Cicourel’s primary interest has been to accent the unusual proper ties of the verbakaudial channel, Talk is sequential, Linear; words pop up one after the other. This property is so unlike that of other channels of percep- tion that language has to try ta overcome its sequential nature. Hence, in sentences we say a word, phrase, or sentence which has to wait “in limbo!” until explained later an ig, conversation. We are used to suspeading judgment ‘on a section of speech until itis verified Iter on. Equally, words in a sentence are only to be understood in terms of what was said before, The properties of language are an attempt to overcome the limitations of linear processing; ane Waits, projects “possible” ends of sentences before one hears them, refers bback and reinterprets words in the sequence by more recent ones and so.ae. Pethans to dramatize these properties, we can remember the cansternation students have io leaming German. The confusion which arises in “holding” a whole sentence in limbo until one finally, tiumpkanily, Onds the verb at the ‘end of the sentence shows the pain of linear processing in a language where. ward order is more complex than English. The point is thatthe Germans cope painlessly with these properties, jst as we do in English In examining nonauditory language (eg. “deaf signing”) Cicourel does two things: highlights by contrast these properties of spoken language and also Indicates the presence of other, alternative channels of perception and. cam munication, (Cicourel, 1972) In a world where spoken language dominates, We have neglected the other ways we perceive and communicate, especially the visual ones, This is not the place to discuss the propertcs of te diferent modalities, nor the discursive/nondiscursive axis of perception, but it is crucial to see that this complicates Gaefinkel’s notion. Our procedures for ‘observing contain these many modalities of petception, modalities sequenced and non sequenced, ‘The second paint ta be found in Cicourel’s work is perhaps more extical of Garfinkel’s abservableftellable or perception{deseription equivalences, sithough Cicourel leaves this criticism implicit. Because we perceive multi todally but “zocount,” in the main, by one modality (verbally or by written account af verbal language), We perceive things which we do not tel, Cicoucal found this practical difficulty in attempting to desl with & visbal communi: cation (signing) in a verbal manner. Oral language eould not exhaust bis multimodal perceptions (Cicourel, 1972: 213-220). We skould not be con- fused by the fact that the lengusge is written. Written language is a visual form of an audiel form of communication; its written formal struetures are closely tied to its auditory linear properties and limitations 195196 Accounting or telling, therefore, necessitates the tcanslation of multimodal derived perceptions into a single-modality medium (speeck). [n addition, that unimodal medium is greatly limited in its ability to represent much material The words do not exist to describe 4 gesture, a smell, « taste completely. “Observing-andtelling” therefore becomes a translation process, and a refining process. But the refining aspect is ane in which masses of perceived data are invetcievably untranslatable and, therefore, unspeakable. Given this, Garfinkel’s central recommendation, the identical nature of members’ proce: dures for managing settings and their making them “accountable,” looks a little awey when we remember his insistence that accountable means “abservable-end-reportable.” The desire to equivalence reporting and obser- ving was from the onset a dogma, a given, But in the light of multimodalities it progressively becomes a less acceptable given. Finally, in discussing Cicourel, we must examine his model of perception before making certain general observations on ethnomethodology. This partial description is, o use ethnomethodological parlance, a gloss. From his work in Method and Measurement through his work in Under standing Everyday Life, Cicourel has dealt with models of perception. These models ate not addressed (0 the intemal cognitive processes of mind in the psychological sense; rather, they deal with members’ perceptions of social settings and the attribution of mesning. In the process, Cicoutel has tilted at vatious other social psychological theories and concepts, but the nature of such critiques is examined later, Por the moment, we ate interested in the ‘general form of his mocels and the underlying unity of them. In Method and Measurement (Cicourel, 1964:203-209) the model is based on garte theory, bt in his article in Dreitzel’s Recent Soctology, Vol 2 (Cicourel, 1970) and his article in Douglas’ Understanding Everyday Life, (Cicourel 19708) this has been replaced by 2 model based on linguistics, in particular a greatly modified analogy to Chomsiy’s generative syntax. The problem for Cicourel (scarcely unique) is thae of social order. This arder is for him, predicated upon mem bers’ abilities to perceive situations in such a way that they may make ‘meaning of them and act in accordance with such meanings. To the eatent that such meanings are the same for many individuals, action in settings will show normative regularities. What is the essence for Cicourel isthe manner in ‘which members perceive situations in arder to then be able ta relate them to normative (appropriate) action, Cicaurel's model includes two main concepts: surface rules and interpretive procedures. Interpretive procedures allow an individual to perceive uniquesituations and organize perception to form meaning at the level of “a sense of social steueture.” Surface rules are the same as narmative rules, Surface rules are also acted upon by interpretive rules and are organized into meaning 2t the “Sense of social structure” level, Hence, the result of interpretation of a specific, unique situation, may be examined in terms of similarly interpreted normative rules and thus provide a basis far social netion. ‘What is important about this schema is that interpretive rules or procedures are considered invariant and are used in al situations. Two things ollow fram this invariance. Firstly, if such procedures are invariant, they are context-free; they operate in contexts but are not dependent on any given context. They ate therefore, tcanssituational Secondly, the invariant procedures are nat socially learned; rather, they un declie and make possible social learning in children and adults, They are the basis of cognitive organization of social settings. Having given this too brief description of Cicaurel, we can now turn to some general comparative analysis of ethnomethodology, Ethnomethodology as Sociology of Knowledge In some ways ethnomethodology is a sociology, oF sociologies, of knowiedge weit small. Firstly the ethnomethodologists close ranks in criticizing other sociologies. The extique essentially goes like this: Other socialogies accept sociat facts as things. That is, they accept the ontotogica nature of the social world, of social institutions, ete, in exsetly the way that members do. As such, standard sociology totally reifes social existence and sociological con: cepts. It blinds itself to the fact that social facts are produced and managed by the ongoing process of members activities. In accepting categories which are essentially members’ reified “thing” categories, standard. sociology deprives itself of the ability to examine in an unieied way the constitutive processes whick give “things” their thingness. In other words in neglecting the productive processes which members use to sustain reality, standard sociolo- sists accept the categories, language and perspective of members, namely that society is already accomplished. They can therefore never understand how it becomes accontplished While agiceing in the critique, once the ethnomethodologiss try to find their ‘own epistemological postions, they start refighting the clasicel battles of epistemology. Thus Blum and McHugh, the idealist wing, reproach the positivist wing believing that ethnomethodologiss produce anything except 197198 products of rind, An analysis is a language; esults have no fixed relationship, to the thing studied; the project is to understand how members’ ideas of a world become materialized through the medium of language. Sacks, an the ‘other hand, attempts to measure the properties of language, thus accepting the necessity of undercutting the reified world of members’ language by studying it as a topic. But Sacks wishes to describe tose properties of met bers’ language in a fully defined Janguage. He thus claims an objective, solen- tific status for his discoveries. Still other ethnamethadologists believe, by reducing thei study to the level ‘of cognitive processes, to memory and attention, perception, etc., they may, by being self-reflective about their analytical procedures, reduce bias and gain partial objective knowledge at what they believe to be the basic Level af social science knowledge. ‘These disputes, haweves, ate peripheral to the main action of ethnomethodo- ogy. They are fundamentally “spin-of from the oldest problem, that of indexicality Ethnomethodology and the Transcendence of Comtext In the section above, a phenomenological critique of sociological tification was made. Much of the power of the ethnamethodological critique of previous sociology did nat depend upon the “reification of members know: ledge” critique: rather it was baced on indexicality One of Garfinkel’s premises was that the practices of members and particular- ly their accounts aceur in a particular context of biography, intention, setting, time and so on. Further, any accounts made jn that setting gain their meaning for actors anly because actors understand the account as inextr ably tied to that occasion