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Re: [xmca] Ethnomethodology
Oh goodie - a Michael Roth book on dialogism. Do let us know when it's out.
Colin Barker
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>>> Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca> 03/14/09 6:21 PM >>>
Fits nicely with what Bakhtin wrote:
When dialogue ends, everything ends. Thus dialogue, by its very
essence, cannot and must not come to an end.[1]
[1]. Bakhtin, op. cit note 8, 252.
I am ending my book "Dialogism", soon to come out, with this quote
Cheers,
Michael
On 14-Mar-09, at 10:14 AM, Ed Wall wrote:
Nicely put. Perhaps a not so final, final word by Gadamer (the last
sentence in Truth and Method) would be useful:
"But I will stop here. The ongoing dialogue permits no final
conclusion. It would be a poor hermeneutist who thought he could
have, or had to have, the last word."
Ed Wall
On Mar 14, 2009, at 12:08 PM, Jay Lemke wrote:
> Backing up a bit in this thread, to the connection with coding and
> categorization, I just wanted to say that Martin's description
> below is indeed one way that some researchers do a kind of
> 'grounded theory' analysis, reducing the primary data to
> categories, relations among categories, frequencies of items in the
> categories, etc. I certainly try to steer research students away
> from such an approach, and I don't think that the grounded theory
> tradition originally envisioned this. It was more hermeneutic, as
> one can see preserved a bit in the German-developed qual analysis
> software Atlas.ti . As such this style of qual analysis seeks an on-
> going refinement of categories by a back-and-forth, perhaps even a
> dialectic, with the primary data. So it is a procedure to
> facilitate this cycling, from interpretation of data in its own
> terms (a bit more EM), through interpretation in relation to the
> categories-so-far, to revision of the category system, to re-
> interpretation in relation to the new category system, rubbing up
> against the original text data, etc. etc.
>
> I think that in some ways this hermeneutic helps to bridge between
> EM and FA, without becoming quite so embroiled in the politics of
> who-trumps-whom. Michael Roth, and some of the California EM people
> have argued by asymmetry for EM to be in a way "meta" to FA. And
> there is an interesting truth in that, which I find most
> congenially in Latour's version, though it is common to most so-
> called "practice theories": that the primary work of making meaning
> through action (including discourse and representational/
> mediational practices) in some sense underlies the construction and
> use of all abstracted categories in FA. But despite the sometimes
> painful contortions of language that EM forces itself to, you just
> can't do the work of meaning making without already having and
> using a lot of higher-order categorical or category-like
> abstractions. Semiosis is based on linking or contextualizing,
> putting A in relation to B (by way of C, pace Peirce) and it jumps
> or slides along the cline from concrete to abstract and back again
> as we make meaning.
>
> I am happy to agree that the analysis of practice ought to always
> be part of the More whenever any FA is done, and to criticize when
> that does not happen, and especially when its absence leads to
> uncritical reifications or missed alternative interpretations and
> insights. But I don't think the metaphors that describe FA as built
> on the foundations of EM or practices, or as being a meta-analytic
> methodology that subsumes all possible FAs, are quite so helpful.
> What we have here is not unlike the old debates about macro-social
> forces or structures vs. micro-social practices and actions. EM
> takes the high ground when it argues about "methodology", because
> clearly all doing-science is also just plain > poses to some extent, heartily denied all round, as a theory of
> social action and meaningful social doings. Theories are not just
> descriptions or explanations, they are also paradigms of what
> matters and how to make sense of them. Theories and methodologies
> are as entwined as ends and means; they come in pairs, inseparable
> and pretty much meaningless if disconnected -- or perhaps I should
> say they mean different things when differently paired. If you've
> ever taught a course on pure method, you probably know this. We may
> call it the same method, but it does not work the same way or mean
> the same thing outside of some paradigm-connection to a theory.
>
> So, no master theories, and no master methods. A hermeneutic spiral
> staircase of mutually supporting and mutually subverting category-
> mediated and practice-focused modes of analysis. I think. For now. ;-)
>
> JAY.
