Sociology, Ethnomethodology and Experience


Book Description

In this volume, first published in 1983, Professor Rogers examines the usefulness of a phenomenological approach to sociology. Her broad purpose is to demonstrate the theoretical and methodological advantages phenomenological sociology holds. Thus she offers a selective, introductory exposition of phenomenology, highlighting its relevance for social scientists and undercutting the notion of phenomenology as a non-scientific, subjective, or esoteric method of study.







More Studies in Ethnomethodology


Book Description

Phenomenological analyses of the orderliness of naturally occurring collaboration.




Harold Garfinkel


Book Description

This book is a concise intellectual biography of Harold Garfinkel, a key figure in 20th-century social science. Garfinkel is practically synonymous with ethnomethodology, an approach that since the 1960s has led to major analytic and methodological developments in sociology and other disciplines. This introduction to Garfinkel explores how he developed ethnomethodology under the influence of Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schutz, situates it within sociology generally, and demonstrates its important influence on recent developments in the discipline, particularly the sociology of science and technology, gender studies, organization studies, and the computer sciences. The book will be of wide interest in the social sciences and a useful supplement to courses on intellectual history and methodology.




The Ethnomethodologists (Routledge Revivals)


Book Description

Originally published in 1986, this work examines how key figures such as Garfinkel, Sacks and Cicourel have revolutionised thinking about how sociology's presuppositions about 'being social' are grounded. Yet until the appearance of this book there were no clear and authoritative introductions to the main thinkers in the field or their work. In assessing the critical reception of Ethnomethodology, Sharrock and Anderson argue persuasively that much is wide of the mark - as they say, the real argument has yet to begin.




Interaction and Everyday Life


Book Description

Through a wide-ranging international collection of papers, this volume provides theoretical and historical insights into the development and application of phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology and offers detailed examples of research into social phenomena from these standpoints. All the articles in this volume join together to testify to the enormous efficacy and potential of both phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology.




Seeing Sociologically


Book Description

This book-never before published-is eminent sociologist Harold Garfinkel's earliest attempt, while at Harvard in 1948, to bridge the growing gap in American sociology. This gap was generated by a Parsonian paradigm that emphasised a scientific approach to sociological description, one that increasingly distanced itself from social phenomena in the increasingly influential ways studied by phenomenologists. It was Garfinkel's idea that phenomenological description, rendered in more empirical and interactive terms, might remedy shortcomings in the reigning Parsonian view. Garfinkel soon gave up the attempt to repair scientific description, and his focus became increasingly empirical until, in 1954, he famously coined the term "Ethnomethodology." However, in this early manuscript can be seen more clearly than in some of his later work the struggle with a conceptual and positivist rendering of social relations that ultimately informed Garfinkel's position. Here we find the sources of his turn toward ethnomethodology, which would influence subsequent generations of sociologists. Essential reading for all social theory scholars and graduate students and for a wider range of social scientists in anthropology, ethnomethodology, and other fields.




Phenomenological Sociology


Book Description

Contemporary society constitutes a different form of modernity and Ferguson′s innovative and thoughtful analysis calling for a return to phenomenology demonstrates that a relatively neglected perspective within contemporary sociological thought continues to provide significant insights into modern experiences′ - Barry Smart, Portsmouth University This may very well be the most thorough and authoritative analysis of phenomenological sociology ever achieved." - W.P. Nye , Hollins University What is phenomenological sociology? Why is it significant? This innovative and thought-provoking book argues that phenomenology was the most significant, wide-ranging and influential philosophy to emerge in the twentieth century. The social character of phenomenology is explored in its relation to the concern in twentieth century sociology with questions of modern experience. Phenomenology and sociology come together as ′ethnographies of the present′. As such, they break free of the self-imposed limitations of each to establish a new, critical understanding of contemporary life. By reading phenomenology sociologically and sociology phenomenologically, this book reconstructs a phenomenological sociology of modern experience. Erudite and assured, this book opens up a series of new questions for contemporary social theory that theorists and students of theory can ill-afford to ignore. The text contains a treasure trove of insights and propositions that will stimulate debate and research in both sociology and philosophy.







More Studies in Ethnomethodology


Book Description

Winner of the 2015 Distinguished Book Award presented by the Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis Section of the American Sociological Association Winner of the 2015 Distinguished Book Award presented by the Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis Section of the American Sociological Association Pioneered by Harold Garfinkel in the 1950s and '60s, ethnomethodology is a sociological approach rooted in phenomenology that is concerned with investigating the unspoken rules according to which people understand and create order in unstructured situations. Based on more than thirty years of teaching ethnomethodology, Kenneth Liberman—himself a student of Garfinkel's—provides an up-to-date introduction through a series of classroom-based studies. Each chapter focuses on a routine experience in which people collaborate to make sense of and coordinate an unscripted activity: organizing the coherence of the rules of a game, describing the objective taste of a cup of gourmet coffee, making sense of intercultural conversation, reading a vague map, and finding order amidst chaotic traffic flow. Detailed descriptions of the kinds of ironies that naturally arise in these and other ordinary affairs breathe new life into phenomenological theorizing and sociological understanding.