and no other. Social sciences, however, promise to make generalizations about particular ‘events, As such they can only do so by distegarding the isremediable indexical properties of accounts, interactions, ete, They wrench tiem out of context in order ta describe them, Garfinkel suggests that such “wrenching” is @ prac: tical activity Which seciologists carry cut bue is based upon entterin which sociologists decide uniquely in each particular case. In othet words the only way a sociologist “explains” some contextuzl, unique situation in general terms is by uniquely understanding that situation, and deciding on the basis of his understanding of that particular case, which features he will note on that occasion, and which he will not, His understanding and decision is thusmade according to the partinlee case, aot according to some objective, general, transsituational criteria. For he does not perceive a particular case using general extera, he perceives a particular case indexically. As Garfinkel putsit: Nevertheless, wierever practical actions are copies of study, the promised istinetion and substitutability of objective [i.e transsituational, scientific] expressions remains programmatic in every particular case and in every aciual oceasion in which the distinction or substitutability must bbe demonstrated. In every actual case without exception, conditions will be ited that a competent abserver will be required to recognize, such that in that particular case the terms of the demonstcation can be relaxed and nevertheless the demonsteation be counted as an adequate one. (Garfinkel, 1966:6) In other words, the only way a scientific researcher can justly why @ particu Jor event went into some genera! category is by appealing to your under- standing of the contextual features of the event. Thus you and he are using a set of non-scientific procedures to classify, which are totally unconsidered by the “scientific” methodology, and go beyond any operational definitions or methodological procedures for meesurement. Measurement procedures stop ‘where members’ practices for understanding the contextual uniqueness of the Situation go into effect. The indexicalty concept of ethnomethoéoloay is therefore fundamentally opposed to any positivist claims of true knowledge in that it indicates that members’ implicit knowledge is necessarily used in any descriptive generalization of a situation, All description therefare cess on the analysts subjective awareness of the cantextual features of the setting. Ethnomethadology purported ta undercut other sociologies by recognizing that situations were understood through members’ practices of dealing with situations of indexicality. Furthermoye, it purported to set as its object of study exactly those practices T use the term ethnomethodology to refer to the investigation of the rational properties of indexical expressions and other practical aetions as contingent ongoing accomplishments of organized artful practices of every ay life. (Garfinkel, 1966.11) In becoming a study in itself rather than simply a critique, ethnomethodology faced the same problem of how to go from indexical understanding to Scientific understanding, as other sociologies. Fthnomethodalogy entered the paradox” scientific knowledge is the antithesis of situated, indexical, unique 199200 ‘experience in that it is genesalization. Haw can one scientifically deseribe the properties of situated language and action? This is the era of the matter: how did ethnomethodologists sclve their own lemma and thus escape their own critique of ather socialogies? Blum and McHugh provide one response co this. If knowledge is generalize tion, and hence false t0 the unique, the situated, ... then knowledge is something else than what it deseribes. I's 2 language, 2 set of knowledge practices, 2 produet of mind, analysis, whatever. Hence their solution i simple: do the analysis for is ovm sake, asa thing i itself; don't pretend that its what it not, ie. a valid, tee rendering ofthe situated 4 second response to the dilemma was simply to ignore the problem of indexicality by ignoring the indexicality of the phenomena under study. Sacks dogs this. Sacks’ analysis of language avoids the indexical dilemma by avoiding the indexical aspects of accounts. He does this by ignoring the content of language: his analysis doesn’t attend to whar people are saying but how people are talking (the form, the process). Since the content of conver. sations is that which is most closely linked to meaning, intention, biography, ete, and hence is highly indexical, by ignoring content (the what was said) Sacks ignores most of the problem of indexicality. Yet a thied response is observable among ethnomethodologists which avoids the prablem of indexicality by “negating” the concept, in the Hegelian sense Instead of studying the uniqueness of events ~ for indexicalty is merely one aspect of the