Rooke2017

From emcawiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Rooke2017
BibType ARTICLE
Key Rooke2017
Author(s) John Rooke
Title Conducting a negotiation and modelling negotiation (incommensurable, asymmetrically alternate technologies)
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Ethnomethodology, Formal analysis, Negotiations
Publisher
Year 2017
Language English
City
Month
Journal Ethnographic Studies
Volume 14
Number
Pages 49-63
URL Link
DOI 10.5281/zenodo.823100
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

Download BibTex

Abstract

Arguably intended as an alternative to sociology in Garfnkel’s (1984) early formulations, EM later appears, more modestly perhaps, as an alternate analysis, one that is both incommensurable and asymmetrical with formal analysis (FA) (Garfnkel 2002). To say that EM and FA are alternate, rather than alternatives, might be taken to imply that the two may exist alongside each other without antagonism. Indeed, with a gestalt switch, one may see a social setting frst through one lens and then the other. The two lenses are asymmetrical in the sense that EM’s focus on the local production of order makes FA reports and procedures available for EM analysis in a way that EM reports and procedures are not available to FA. An FA account of the doings and products of ethnomethodologists might focus on the historic and societal origins of the practice, or offer models of EM practice, but these cannot be taken as critical of EM practices, as these practices are grounded in the setting under study, rather than any pre-conceived model. By contrast, EM reports of FA practices, while avowedly neither “correctives”, or “supplements” (Garfnkel 1984) to FA, have often been read as such, due to their status as reports from inside the setting. But to what extent are the two incommensurable? Certainly, there is no simple correspondence between them. On the other hand, the very existence of the two forms of analysis and their availability as topics of inquiry in themselves, implies the possibility of translating between them. In order to explore the question further, this paper offers two alternate reports of negotiation from a meeting on a civil engineering project between a contractor and a consultancy representing the employer.

Notes