FrançaisConference : The ambivalent relationships between European and American social sciences
The ambiguous relationship between ethnomethodology and mainstream sociology in North and South America
Author/s : Aaron V. Cicourel
The area of inquiry known as 'ethnomethodology' should not be confused with a method often linked to it and called 'conversation analysis' or CA. The first has it roots in European philosophy, especially phenomenology, as in the work of Edmund Husserl, Aflred Schütz, and Aron Gurwitsch. Harold Garfinkel relied heaving on these three authors (and others, for example Felix Kaufmann, Karl Mannheim, Maurice Merleau-Ponty). In coining the term 'ethnomethodology,' he applied and sometimes extended key concepts developed by Husserl, Schütz, Gurwitsch and Mannheim. The method known as 'CA' has its roots in work by John Austin, Dwight Bollinger, Noam Chomsky, Frieda Goldman-Eisler, and H. Paul Grice, among others, and was developed within sociology by Harvey Sacks. Whereas ethnomethodology has had a somewhat mixed reception yet recognized as a contribution to sociology, CA as a method is seldom referenced or used by mainstream sociologists, but enjoys recognition and use by some linguists, applied linguists, linguistic anthropologists, sociolinguists, a few psycholinguists, and some researchers working in departments of communication. When viewed as social movements, ethnomethodology and CA provide us with insights about how academic disciplines in the social sciences resist and accept new theoretical and methodological developments. The paper first provides a brief discussion of initial North American resistance, then grudging, partial acceptance of ethnomethodology. CA, in my view, remains marginal to mainstream sociology but has been integrated into systematic studies of casual and institutional discourse. The South American situation is less clear, but some evidence is available.
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