uniqueness of events ~ study the opposite of uniqueness and situatedness, What is the negation of the concept of indexicality, the situated ress of events and rieaning? ‘The negation is some universal something trans- situational, atemoral. Imariance is such a concept: it suggests presence in all situations, and no change across time or situation. ‘The ethnomethadelogical task thus shifts from discovering propesties of in dexicality to stadying invariant features of situations. A clear exaraple of this tueatment of contextuality is seen for Zimmerman and Pollner. In thetr article in Onderstonding Everyday Life (Zimmerman and Poltner, i970) they ‘descend from the situation via the situated corpus ta merabets’ practices ‘The practices through which a feature is displayed and detected, however, are aswumed to display invariant properties across settings whose sub- stantive features they make observable. It is to the discavery of thesepractices and their invariant properties that inquiry is to be addressed. (Zimmerman and Poller, 1970-95) Of interest in the above is the place at which invariance arises. Zimmerman and Pollner specifically reject invariance at the level of the compus — the network of features to which we attend — and locate it at the process level, in practices. We will eturn to this point later, Again, in Cicourel, we have a set of variant surface rules, but these are tundereut and preceded by the invariant interpretive procedures present in, eatly childhood as a precursor to cultural knowledge. The poiet, then, is made. The study of “awesome” indexicality becomes the study of imsariant procedures, The level of the invariance is arbitrary, often sirexplicated. For Sacks, it lies in linguistic structures, for Zimmerman and Poliner im members’ practices, for Cicourel in hasic cognitive procedures present from the ealist age. What now has to be examined is the problem of procedures; why ate they the ethnorethodologists' focus? Process as an Ethnomethodological Concept In order to appreciate the importance of process to ethnomethadology we rust retum t0 Garfinkel. The reader will remember ovr point that Garfinkel Uses the word “account” to set up an equivalence between practices for observing and practices for telling. At face value, he deliberately conflates perception and description; more correctly, he collapses perception proce: dures and descriptive procedues This could be taken by a cynic to be a convenient stratagem — by equating Perception procedures and descriptive pracedures. Garfinkel equates proce: dures with an internal product (ideas, thought) with those having a tangible external product (accounts). Perception procedures may therefore be researched by examining spoken ar written accounts. The eynie would be mistaken, however; Garfinkel’s point is more complex. As one follows his Studies in Estnomethodology, the reaéer is offered a unusual peespective on accounts; ore very different from our commonsense understanding In the section “Practical Sociological Reasoning: Cammen Understanding,” Garbinkel describes an experiment in which ke asked a group of students to each write a verbatim section of a conversation on the left hand side of a 201202 piece of paper. On the right hand side of the piece of paper, he asked each student to write what he (he student) and his conversationalists understood they were talking about From our knowledge of indexicality, we would expect the few words of verbatim conversation to generate a large volumie of “what was understood” data in the right hand column, For the verbatim conversation indexed a larger understanding, However, Garfinkel's experiment/demonstration was aimed at showing another property of talk beyond its indexicality Conventionally the verbatim “what they said” (the left hand side of the paper) should stand to the “what they understood” (right hand sice of the paper) as a sign Co its referent. But Garfinkel claimed it was not so simple. The right hand column did nat sinply give an expanded description of the conversation, he claimed. Rather than give desctiptions of what was meant or understood, (ight hand side of the paper), the students gave intructions on how to Intergret the verbatinsccaversation. As Garfinkel put it ‘Their written explanations consisted of their attempts to instruct me in hhow to use what the patties said as a method for seeing what the convet- sationalists said... The recognized sense of what a person sa consists only and entirely in recognizing the mechod of his speaking, of seeing how he spoke. (Garfikel, 1967:29 1st wo emphases mine, 3rd Garfinkel’) We have to clearly understand this. Garfinkel is saying that in understanding 2 Piece of talk, one is using the talk 2s an indicator of the mezliod by which talk was done. Understanding proceeds nat by appropriation of some substan- live content of the elk, but by the talk’s referencing in itself mettiods