>
>
>
>
> Jay Lemke
> Professor
> Educational Studies
> University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
>
>
>
>
> On Mar 10, 2009, at 6:19 PM, Martin Packer wrote:
>
>> Ed,
>>
>> When you say coding in CA, are you refering to the identification
>> of an
>> utterance as, for example, the first part of a two-part pair? I
>> don't view
>> this as coding, but rather as a step in an ongoing articulation of
>> the
>> organization of the conversation, in which component parts will be
>> identified in sequential and material context, always subject to
>> revision as
>> more of the conversation is considered. I think of coding, as for
>> instance
>> in grounded theory, as a practice of abstraction and
>> generalization in which
>> the codes replace the original data with abstract categories which
>> are then
>> compared to produce more abstract features and kinds. In this kind of
>> approach the researcher writes notes or memos not about the data
>> but about
>> the categories. The data becomes merely an 'illustration' of the
>> categories,
>> and the end result is a 'theory' that takes the form of stated
>> regularities
>> among categories. The data, in all its richness and complexity, is
>> left far
>> behind. CA is a very different approach.
>>
>> Thanks for pointing to the Livingston book. I too find
>> Ethnomethodology's
>> Program very useful, both the book and the 1996 article with the
>> same name.
>> Anne Rawls (she is the daughter of John Rawls) is writing some very
>> interesting pieces of EM, linking it to a fresh interpretation of
>> Durkheim's
>> sociological project and his objections to Kant. Some references:
>>
>> Garfinkel, H. (1996). Ethnomethodology's program. Social Psychology
>> Quarterly, 59(1), 5-21.
>> Rawls, A. W. (1996). Durkheim's epistemology: The neglected
>> argument. The
>> American Journal of Sociology, 102(2), 430-482.
>> Rawls, A. W. (1998). Durkheim's challenge to philosophy: Human reason
>> explained as a product of enacted social practice. The American
>> Journal of
>> Sociology, 104(3), 887-901.
>> Rawls, A. W. (2006). Respecifying the study of social order:
>> Garfinkel's
>> transition from theoretical conceptualization to practices in
>> detail. In H.
>> Garfinkel & A. W. Rawls (Eds.), Seeing sociologically: The routine
>> grounds
>> of social action (pp. 1-98): Paradigm Publishers.
>>
>> Martin
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 3/8/09 8:29 PM, "Ed Wall" <ewall@umich.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Martin
>>>
>>> There is a somewhat hard to find book by Eric Livingston:
>>> Making Sense Of Ethnomethodology you might want to add to your
>>> reading
>>> list (if you already haven't) and for my purposes, teaching a
>>> class or
>>> so in Education, pieces of Ethnomethodology's Program (by Garfinkel
>>> and edited by Rawls) has been useful. As far as coding goes, if one
>>> does Conversational Analysis, then there is some 'coding.'
>>>
>>> Ed Wall
>>>
>>> On Mar 8, 2009, at 8:01 PM, Martin Packer wrote:
>>>
>>>> David,
>>>>
>>>> C>>>> ignores or denies, importantly, the intrinsic plurality or
>>>> ambiguity
>>>> of
>>>> events/actions, and their reciprocal relations with context.
>>>> Both of
>>>> these
>>>> are characteristics which all of us use and exploit as
>>>> interactional
>>>> resources in everyday life. Once an act has been coded a specific
>>>> interpretation of it has been fixed, and it has been artificially
>>>> removed
>>>> from its sequential and material context.
>>>>
>>>> These are reasons why I have always been more drawn to
>>>> ethnomethodology.
>>>> That's the topic of the class I'm teaching tomorrow (in Spanish,
>>>> heaven help
>>>> me - and them!) and so I've been refreshing my knowledge. I
>>>> stumbled
>>>> onto my
>>>> copy of Roy Turner's collection, titled simply "Ethnomethodology,"
>>>> published
>>>> by Penguin in 1974, which I brought with me from the UK to the US
>>>> eons ago
>>>> and now has travelled with me to Colombia. If that doesn't show
>>>> affection
>>>> for EM I don't know what does! And I've been reading old and new
>>>> work by
>>>> John Heritage, some of which deals with "epistemic landscapes" in a
>>>> way that
>>>> very successfully, I think, puts information at the center, as you
>>>> put it.
