Ethnomethodology

Wes Sharrock has spent his entire career since 1965 in sociology until his retirement in 2017 at the University of Manchester. His main interests have been in the philosophy of social science and in ethnomethodology, and he has published widely on issues of sociological principle and empirical research in these areas. Wes has explored two central themes-the relevance of fieldwork and an understanding of ordinary language for an understanding of social practice and the respecification of social theory-pursuing them across a huge variety of settings, from ordinary scenes of everyday social life through to complex domains of practical action and reasoning in various academic and industrial work situations. An ethnomethodologist of international reputation, alongside his other contributions, Wes coedited with Mike Lynch the four-volume 2003 Sage collection Harold Garfinkel.

Section 1: Background on Social Scientific and Everyday Methods The Definitions of Sociology and of Social Action - M. Weber Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive - C.W. Mills The Problem of Rationality in the Social World - A. Schutz Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Sciences - A. Schutz The Rational Properties of Scientific and Common Sense Activities - H. Garfinkel Studies in the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities - H. Garfinkel Practical Sociological Reasoning: Doing accounts in 'common sense situations of choice' - H. Garfinkel Introduction - Harvey Sacks Section 2: Ethnomethodology and the Practical Resolution of Methodological Problems How to Determine Social Causes and Social Types - E. Durkheim, E On the Interpretation of Weltanschauung - K. Mannheim A Note on the Uses of Official Statistics - J. I. Kitsuse and A. V. Cicourel The Sociological Analysis of the Social Meanings of Suicide - Jack D. Douglas The Search for Help: No one to turn to - H. Sacks On the Sociology of Suicide - J. Maxwell Atkinson Common Sense Knowledge of Social Structures: The documentary method of lay/professional fact finding - H. Garfinkel Police Discretion in Emergency Apprehension of Mentally Ill Persons - E. Bittner The Occurrence and Visibility of Deaths - D. Sudnow Record Keeping and the Intake Process in a Public Welfare Agency - D.H. Zimmerman Record-Keeping Practices in the Policing of Juveniles - A.J. Meehan Section 3: Indexical Expressions - Topic, Resource or Nuisance? Indexical Expressions - Y. Bar Hillel On Formal Structures of Practical Actions - H. Garfinkel and H. Sacks Explicative Transactions: Making and managing meaning in traffic court - M. Pollner On meaning by Rule - D.L. Wieder Notes on Methodology - H. Sacks On Some Questions and Ambiguities in Conversation - E.A. Schegloff Whose terms? Whose ordinariness? Rhetoric and Ideology in Conversation Analysis - M. Billig "Schegloff's Texts" as Billig's Data: A critical reply - E. Schegloff Scientific and "Radical" Ethnomethodology from Incompatible Paradigms to Ethnomethodological Sociology - I. Arminen The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Conversation Analysis - M. Lynch Where the Simplest Systematics Fits - W. Sharrock Response to Wes Sharrock - M. Lynch, M Section 4: Objectification in Discourse On Proverbs - H. Sacks Issues in the Transcription of Naturally-Occurring Talk: Caricature versus capturing pronunciational particulars - G. Jefferson Features of Signs Encountered in Designing a Notational System for Transcribing Lectures - C. Pack Textually Mediated Social Organization - D.E. Smith Ethnomethodology and Literature: Preliminaries to a sociology of reading - A.W. McHoul Taking Account of the Hostile Native: Plausible deniability and the production of conventional history in the Iran-contra Hearings - D. Bogen and M. Lynch The interweaving of Talk and Text in a French Criminal Pre-Trial Hearing - E. Gonzalez-Martinez Section 5: Language, Categories and Membership On the Analyzability of Stories by Children - H. Sacks A Tutorial on Membership Categorization - E.A. Schegloff Discussion Note: Reading 'A