ar processes for uncoding itself This is a very unusual formulation: how did Garfinkel arive at it? Garfinkel begins this section by mentioning Weber's concepts of verstehen and begretfen, Verstehen refers 0 a state of understanding: begreifen refers to the process of understanding, something perhaps expressed in English by tying fo understand versus having an understanding. What Garfinkel has done ity the formulation above is suggest that understanding is hegreifen alone. He radicaltzes begreiten, wderstanding as process, and totally eradicates (the “only"” and “entirely” in the quote above) undersiandinng as a pre-existing mental state, This most be the most extreme dichotomy of these concepts egreifen (process of understanding) and verstehen (state af understanding) ‘ever to be found in sociclogy or psychology. [tis as extreme a statement as the declaration af form without content, or subject without object.‘The repercussions of this attempt (o cast understanding or meaning-making into pore process echo throughout ethnometkodalogy. Ethnomethodalogical literature is replete with wards such as procedvres, processes, methods, practices, te., which express this process model that becomes an underlying assumption for al ethnomethadologists. Jn reading ethnomethodology one sees the results of this devotion to under- standing as process, and the exclusion of understanding as (pre-Jexistent knowledge. I shall desctibe one example of this pute process model before discussing its general irplications. We described earlier the cogoitive model of Zimerman and Pollar. It com sisted of a corpus of seting features which contained elements, By the term clements we mean those features of a setting that members rly upon, attend to, and use as the basis for action, inference, and analysis on any given ‘ccasion. (1970}. Zimmerman ané Pollner are, however, coming very clase co 4 position where a corpus hased on preexistent fnowledge is applied to a situation in otder to make it understandable. In tying (o avoid this they da two things. Firstly, they make this corpus transitory and unique. Te is an occasioned corpus. By the use of the term oecasioned corpus, we wish to emphasize that the features of socially organized activities ace paticula, contiagent activities of the activity. We underscore the occasioned character of the corpus in contrast 10a corpus of members’ knowledge, sill and belief standing prior to and independent of any actual accason in which such knowleége, skill, and belief is displayed or recognized. (Zimmerman and Pollner, 1970:94) Secondly, they cedefine an element (Zimmerman and Pollnet, 1970:96 foot note). Frots a member's view, they say, an element of the corpus isa thing, Buut for the sociologists it is a process: “From the point of view of the analyst the element consists in the practices whereby...” Finally, the whole ‘occasioned corpus is constructed by “a family of practices... by which a particular occasioned corpus is assembled, revised, invoked..." (Zimmerman and Poliner, 1970:97) Why, the reader must ask, do Zimmerman and Pollner, whenever they come ‘within an inch of dealing with a product, insist on switching to a process or practice oF plocedure? What we realize on reading echnomethodotogical literature is that there is a repeated avoidance of any phenomenon as a thing, and a substitution of the phenomenon as process. The ethnometkodologists act as if they want to avoid the reification of members" categories as things by 203204 describing everything as process. We can consider this in 3 ways: They may be Dlindly following Garfinkel’ strange formulation. Or they may be doing so ‘mindful of the reification problem, and believing that they avoid the ethnomettodological ertque this way. third way of conceptualizing this process phenomenon is to view this as an attempt at a phenomerological ‘methodology: reconceptualize al things asthe processes which underlie and constitute the things. ‘This in itself would not ve $0 bad, this constant reduction to process if i were not for one fact. If one reduces everythicg to process, the temporal cumulative nature of understanding is endangered. For how can a previous understanding effect or modify the present understanding if pure process is posited? The omy answer is i past understanding eteates or modifies the presentlyused process, But here the other side of the ethnomethodologists position rebounds on them. In not pursuing the contextual nature of undes- standing, they make their processes absolute, nor-contextual, invariant ence non-modifiable by previous experience). If ome raises processes to 4 timeless inveriance unaltered by contextual usage, and denies the validity and influence of understanding as preconstituted knowledge, tere is no method of camprehendiag understanding asa historically aconaing phenoraenon Jn short, the social psychologists reified understanding as 2 pre-existent