Harold Garfinkel, sociologist, born October 29, 1917. He was Distinguished Professor of Sociology at UCLA from 1954 until his retirement in 1987. In the 1950s, he coined the term ethnomethodology.
The ethnomethodology of G. Garfinkel is studied in such areas as social anthropology, communication and informatics, pedagogy, science and technology. It has become common to call him the founding father of ethnomethodology.
The essence of the concept
In the social sciences, methodology usually refers to the systematic ways of collecting and analyzing data, but following Garfinkel, ethnomethodologists have identified it with a wide range of common abilities such as participating in conversational exchanges, navigating traffic situations, and recognizing what is going on. in specific social conditions. The idea was that the totality of such practices accumulates en masse among the things and people that we call society, even if the participants in certain practices do not aspire to anything other than immediatecircumstances.
Scientific work
Garfinkel's major work, Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967), challenges top-down theories that suggest that society is built around relatively limited sets of rules and overarching values. He presented an alternative "bottom-up" picture of society, constructed from countless instances of impromptu behavior adapted to specific situations. Although many scholars did not accept his vision, social theorists and philosophers such as Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu and Jürgen Habermas found it necessary to address this theoretical problem.
Ethnomethodologists have shown that the formal methods and procedures that take place in courtrooms, science labs, and workplaces are reinforced by everyday understanding, argumentative practice, and acquired skills. Garfinkel challenged the idea that sociological methods are based on a special scientific rationality that is independent of the irrational and subjective basis of ordinary social behavior. Some were concerned that Garfinkel's vision destroyed the very idea of an objective science of society; others tried to agree on how to study society as a created product of collective activity.
Biography
Harold Garfinkel grew up in Newark, New Jersey, where his father, Abraham, ran a small business. Harold studied accountingat Newark College, but developed an interest in sociology. In 1942, he received a master's degree in sociology from the University of North Carolina. His early publications, based on a master's thesis on race relations in the American South, demonstrated a keen understanding and ability to speak fluently in plain English. His first publication, Color Trouble, was a quasi-fictional account of a conflict that arose when an African-American woman refused to sit in the back of a bus as the car crossed the Mason-Dixon line on the road from New York to North Carolina. It was included in the collection of the best stories of 1941.
After serving in World War II, he began his doctoral studies with Talcott Parsons at Harvard. Following the example of the latter, Harold took up theoretical developments. His writings became tortuous and difficult to understand for both the uninitiated and many insiders.
T. Parsons and his students sought to reinvent sociology. To do this, they formulated a comprehensive theory of social structure and social action. Garfinkel shared these ambitions, but ended up taking a very different path.
Key Ideas
He sought to explore the supposed existence of social order through a series of unique studies that disrupted normal procedures in households and public places. Even seemingly mild hiccups, such as playing the polite stranger at his own family's dinner table, elicited explosive reactions fromindignation. This demonstrated the moral responsibility inherent in even the most mundane of routine activities. Contrary to the prevailing attempts by social theorists to derive individual actions from postulated social structures, Garfinkel delved into the minutiae of everyday life. He did not seek to reduce actions to psychological or neurological causes; instead, he tried to carry out communicative actions down to their fundamental details.
Scientist personality
Harold Garfinkel was a wonderful man and a changeable personality. In conversations, he used startlingly original arguments, unique examples, and amazing phrases. During seminars and lessons, he pondered questions, presenting them visually, almost theatrically, pausing for an exorbitant amount of time while the newcomers waited for his words. Often he broke the silence with cryptic statements and anecdotes. His writings and published lectures were imbued with a deep understanding of irony and the absurd.
Harold Garfinkel died at the age of 93 in 2011. He was slightly survived by his wife Arlene, to whom he was married for 65 years. The couple left children - Leah and Mark.
Selected publications
The bulk of Harold Garfinkel's original writings were presented as scientific papers and technical reports, most of which have since been reprinted as book chapters.
However, in order to appreciate the consistent development of the scientist's thought, it is important to understand when these works were written. For example, The Sociological Vision, which was published relatively recently, was actually written when Harold Garfinkel was a graduate student. This is an annotated version of a draft dissertation written two years after arriving at Harvard.
Sociological Information Theory was written when he was a student. It was based on a 1952 report prepared with the Organizational Behavior Project at Princeton. Some of the early works on ethnomethodology have been republished since. This volume is considered a classic for those working in the field. Harold Garfinkel later edited an anthology showing examples of early ethnomethodologically sound research. A selection of his later writings has been republished as an ethnomethodology program. This collection, together with the studies, represents the definitive exposition of the ethnomethodological approach.
