| Ethnomethodology is a sociological theory
developed by Harold Garfinkel and building on the influence of phenomenologists such as
Edmund Husserl and Alfred Schutz and more recent linguistic philosophers. Roughly
translated the term 'Ethnomethodology' means the study of people's practices or methods.
There are three central strands to ethnomethodology: mundane reason analysis,
membership categorization and conversational (or sequential) analysis. This is a
micro-perspective and it does not see the social world as an objective reality but as
something that people must build and rebuild constantly in their thoughts and actions.
Rather than treating ordinary members of society as ‘cultural dopes’, driven
by society, it tries to uncover the methods and practices that are used by people as they
create the taken-for-granted-world. |