>>>>
>>>> But ethnomethodology isn't based on empathy. It does assume that
>>>> there is at
>>>> least some degree of communality between the methods used by the
>>>> researcher
>>>> and those used by the participants to organize their everyday
>>>> activity, but
>>>> these methods are assumed to be procedural, practical, and not
>>>> subjective or
>>>> emotional. And the principal source of evidence for a reading of an
>>>> interaction in ethnomethodology is the way an action displays the
>>>> agent's
>>>> understanding of those events it responds to. So what you would
>>>> like
>>>> to say
>>>> about (a), (b), and (c) would be constrained and informed by
>>>> what the
>>>> students say in response to (a), (b), and (c). It works very well,
>>>> without a
>>>> single code being imposed.
>>>>
>>>> Okay, okay, I'll go do my reading. Between you and Andy I never
>>>> have
>>>> a spare
>>>> moment!
>>>>
>>>> Martin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 3/8/09 6:35 PM, "David Kellogg" <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Martin:
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm afraid I'm not going to defend fuzzy thinking. Not because I
>>>>> don't agree
>>>>> with it, but because I'm not very good at it. My fuzziness
>>>>> tends to
>>>>> be of the
>>>>> nonvolitional sort.
>>>>>
>>>>> As I said, it's an aspect of Jay's work (and also Vygotsky's) I
>>>>> haven't really
>>>>> assimilated very well. For many years I've been trying to ENTIRELY
>>>>> reorganize
>>>>> the "present-practice-produce" paradigm of lessons here in Korea
>>>>> along the
>>>>> lines of his graphico-semiotic functions "getting attention--
>>>>> presenting
>>>>> information--checking integration".
>>>>>
>>>>> It's a VERY powerful way of looking at lessons: it explains why
>>>>> skilled
>>>>> teachers NEVER begin with a blank slate, it puts information at
>>>>> the
>>>>> centre of
>>>>> the exchange where it really belongs, and it provides a model of
>>>>> understanding
>>>>> that is miles from testing practices: integrating old and new, me
>>>>> and you, be
>>>>> and do.
>>>>>
>>>>> But I find it pretty hard to code stuff! Take this, for
>>>>> example, from
>>>>> yesterday's introductory class:
>>>>>
>>>>> a)"Hi!"
>>>>> b) "I'm Mr. K."
>>>>> c) "And you?"
>>>>>
>>>>> Now, I'd like to say that a) is "getting attention", b) is "giving
>>>>> information" and c) is some kind of "checking integration". I'd
>>>>> like to go
>>>>> further, and say that greetings and DOWN intonation are generally
>>>>> a), indicative/declaratives with horizontal or UP-DOWN
>>>>> intonation are
>>>>> generally b) and teacher questions often often UP intoned and c).
>>>>>
>>>>> But the data won't code with any reliability Worse, I find
>>>>> there is
>>>>> a) in b)
>>>>> ("I'm") and b) in a) ("Hi" gives information about how the speaker
>>>>> envisions
>>>>> t>>>>> How nice it would be to shrug my shoulders like Hegel and say "So
>>>>> much the
>>>>> worse for the facts!" I would like to believe, as Benjamin says,
>>>>> that "insight
>>>>> into the relationship between essences is the prerogative of the
>>>>> philosopher
>>>>> and these relationships remain unaltered even if they do not take
>>>>> on the
>>>>> purest form in the world of fact." But I don't.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is think one of Mariane Hedegaard's GREAT strengths
>>>>> (shown in
>>>>> the
>>>>> analysis of the Jens data but even more strongly at the end in her
>>>>> analysis
>>>>> of, and even her refusal to analyze, the Halime data) is her emic
>>>>> (empathetic,
>>>>> ethnomethodological) attitude towards what the subjects say. I
>>>>> don't think
>>>>> this is sentimentally motivated. I think it's a serious attempt
>>>>> "not to laugh,
>>>>> nor to cry, but to understand".
