Ethnomethodology

Ethnomethodology literally means the study of people's social, cultural, and worklives or, as Harold Garfinkel put it, “members of a local social scene.” In particular, ology means logic and ethno refers to people's culture. Ethnomethodology refers to the ways people create various identifiable actions, routines, or practices.

Over the years, the case study methodology has little by little affirmed its relevance in the social sciences and started to speak with a stronger and clearer voice. A striking feature of case study is its central emphasis on the object being studied. Case studies underscore situation-specific, concrete, practical, and context-dependent knowledge. Long ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle emphasized the value of case knowledge and the importance and influence of cases and context in the understanding of human performance. The strength identified with the case study approach lies in capturing “realities” in great detail. The detail and particularities of the case can be recognized and depicted by ethnomethodology. Thus, ethnomethodology can be used as a mode of inquiry in doing case studies. In particular, in the ethnomethodological tradition contextually grounded case studies can be successfully generated. Ethnomethodology began to be recognized as a research approach when Garfinkel, influenced by Alfred Schutz and Edmund Husserl, published his book Studies in Ethnomethodology in 1967.