Maynard2000a
| Maynard2000a | |
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| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Maynard2000a |
| Author(s) | Douglas W. Maynard, Nora Cate Schaeffer |
| Title | Toward a sociology of social scientific knowledge: survey research and ethnomethodology's asymmetric alternates |
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| Tag(s) | EMCA, Research Methods, Conversation Analysis, Ethnomethodology, Social scientific knowledge |
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| Year | 2000 |
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| Journal | Social Studies of Science |
| Volume | 30 |
| Number | 3 |
| Pages | 323–270 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1177/030631200030003001 |
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Abstract
When abstract, quantitative and generalizing sociologies are juxtaposed to qualitative sociologies, the relationship is often seen as complementary or competitive. Our purpose is to articulate a different type of relationship between abstract social scientific knowledge (as exemplified in Survey Research [SR]) and the form of concrete and particularized knowledge represented in ethnomethodological conversation analysis. SR, historically, represents what we (following Jean Converse) refer to as the 'ascendance of the objectivized subjective realm'. Like other kinds of (in Ted Porter's phrase) 'mechanical objectivity', this ascendance is everywhere made possible because it is accompanied by practitioners' (researchers' and interviewers') tacit, practical forms of knowledge that enable them to work through the situated problems endemic to SR. As endeavours that locate orderliness and social organization in the details of actual social activity, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis find that SR Centres have intrinsic interest as sites of locally-produced structures. Investigating the situated tacit practices of investigators actually conducting SR and survey interviews, ethnomethodological and conversation analytical approaches to SR are also akin to the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK), which has largely investigated practices in natural science laboratories. This may suggest that there is 'symmetry' between natural and social science, but we also argue that 'asymmetry' is a serviceable notion for science studies. Indeed, understanding the asymmetry between survey-based and ethnomethodological social sciences offers potential for communication (rather than a 'state of non-intercourse') between sociologists and the scientists they study. As an illustration of the Sociology of Social Scientific Knowledge (SSSK), we examine a successful attempt at 'refusal conversion' in an SR Centre.
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