knowledge, at product. They cob not explain its emergent properties and its development over time. Ethnamethodologists rely understanding as process. In positieg processes 2s ivariant, while knowledge (and all other phenomena) ae totally processual, they busld a paradox which prevents them from coping with the issue of understanding in its developmental aspect GF course, this is an overstatement, an overstatement because the ethno: methodologists are not consistent and do not always hold to a pure process model. Garfinkel, for example, talks of background expectancies, clearly a product which modifies future understandings. Cicourel, who is least guilty of the pure process extremism, uses the phrase “sense of social structure.” This is clearly a product, though Cicourel doesn’t say that itis a developing sense which effects the understanding af later events (j2., that fl stands prior to a siven act of understanding and effects that act) What ethnomethodologists fail to do, in overemphasizing process) procedures! practices, is to deal adequately with the temporal continuity of an ‘individual's eagaition which enables him to deal with the “uniqueness” of situated events in terms of the products of previous understandings af unique, situated events.‘The cognitive Outcome of Ethnomethodology We have suggested that a series of concepts in ethnomethodology: indexi- ality, process (practices), and invariance, can be examined (0 show that the development of ethnomethodalogy follows logical imperatives embodied in these concepts. But one question which has not heen dealt with is why auch concems led (0 the cognitive/perception model of Cicourel, Zimmerman, Wieder, etal. In considering Garfinkel’s model of interaction, we find that he lacks the commitment (0 invariance which characterized the later ethnomethode- logists, and he also treated members’ practices differently frora his followers. Garfiakel's model first considers accounts and their indexieal properties, He says that suck accounts are reflexively and essentially tied for their sational features ta the socially arganized featuresaf their use. By this, we may take it that for Garfinkel, the meanings of accounts are inremediably tied to context. Furthermore, the meanings of social actions are similarly situationally.tied. Ata second level Garfinkel's model “topicalizes” accounts. We have already suggested that ethnomethodologsts’ methodology is to undereut “things” by studying the process of their production, The topic of enquiry therefore, became not the indexieal contexttied accounts themselves, but the practices by hich suck accounts were made: the cational xeourtability of practical actions as an ongoing contingent accomplishment. ‘What is significant here is the status of such accounting procedures. Accounts ‘were tied to situations for their meaning. Accounting procedures are con- ‘ingent accomplishments. But does this “contingency” mean that aceounticg practices are eausilly ted t0 the context of their use, or not? Evidently not, for although the epistemological problem of making abjective statements about situated accounts and action troubled the ethnomethodologists, they seem to have treated accounting procedures as a priveleged category, ie, analyzable objectively and having an essentially transsituational character. ‘This was the first step toward teeating comological activity as invariant and ubiquitous, Le., nancontingent in some sense. ‘The level at which Garfinkel studied “practices” is important. He was stil working within the imagery of members accounting to arte anather to make sicuations intelligible. Hence he wished to study the practices for giving accounts of action 2 “rational” of “sensible” nature, ie., what is it about the construction of accounts that gives them properties of analysis, meaning, rationality concerning some situation. As such Garfinkel’s procedures are not 205206 obviously invariant or cognitive. He calls thers “properties of practical reasons ing,” but it is not obvious whether they are normasive properties of explana- tion, ox itvatiant properties of mental process. But an examination of his conclusions seems to support the former view that practical reasoning is a normative form of explanation encompassing properties of language and interaction. The praperties of practical reasoning were: (2) The Reciprocity of Perspectives Q) The EtCetera Assumption @) Normal Forms (4) Retrospective Prospective Sense of Ocestence (5) Tak itself as Reflexive (6) Descriptive Vacablariesas Indexical Expressions (Cicaurel, [9706 147-153) Without explicating these, which would take pages, | shall simply assert that they deal with concerns of the interface of interaction, meaning, and ian: guage, eg. that actors A and B interacting together in 2 situation beth. presume they are experiencing the situation similarly, Le., that they would have the samme experience of the seene