Approaches to the study of the world of everyday life
Human Studies 3 (1):3 - 17 (1980)
Abstract
I have only begun to sketch out some of the differences between the work of Harold Garfinkel and Alfred Schutz. As the work of ethnomethodology accumulates and as other commentators begin to explore their similarities and differences, a clearer picture will, I am certain, emerge. For now, I shall only conclude with the following brief summary.As Natanson (1966, p. 152) has noted, “for Schutz, mundane existence is structured by the typifications of man in the natural standpoint. Common sense is then an achievement rather than something simply given.” The main issues with which Schutz was concerned were how to investigate social reality and comprehend it (Natanson, 1966): …in terms which do not violate its character. How is warranted knowledge possible of the experiential world defined by the natural standpoint? The answer Schutz offers is by way of a reconstruction of the typifications of mundane life, but the underlying theme he is exploring is the intentional nature of consciousness in its abstractive and ideational modalities. Typification as such, rather than types and constructs, is the underlying concern. By tracing out the phenomenological genesis of typification from its prepredicative grounds to its self-conscious activity in generalization, he has provided an approach to an epistemology of the social world. [p. 154]Garfinkel, on the other hand, seeks to trace out the genesis of the perception, interpretation, and accomplishment of social occasions and their settings by members of society as they live and operate within the natural attitude in the world of everyday life. Their activities are taken without question as whatever social reality is for them. The processes whereby they accomplish these activities so as to make them recognizable become his main concern and it is the discovery and reconstruction of these processes, under the ethnomethodological reduction, of which his findings consist. By describing the methods used by members, he provides an approach to the methodology of the social world, that is, an ethno or members' methodology, for the construction, interpretation, and recognition of the social worldMy notes
Similar books and articles
The Phenomenology of Everyday Life: Empirical Investigations of Human Experience.Howard R. Pollio - 1997 - Cambridge University Press.
Ethnography, institutions, and the problematic of the everyday world.Peter R. Grahame - 1998 - Human Studies 21 (4):347-360.
The symbol and the theory of the life-world: “The transcendences of the life-world and their overcoming by signs and symbols”.Jochen Dreher - 2003 - Human Studies 26 (2):141-163.
Understanding Everyday Life: Toward the Reconstruction of Sociological Knowledge.Jack D. Douglas - 1970 - London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Analytics
Added to PP
2009-01-28
Downloads
34 (#346,015)
6 months
1 (#452,962)
2009-01-28
Downloads
34 (#346,015)
6 months
1 (#452,962)
Historical graph of downloads
Citations of this work
Being together, worlds apart: a virtual-worldly phenomenology.Rebecca A. Hardesty & Ben Sheredos - 2019 - Human Studies (3):1-28.
Alfred Schutz's influence on american sociologists and sociology.George Psathas - 2004 - Human Studies 27 (1):1-35.
The Mundane Dialectic of Enlightenment: Typification as Everyday Identity Thinking.Ryan Gunderson - 2020 - Human Studies 43 (4):521-543.
Understanding ethnomethodology: A remedy for some common misconceptions. [REVIEW]Mark Peyrot - 1982 - Human Studies 5 (1):261 - 283.
The social construction of equality in everyday life.Scott R. Harris - 2000 - Human Studies 23 (4):371-393.
References found in this work
Ethnomethodology as a phenomenological approach in the social sciences.George Psathas - 1977 - In Don Ihde & Richard M. Zaner (eds.), Interdisciplinary Phenomenology. M. Nijhoff.
The phenomenology of Alfred Schutz.Maurice Natanson - 1966 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 9 (1-4):147 – 155.