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ETHNOMETHODOLOGY
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 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. See: CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS / MUNDANE REASONING / .

Last updated 2002--0-9-


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Athabaca University ICAAP

© Robert Drislane, Ph.D. and Gary Parkinson, Ph.D.
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