even if they were ta change places (Reciprocity of Perspectives); or that actors allow a level of ambiguity during an interaction, knowing that suck ambiguity will be cleared up later, since they have to cope with language properties which necessitate such ambiguity, i.e, indexicality (The Et Cetera Principle). What seems to have happened is that 8 shift took place after Garfinkel’s formulation, in which the emphasis moved toward cogaition, Put differently, instead of treating practical reasoning, in terms of what types of rational stewetures, sensibleness, ete, consitute a valid account, later ethnomethodolo- gists tried to look for the presceucturing of perception which accurs before meaning attribution even starts, Pollner’s concept of mundane reasoning suggests that thought itself, any sort of organized thinking, is predicated on various presuppositions which structure it. (Pollner, 1370) Thus we sense a movement away from interactive concerns (looking and telling, how da we make something rational for athers) towards perception and cognition. This ‘movement was accompanied by the acceptance of the notion that the proce- dures or properties of procedures being sought were Orariant, with the assumption that such procedures were not contextually contingent, Recent ethnomethodological work has involved itself increasingly with cognt- tion, perception and memary, and less with propecties of interaction and language in context, Thes Cicoutel examines the mind's capacities for pra-cessing different modalities of sense data (auditory, visual), and Zimmerman and Wilson attempt experimental examination of categorization or “chunking” of audicory and visual input, (Cicaurel, 1972; Zimmerman and Wilson, 1973) ‘The topic of inquity has shifted from indexical, interactive, intersubjective (orabably normative) properties of making accounts “ational,” to an in- variant model of human perception and pre-conscious cognitive processing. (Scott Fuller has sugaested that the latier could usefully be considered to parallel “the properties of the transcendental ego” in classical phenomenola- a Ethnomethodology as a New Paradigm We are now at the stage where we ean assess ethnomethodology asa paradigm shit Ethnomethodology grow partly, as suggested above, in reaction ta previous sociologies, especially interactionist saciologies. Cicourel (Cicoutel, 1970a) and Zimmerman and Pollner (Zimmecman and Pollner, 1970:86~87) all ake the point that concepts such as Rele, Status, Norm are inadequately grounded. They are inadequately grounded in that they leave unexamined the ways in which status, tole, norm, ete, ate perceived by members to be ap- propriate to a given situation. That i, they ignore the fact that a member has first to mterpret a given situation and the given norms (if they exist), and then make a decision a8 to which norms, etc., “fit” the situation. Certain sociologists have taken this aspect of ethnomethodalogy as she signifi cant feature of the new sociology (T. Wilson, 1970). This misunderstanding leads to the conclusion that ethnomethodology is simply a new type of interaetionism which undercuts certain reified concepts, As such ethno- methodology apparently approaches Blumer-type interactionim (Denzin, 1970), having an awareness of members’ interpretive procedures in situations. What such misinterpretations fail to realize is that the compelling difference ‘between ethaomethodology and any form of interaetionism is the fact that such interpretive procedures are, ipso facto, invariant for ethnomethiodoto- gists. The ethnomethadologists have made a commitment to study universal. In order to gain a scientifically-based knowledge they have chosen to study the universal invariant features of interpretive procedures, cognition, percep: tion, ete 207208 is this commitment to study invariant phenomena, which | believe justifies calling ¢thnomethodslogy new paradigm. For, to study invariant Features is to aim at 100% non-statistical laws for sociologists. Ethnomethodolagists are not teying to study probability features of agaregates to be expressed a¢ statistical regularities. Nor do they intend to fing absolute regularities which are tue only for limited populations (e.g., Howatd Becker's “laws” that aif people wha use marijuana for pleasure have ta have gone through 2 certain, proces of experience). thnomethodological invariance applies to all people ‘in all settings. Ie has consequently a 100% reproduceabiity In all aggregates. As might be suspected, this has uusual results, The properties an invariant sociology attends to are equally present in the ghetto ane in the university, it ‘has scant regard for substantive areas (or issues} excepi as scenarios of invariant procedures. Evaluation We must now evaluate ethnomethodologica! knowledge. What seems clea is that each ethnomethodologst (with the exception of Blum and Mcflugh wha nowadays decline that identification) has reduced the level of analysis, hoping theceby to gain a scientific analysis untroubled, or less troubled, by the flaws involved in standard sociology. With the exception of Sacks, who ckose language structures a8 the level of possible scientific analysis, tere seems to be consensus that a body of knowledge concetning universal, invariant pro cesses of pecception and cognition which are termed “an invariant model of the actor" satisfies that requirement ‘What is the relationship of such knowledge to sociology’ Cicourel, Zimmer- man, Pollner, ané Wieder, seem to believe that such a knowledge is the prerequisite to scientific sociology; that we can, and rust, ascend from such a base (a scientific understanding of meaning attribution, to interaction, and thence to more complex levels of social phenomena. My awn reservations about such claims are twofold. First, concerning the level to which they have been reduced. In Garfinkel’s work We stil seemed to be attending to meaning, even though It was to general forms of the logical, rational, sensible struc- turing of accounts, But in the newer cognitive concerns we have lost interest in the topic of meaning either as forms of meaning or as substantive meanings. [cannot see that any amount of knowledge of the pracesses of perception and cognition and of memory can address the problem of what people think, what members’ meanings are. As Max Weber put it, the psychol- ‘gical processes involved in solving a mathematical problem in ne sense point to the meaning of the problem for the actor. Perception, memory, and atten-tion define the ‘phase space’ within which meaning gets done but do not determine meaning, This brings us to the second paint. Any understanding of the life world of actors must involve the full range of determinants of actors’ experience. All of the things which ethnomethod logics bracket: the intentions of actors, their biographies, their subscantive memories of previous interactions, are equally, if not more, determinant of the actors’ experience than the immensely abstract, universal cognitive pro cesses of ethnomethadology. There stems 0 me to be no use in throwing out all the sociologically relevant levels of data in the vain hope of finding the “basic” propeetes structuring experience at some other level. What results is psychology devoid of any sociological elevance. Altetnatively, sociological understanding has to be ad hoc-ed into ethnomethedlogica! studies when- ever sociological concerns are dealt with, and this is surely a more dubious methodology than any of those which the ethnomethodologistsexiticized REFERENCES, ‘om, A, 19708 “Theaniaing™ In 3 Dogs 1970 9p et. [Blum, A, 1970h “The Corput of Knowledge as a Normative Ordet," Tn J. Mekinney and EL Tuystian, Theoretieat Sociology: Peripectiver and Developments, (N.Y. ‘Applston-Centory-Cratis, 1970) Blumer, H. 1967 "Socsty es Symbolic Iteration.” fv J. Manis and B. Meltzer, Syms ‘atic ieeracion. (N.Y. Alyn and Bacon, 1367), Blumer, H, 1972 “Action vs. Intezeton.” Book revlew in Satety Apel 1972 p. 72 ‘Cicourl, A. 1964 Method and Menwurement in Sociology. (N.Y.: Free Press 1964). ‘Court, A, (970a “Basie and Normative Rules in che Negotiston of Status and Rote, Ih HP. Dreitiel (ed), Recent Soeolagy No. 2 (N.Y.: Macmillan.) Cleourel, A. 1870 “The Acquistion Of Sosa} Strvcture: Toward a Developments Sociology af Largusge ana Meaning." In, Douglas 1970 op. et Goourel, A 1970e “Ceo%s Medal Communication: Tre Representations! Context of ‘Socalingustic Information Processing.” Monograph Series on Language and Jt ‘eusles no. 25, 1970, Geargesown School of Language anc Linguistics Denzin, N. 1970 "Syobclie Imtersctioniso and Ethnomtethedology.” Inf Bouglax 1970 op ete Douglas, $. 1970 Undertanding Bveryday Life: Toward the Reconstruction of Social Knowledge (Chicago: Aldive) Garhinuel, H. 1967 Studies 2» Ethnomethodolagy. Hall) wlewood Cll, NI. Prentice 209210 Goffman, E1959 The Prerentation of Self in Everyday Life (Gzrden City: Doubleday) Goftian, E1961 Asim (Gasden City, N.Y. Doubleday } Goftiman, E, 1963 Suigme. (Englewood Clif, N.1-Prenticedal.) Goftinan, E. 1967 freraction Ritual (Gaiden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.) Gottman, E. 1971 Refeions in Public. (New York: Harper.) MeHiagh, P1910 “On ehe Failure of Posies.” In. Douglas 1970 op, ee Pollacr, M. 1970 Unpublished Ph.O. Dissertation. Univorsy af Colifornia, Santa Asrhara Sacks, H. 1963 “Sociolgies) Description Rerkeley Journ! Saciolagy. Sacks, Had. Minzographed lectures. University of Califa, levine Wilson, T. 1970 “Normative and fncerpredve Paradigms in Sociology.” In J. Doulas 1970, on ef ‘imvmeernan, D, and Pallaee, M. L870 “The Everyday World as» Phenomenon.” In Douglas 1970.07. cit Zimmerman, D. aré Wilson, T. 1973 “Prospects (or Experimental Studies of Meaning Structure” Paper saad at the Annual Mesting of the Americsa Socicogicel Assocs