>>>>>
>>>>> So she has to recognize that to an outsider (Jens, Halime) a
>>>>> dominant culture
>>>>> really DOES look pretty monological and monolithic, and in fact it
>>>>> is, at
>>>>> least in terms of its exclusiveness and inaccessibility. Given
>>>>> that
>>>>> it is
>>>>> categorical exclusiveness and inaccessibility that is the
>>>>> source of
>>>>> this
>>>>> apparent monolithicity, I think the idea that the categorial
>>>>> thinking of the
>>>>> oppressed and that of the oppressor have the same ontological
>>>>> basis
>>>>> is simply
>>>>> wrong.
>>>>>
>>>>> Roy follows up his quotation of Benjamin with a long reference to
>>>>> Malcolm X's
>>>>> well known speech about "the house negro" and the "field negro",
>>>>> recently
>>>>> misquoted by Al Qaida's Al Zawahiri with respect to Barack
>>>>> Obama. His
>>>>> argument, which I'm not sure I buy, is that BOTH are powerless,
>>>>> but
>>>>> the field
>>>>> negro is still strong, and part of that strength is a clear,
>>>>> monolithic
>>>>> distinction between master and slave.
>>>>>
>>>>> But I am interfering with your time, Martin. Read Hedegaard--
>>>>> it's a
>>>>> real
>>>>> treat!
>>>>>
>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>> Seoul National University of Education
>>>>>
>>>>> --- On Sun, 3/8/09, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Hedegaard article
>>>>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>>>> Date: Sunday, March 8, 2009, 3:00 PM
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't know, David. I haven't had time yet to read the Hedegaard
>>>>> article,
>>>>> so I can't put the remarks in that context. I presume you're not
>>>>> proposing
>>>>> that one ought to categorize Danish culture as pathologically
>>>>> monological,
>>>>> or nasty. I don't understand how that kind of appeal to "what
>>>>> we in
>>>>> the
>>>>> west... recognize" (which "we" is that, exactly?) can claim to
>>>>> identify the
>>>>> roots of a failure to think in "fuzzy" terms, not least, of
>>>>> course,
>>>>> because
>>>>> it's not exactly a fuzzy way of putting things.
>>>>>
>>>>> Martin
>>>>>
>>>>> On 3/8/09 12:20 AM, "David Kellogg" <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear Martin:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't find Jay's comments at all offensive, and they are
>>>>>> simplistic only in
>>>>>> the sense of being telegraphic (like the word "nasty"). Actually,
>>>>>> I find
>>>>>> Jay's
>>>>>> work anything but simplistic; if anything it's a little too
>>>>>> nuanced for my
>>>>>> purposes (coding data involves a LOT of categorial distinctions!)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I interpreted Jay's comments in the context of Mariane
>>>>>> Hedegaard's
>>>>>> article,
>>>>>> particularly the ending, where Halime is describing her
>>>>>> relationship to the
>>>>>> Danish language and to the Danish "good life". I'm assuming that
>>>>>> this article
>>>>>> was written well after the Centre-Right Rasmussen government came
>>>>>> to power
>>>>>> (in
>>>>>> 2001) with, of course, the support of the Bush administrat>>>>>> What is not so well known is that the Rasmussen government is
>>>>>> supported by
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> Dansk Folkeparti of Pia Kjaersgaard, which is the equivalent of
>>>>>> Jean Marie Le
>>>>>> Pen's Front Nationale in France or Jurg Haidar's neo-fascist
>>>>>> Austrian
>>>>>> People's
>>>>>> Party. This party, which has been shown to be infilitrated by
>>>>>> terrorist
>>>>>> neo-Nazi organizations like Combat 18, opposes all forms of
>>>>>> immigration,
>>>>>> consider white people to be oppressed by the Muslim minority in
>>>>>> Denmark, and
>>>>>> after 9/11 Kjaersgaard said that the Americans were wrong to call
>>>>>> this a
>>>>>> clash
>>>>>> of civilizations because "There is only one civilization and that
>>>>>> is ours."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Here are some quotations from their parliamentary delegation,
>>>>>> just
>>>>>> to give
>>>>>> you
>>>>>> some sense of what Halime is talking about:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Morten Messerschmidt, DPP member of Danish Parliament:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "I believe that all Muslim communities are, by definition, loser
>>>>>> communities.
