Sacks and Garfinkel: On Ethnomethodology and Sociological Inquiry

 Abstract:

This talk draws on materials from Harvey Sacks’ archive held at UCLA and particularly a transcribed recording of a seminar discussion in 1962 between Sacks and Harold Garfinkel where they discuss the principles and focus of description in Ethnomethodology. This recording provides an insight into the early work of Garfinkel and Sacks as they formulated the principles of EM inquiry. The discussion comes before Sacks’ first publication (Sacks 1963) and their only co-authored paper (Garfinkel and Sacks 1970). The discussion reveals distinct differences in the ways Garfinkel and Sacks approached the focus of EM inquiry, which would take them on different research trajectories. While Garfinkel’s interest was for Ethnomethodology to replace Sociology as a discipline, as an ‘alternate Sociology’, Sacks’ interest was in capturing people doing sociological reasoning wherever this occurred. It is clear that Sacks interest in members sociological reasoning underpins his subsequent lectures and while laying the groundwork for the early development of Conversation Analysis the discussion will highlight how this continues to inform studies of Membership Categorisation Analysis.

Speaker:

Professor Richard Fitzgerald, Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (IAS), University of Macau.