At 09:29 AM 10/2/98 +1000, you wrote:
>>Thank you for explaining. I was following the directions of Harvey Sacks
>>and wanting to get to the detail of what being 'at risk' or' resilient'
>>means to the young people I am interested in, as Maynard (1989) did in his
>>study of plea bargaining - without glossing over the terms and assuming
>>that they have the same meaning for all parties involved.
It seems to me that ethnomethodologists and CAists like Sacks and Maynard
are not so much interested in "wanting to get to the detail of what being
'at risk' or' resilient' [or being a "hotrodder," or whatever] means" to
any population, but are rather interested in simply describing how those
labels are made sensible and accounted for through interactional practices.
Put differently, they are not interested in getting *past* glosses to the
"real details," but are rather interested in showing that and how we
continuously gloss over details in interactions while creating our sense of
social order. Of course, one might claim that their analyses of glossing
practices still enables one to get past such to the "real" details, but
Sacks in particular argued that there is no end to glossing--that all
social scientific work is unendingly, and by necessity, a process of
glossing (see Garfinkel and Sacks, 1970 and Sacks, 1963, as well as chapter
one of Pollner, 1987).
References:
Garfinkel, H., and Sacks, H. (1970). On formal structures of practical
actions. In J.C. McKinney and E.A. Tiryakian (Eds.) Theoretical sociology:
Perspectives and developments (pp. 337-366). New York, NY:
Appleton-Century-Crofts. [Reprinted in: H. Garfinkel (Ed.) (1986).
Ethnomethodological studies of work (pp. 160-193). London, UK: Routledge
and Kegan Paul.]
Pollner, M. (1987). Mundane reason: Reality in everyday and sociological
discourse. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Sacks, H. (1963). Sociological description. Berkeley Journal of Sociology,
8, 1-16.
Christian Nelson
Dr. Christian K. Nelson
Communication Department, Machmer Hall
Box 34815
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003-4815 USA
413/545-6345
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