After reading Morriss (2016), I am wondering if her discourse on familiarity and ethnomethodology have any bearing on my own professional inquiry processes and products? Familiarity in this sense refers to the position of the inquirer within her area of inquiry — as an ‘insider’, does my Indigeneity lend legitimacy to my inquiry, or does the familiarity inherent to belonging to the group I am focusing my inquiry upon, act to hinder my progress?
Hartley (2007) posits “by intentionally disrupting the individual’s definition of reality, ethnomethodologists are concerned, first, to remind us how provisional that reality is and, second, to observe how individuals re-build their definition of the situation in the face of absurdity and meaninglessness” (p. 203); is ethnomethodology, then, a viable lens in which to explore decolonization and ‘self-conscious capitalism’ (Davidson, 2016, November 3)? Is the purpose of my area of inquiry (intentional Indigenization of organizational learning) ethnomethodological in itself?
References
Davidson, C.M. (2016, November 3). Re: Cindy – On Mayo: A queer argument for reconciliation? [Online discussion forum comment]. Retrieved from: https://onq.queensu.ca/d2l/le/69911/discussions/threads/1495166/ViewPostInContext?postId=4689173#post4689173
Hartley, D. (2007). Organizational epistemology, education and social theory. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28(2), 195-208.
Morriss, L. (2016). Dirty secrets and being ‘strange’: Using ethnomethodology to move beyond familiarity. Qualitative Research, 16(5), 526-540. DOI: 10.1177/1468794115598194
There’s certainly no shortage of debate on the role of emic and etic perspectives in ethnography! My take on this is that either approach can be valuable, but the researcher needs to be aware of the strengths and limitations that her perspective, as either insider or outsider, brings to bear on the analysis. Re: ethnomethodology as I have understood it tends to focus on micro-sociology, so it’s useful to keep that in mind. Different methodologies are more or less suited to the scope of your inquiry! 🙂 I haven’t read deeply re: this, but there’s a bit of a resurgence re: Durkheim that takes more of a bird’s eye view, if that interests you.