Ethnomethodology’s Program Harold Garfinkel Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. | (Mar., 1996), 5-21. Stable URL: byp:flinks jstor-org/sic sici=0190-2725%28199603%2059%3A 1 %3C9%3 ABPIE2.0,.COWIB2-W Social Peychalogy Quarterly is eurrenily published by American Sociological Association, Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at flip: feworwjtor org/aboutterms.htmal. ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in par, that unless you fave obtained pcior permission, you may not dowaload an cnt isus of @ journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe ISTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial uss. Please contact the publisher cegarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at bupsorww.jstoc.org/joumals/asa. hl. 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. hup:shvww jstor.orgy “Thu Mar 18 08:53:36 2004Social Pechoingy Queer» 1896, Val 39'No- 1, 5-21 Ethnomethodology’s Program* HAROLD GARFINKEL niversy af California, Las Angelee ETHNOMETHODOLOGY'S PROGRAM 1.1 What Is Edomethadotogy? Echnomethodology gets reintroduced to me jn a recurrent episode at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association. 'm waiting. for the elevator. The doors open hy Hi Hall” “Hi. To walk in. THE QUESTION is asked: “Hey, Hal, what IS ethnomethadology?” The elevator doors close, We're on our Way 10 the ninth floor. Tm only able to say, “Ethnomethodology is ‘working oat same very prepasteraus prob- lenis." The elevator doors open. ‘On the way to my room it occurs to me that I should have said that ethnomethodology is respecifying, Durkheim's lived immortal, or dinary society, evidently, doing so by work: ing out a schedule of prepasteraus problems, ‘The problems have their sources in the worldwide social science movernent, They are mativaied by that movement's ubiquitcus ‘commitments £0 the policies and methods of formal analysis and general representational theorizing snd by its unquestionable achieve- ments, Formal Analytic (FA) technology and results are understood worldwide, Almost Acbnrwledgemnens: There ce many peogle whose onthbuton Io ths work rece Whe sete, wk least tease miny studens and collegues hase it~ amethodological suas have provided the caalogue of irvestgwtioes, discussed fete, wthout which the oil promise of “Studles” would have remaited unfliled, Exroomethodciogy Is flee al snd oacesaity, a1 Unelicvedsy empires ecesprse. T tnk aso Deus Maynard an Lucy Sucka fete steel rend and Toe thie generosity wath tie Une and tee are von laoatedge a stop Lam deply in deta Anze Reuis. Years ago she wes brie ey stdect Now shes nny teacher, efeered colesgue, and rare fend. She Susained cus dicussions dough de wating abd took Une tie te eae edi this manuscript fr publication Because oF many people who heve taken up ah iret in ehaometnaelogy i imposite that one dexrion Wil encormps he vas ay suces going BY tht ace. However, L hope that here is foe it this {isoteson for those staces which ke temperance of ‘wipssible reument paenament! Gels of deta se tay ane primary ste, in hatever aber tapes Se may dite 5 unanimously forthe armies of social analysts, in endless. analytic arts and sciences. of practical action, formal snalytic procedures, ‘ssie good work end are accorded the status ‘of good work. FA’s achievements are. well known and pointless to dispute. FA technol- oy exercises universsl jurisdiction in target ing phenomena for analysis. Phenomena of order are made instructably observable in formal analytic details of concertedly reew- rent achievements of practical action. These range from the conduct of war to the transient ppause before an invation is refused. Phe rromena made insiructably observable in formal analytic details of concertedly recur- rent achievements of practical actions are so provided for by FA that a phenomenon, ‘whatever the phenoienon and whatever its scale, is made instructably observable as the work of @ population that staffs its produc- tion. Populations are usually treated as stcaightforward counts of bodies. The pro posal hore is instead tha i the workings af the phenomenon that exhibit among its other Geicls che population thar stafis it! This population is exhibited in surveyable particuc lars of body counts and dimensionslized demographics. These ate clucidated with variable analysis, quanied arguments, and causal structures, Such analytic descriptions see available in all administered. societies, contemporary and historical ‘That these achievements are unquestion- able is assured by being subordinated to FA's premier achievement, the corpus status af its bibliographies. By corpus T mean (1) sts investigations, always accompanied by tex tual azcounts tet describe, specify, make instructably observable, sstisty, and are exhibits of adequate gromés of further NIU te workings ofthe Wffc hat wake ite stat? svalable as “eget” ceiver, "bad ders, “ele i” “rivers a anything ele the demographers ned to have te tdniniter& eaisal scount af he devng. Encoge tows populations area tepic of recurigg etmoratiog ‘logical