Chapter 59: Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis

ILKKA ARMINEN

Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis Ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA) challenge the traditional perspective of the normative constitution of social action. Conventional sociological research has largely traded on the distinction between basis and superstructure. The regularities of action were to be explained vis-à-vis the dispositions and expectations the actors are subject to (Wilson 1970). Instead of seeking for the underlying normative structures, EM and CA focus on the orderliness of actions as their emergent property. They respecify the locus of social order. Both EM and CA examine the practices people are busy with in producing social actions that are regular and recognizable parts of cultural and social processes. For them, the orderliness of social actions is not to be found beneath the surface of action but in the actions and interactions ordinary members of society are involved in. Schegloff and Sacks (1973) have summarized this perspective as follows: We have ...

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