Historical Ethnomethodology: Rethinking Time, Space, Member and Text

• In Event: Research in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis: Advances in Ethnomethodological Theory and Practices

Abstract

This paper proposes a historical extension of ethnomethodology that preserves its methodological discipline while expanding its analytic reach. Ethnomethodology has demonstrated that social order is locally, reflexively, and accountably accomplished in the “vivid present.” However, it has remained cautious about addressing phenomena that appear to exceed the here-and-now – such as sovereignty, universality, scientific objectivity, or the figure of “the human.” We argue that these are not external structures or transcendental foundations, but accomplishments continuous with situated practice. To develop this claim, we introduce a distinction between intratexture and infratexture. Intratexture names the situated, inscriptive, and reflexive work through which actors render actions intelligible and accountable in the vivid present. Infratexture refers to the historically sedimented availability of categories, standards, texts, and infrastructures that coordinate action across entangled presents. Rather than treating the extralocal as a domain of structure, we conceptualize it as the ongoing stabilization of such infratextural accomplishments. Drawing on ethnomethodology, feminist institutional analysis, and science and technology studies, we respecify analytic primitives – actor, time, space, group – as ontopolitical achievements. The “member” becomes a historically authorized position; time becomes an entangled accomplishment rather than a linear container; situation becomes a witnessable coherence sustained across sites. Together, these form what we call the Anthropic condition: the long durée accomplishment of a One-World-World in which specific distinctions (real/unreal, rational/irrational, sovereign/subject) function as omnirelevant. Historical ethnomethodology does not scale up ethnomethodology or introduce new ontological foundations. Instead, it radicalizes its reflexive demand by treating worldhood itself as methodically achieved. The result is a deflationary account of ontology that demonstrates how even the most universal categories persist only insofar as they are continuously enacted in practice.

Authors

• Robert Braun, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna

• Richard Randell, Institut für Höhere Studien - Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS)