Praxeologizing texts? The significance of ethnomethodological misreading

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

Abstract

The notion of misreading has gradually become part of the ethnomethodological vocabulary, but its status and function remain ambiguous. Although Garfinkel introduced misreading as a crucial procedure for EM and encouraged others to carry it out, he tended to discuss it elusively and often provided only preliminary demonstrations of its workings. The subsequent literature on this topic has predominantly dealt with opening up Garfinkel’s more opaque and dense accounts, while empirical work explicitly framed as misreading is less frequent. Our aim is to trace the (possible) further uses or “doings” of misreading in Garfinkel’s work in order to specify the logic of this procedure and its potential significance for EM/CA. We highlight that Garfinkel seemed to reserve the term ‘misreading’ only for very specific purposes: on the one hand, for the radically praxeological transformation of phenomenological descriptions explicating the endogenously achieved character of naturally organized ordinary activities; and on the other hand, as part of practical readings of descriptions and other textual materials in the natural sciences. We argue that both phenomenological and scientific misreading show that praxis is primary and its textual account is secondary. It is the practice that elucidates the text, and not the other way around. Misreadings can therefore be seen as radical reformulations: they address the central EM policy that, in incorporating any theoretical insights, they are employed not as guiding descriptive devices to make sense of empirical data, but dislocated and taken out of their original disciplinary contexts to be turned into explicative resources that depend only and entirely on members’ situated practices.

Authors

• Jakub Mlynár, HES-SO Valais-Wallis University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland

• Kristjan Peik, University of Helsinki