tutorial on membership categorization' - A. Carlin Studying the Organization of Action: Membership categorization and interaction analysis - G. Psathas Membership Categorization Analysis: An introduction - S. Hester and P. Eglin Human Practices and the Observability of the "Macro-Social" - J. Coulter Categorization, Authorization and Blame Negotiation in Conversation - D.R. Watson Section 6: Studies of Work Evidence for Locally Produced, Naturally Accountable Phenomena of Order, Logic, Reason, Meaning, Method, etc. in and as of the Essential Quiddity of Immortal Ordinary Society (I of IV): An announcement of studies - H. Garfinkel 'Preface' and 'Beginnings' to Ways of the Hand - D. Sudnow Ethnomethodological Policies and Methods - Harold Garfinkel Toward an Investigation of Primitive Epistopics - M. Lynch The Work of a Discovering Science Construed with Materials from the Optically Discovered Pulsar - H. Garfinkel, M. Lynch and E. Livingston The Work of a (Scientific) Demonstration: Respecifying Newton's and Goethe's theories of prismatic color - D. Bjelic and M. Lynch The Context of Proving - E. Livingston Demonstrating ''Reasonable Fear'' at Trial: Is it science or junk science? - S. Burns Section 7: Action as Algorithm - Computer Supported Cooperative Work Artificial Intelligence as Craftwork - L.A. Suchman and R. Trigg Sociologists Can be Surprisingly Useful in Interactive Systems Design - I. Sommerville, T. Rodden, P. Sawyer and R. Bentley Representations and Requirements: The value of ethnography in system design - R.J. Anderson 'Technomethodology': Foundational relations between ethnomethodology and system design - G. Button and P. Dourish Designing with Ethnography: A presentation framework for design - J.A. Hughes, J. O'Brien, T. Rodden, M. Rouncefield and S. Blythin Design in the Absence of Practice: Breaching experiments - A. Crabtree Ethnography Considered Harmful - A. Crabtree, T. Rodden, P. Tolmie and G. Button Section 8: Ethnomethodology and Social Institutions Against Our Will: Male interruptions of females in cross-sex conversation - C. West Between Micro and Macro: Contexts and other connections - E.A. Schegloff What Time is it, Denise?: Some observations on the organization and consequences of asking known information questions in classroom discourse - H. Mehan The Discovery of Situated Worlds: Analytic commitments, or moral orders? - D. Macbeth Instructional Matter: Readable properties of an introductory text in matrix algebra - W. Sharrock and N. Ikeya Conversation Analysis: A method for research into interactions between health care professionals and patients - P. Drew, J. Chatwin and S. Collins Problems and Prospects in the Study of Physician-Patient Interaction - J. Heritage and D. Maynard Communication Problems in the Intensive Care Unit - A.B. Robillard Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis and the Study of Courtroom Behavior - A.M. Pomerantz and J.M. Atkinson The Social Construction of Unreality: A case study of a family's attribution of competence to a severely retarded child - Melvin Pollner and L. McDonald-Wikler On Understanding Without Words: Communication between a deaf-blind child and her parents - D.A. Goode The Veil of Objectivity: Prophecy, divination, and social inquiry - B. Jules-Rosette On the Demise of the Native: Some observations and a proposal for ethnography - W.W. Sharrock and R.J. Anderson Sociologists on trial: theoretical competition and juror reasoning. The American Sociologist 32: 42-69. - M. Peyrot and S. Burns Section 9: Language, Interaction, Embodied Conduct Restarts, Pauses, and the Achievement of a State of Mutual Gaze at Turn-Beginning - C. Goodwin How to do Things with Things - J. Streek What to Learn: The embodied structure of the environment - A. Nishizaka Glances, Trances, and Their Relevance for a Visual Sociology - D. Macbeth The Analysis of Activities in Face to Face Interaction Using Video - C.C. Heath Video Recording Practices and the Reflexive Constitution of the Interactional Order: Some systematic uses of the split-screen technique - L. Mondada