>>>>>> The Muslims are not capable of critical thinking."[24]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Pia Kjærsgaard's newsletter (February 25, 2002):
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "The Social Security Act is passé because it was tailored to a
>>>>>> Danish family
>>>>>> tradition and work ethic and not to Muslims, for whom it is fair
>>>>>> to be
>>>>>> provided for by others while the wife gives birth to a lot of
>>>>>> children. The
>>>>>> child benefit grant is being taken advantage of, as an immigrant
>>>>>> achieves a
>>>>>> record income due to [having] just under a score of children. New
>>>>>> punishment
>>>>>> limits must be introduced for group rapes because the problem
>>>>>> only
>>>>>> arrived
>>>>>> with the vandalism of the many anti-social second-generation
>>>>>> immigrants."
>>>>>> [25]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It seems to me that in the USA in the sixties and again today
>>>>>> there was a
>>>>>> fairly common liberal sentiment to the effect that racism was
>>>>>> above all just
>>>>>> a
>>>>>> bad idea, and that since it was nothing more than a bad idea, it
>>>>>> could be
>>>>>> cured fairly easily by a dose of Sidney Poitier or Barack Obama.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The corollary of this sentiment is that, of course, the oppressed
>>>>>> must not be
>>>>>> allowed to cherish similar bad ideas, not merely because it might
>>>>>> provoke the
>>>>>> oppressor to even more savage acts of oppression but above all
>>>>>> because racism
>>>>>> is just a bad idea in general.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well, it doesn't take much to show that this liberal sentiment is
>>>>>> simply
>>>>>> wrong. Sidney Poitier did not cure American racism, and neither
>>>>>> will Barack
>>>>>> Obama. The reason is simple; racism is not "just a bad idea" but,
>>>>>> like any
>>>>>> other pervasive and systematic ideology, a reflection of real
>>>>>> material
>>>>>> historical conditions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Specifically, racism reflects the historical conditions of
>>>>>> American slavery,
>>>>>> European colonialism, and the not merely historical reserve army
>>>>>> of the
>>>>>> unemployed, which is growing by leaps and bounds as we speak.
>>>>>> Perhaps it's
>>>>>> time to consider the idea that so-called "reverse racism", or
>>>>>> rather, the
>>>>>> rage
>>>>>> of the oppressed, is really NOT part of the problem, but in fact
>>>>>> part of the
>>>>>> solution.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> David Kirshner's colleague, Kaustuv Roy, has written a wonderful
>>>>>> book
>>>>>> (Thanks,
>>>>>> David!) called Neighborhoods of the Plantation which begins
>>>>>> with a
>>>>>> quote
>>>>>> from Walter Benjamin on immigration and borders as a means of
>>>>>> keeping
>>>>>> "culture" pure. Benjamin committed suicide when, fleeing the
>>>>>> Nazis, he was
>>>>>> not
>>>>>> allowed to pass from occupied France into Spain :
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Where frontiers are decided the adversary is not simply
>>>>>> annihilated; indeed
>>>>>> he is accorded rights eve>>>>>> And these are, in a demonically ambiguous way, 'equal rights',
>>>>>> for
>>>>>> both
>>>>>> parties ot the treat it is the same line that may not be crossed.
>>>>>> Here
>>>>>> appears, in a terribly primitive form, the same mythical
>>>>>> ambiguity
>>>>>> of laws
>>>>>> that may not be 'infringed' to which Anatole France refers
>>>>>> satirically when
>>>>>> he
>>>>>> says that 'Poor and rich are equally forbidden to spend the night
>>>>>> under
>>>>>> bridges.'"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>>> Seoul National University of Education
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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