intrest. "You don't sit with taies. The Conversions Aalyte of talk provides sacter exar lest stare ih canvetetion otic exh =peakers Seppe recuing, song enn in hese wa, aE6 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY inference and action. (2) These are adequa- cies of sr invesiacions origins and problem Specification, and of the problem's essential history, descriptive coverage, facicity, rele- vance, and, a8 contingencies in au actual occasion of inquiry may have reqined, any of the rest. 3) The adequecies ace insteuctably reproducible. (4) The foregoing are satisfied in actual worksite achievements. (5) invest gations at all levels of findings. in. these respects can be taken oft these grounds Seriously t define a current sitvation of inguiry Etinomethocology (EM) is proposing atd working out "What More” these is 10 the tingaestionable corpus status of formal ana- lytic investigations then formal analysis docs, did, ever did, or can provide, EM does not dispute those achievements. Without disput- ing. thase achievements as_ unquestionably ddemonsirable achievements? EM asks "What More’ is there that users of formal analysis know and demand the existence of, that FA depends upon the existence of for FA's ‘worksite specific achievements in careflly instructee procedures, that FA. uses. and recognizes everywhere ip and as its lived worksiteespecitie pretces. “There are practices that FA. pracioners justin any actual case know and recognize are timavoidable, without cemedy or altematves “The practices are indispensable to practtion- ers. Just asin any acta case the practices aie clam read at icy ot wil be read incomes, To tead Without tony eel he sen 0 Taneion's hinceron, Te iat mi and Ns gli, ‘Daisy, ate docking out ito the sez below filled et shingoeries, Day etclaims, “Ot look, thee dane lage” The ast san = Yeu cal, sar sancing!™ Davy ‘That's he way they dace.” ‘Shay no dinespect is invelved for PA's demand hart jvetigaons Be wordy work of fining out ane specifying seas exe, este; tea end, aot cocks. ‘vane real der. Real ceder is FA's aehiverent Sth quesin. EMF sno ciaring ta Baw ener. But either fe EM propesing to insite ard cary oot EM lavestigations of oedinary society wlvle being io the tise of cegamzztonsl shige and hese keowing reting. Rater, wel poeses without having 2 decide (reve 10h how to prcord whe knowing nohing. Testes, by bepironrg], #9 leaving on), by (edgar ‘ewciags gain, By forstesag ar inesigation) we Tena omselves inthe mice of ihnge. rocetartly we Xow soratbieg, We've noe agnosie. EM's commie ‘meats re the sate a thoes of PA i weldwide analy Sagi af pacha! action and pescesl easen 1a the midst of ending tres well study dhe otk as of Sk imental ceicay society ears. Wel ee specify practitioners’ work and make it insiructably observable. “What More” has centrally (and perhaps entirely} to do with procedures. I have given procedural EM’s emphasis on work. BY procedural, EM does not mean process Procedural means Isbor. ‘That emphasis is exeryplified in the probative descriptions by David Sudnow. “At the worksite— playing hearably improvised jaze at the piano key- board; typing watchably thoughtful words at the typewriter keyboards enactedly solving the problem, at the computer console, of getting 3 high scote in "Breakout," the video game — progressively and developingly coming upon the phenomenon via the work in and as of the tinmedinted details of procucing it (Sudnow, 1978, 1979, 1983, 1996) ‘The central obsession in edhnomethodolog- ical stadies isto provide for what the alterie procedural descriptions of achieved and achievable phenomena of order—methodolo- ies—could he without secrificing issues of siructure. That means without sacrificing the reat achievements —of describable recogniz- able recurtencies, of generality, and of comparability of these productions of ordi- nary activities —aetivties that carry with them the recognizable achievements of populations that staff theic production, along with the interchangesbility and surveyability of those populations. This is not an indifference co structure, This is a concer with structure. as an achieved phenomenon of order EM is concerned with “What More,” in the work! of familia, ordinary activities, does immortal, oxdinary society consist of 26 the locus ard the setting of every topic of order, ‘every topic of logic, of meaning, of method respecified and tespecifigble as the most ‘ordinary Durkheimian things jo the world, Ethnomeihodology's fundamental phenom- ‘enon and its standing technical preaccupation in its studies isto find, collect, specify, and make instuctably observable the local endog- enous production and natural accountability of immortal familiar society's most ordinary ‘organizational things in the world, and 10 provide for them bork and simuitaneousty as objects and proceduralty, as alternate meth- adotogies. “The identity of objects and methodologies is key. These methodologies are incarnate in familiax society. Therein they are uniquely adequate to the phenomena whose production they describe substantively, in material de-