Harold Garfinkel for UGC NET Sociology Notes and Study Material

Harold Garfinkel was the founder of ethnomethodology, an American sociologist who proved to be a harbinger in his field from 1917 to 2011. In such respect, he is considered to be one of the forefathers of this theoretical and methodological framework, which one would call a program of inquiry raising questions on techniques people use to create meaning out of their everyday lives. His work departs from standard or traditional sociology in that it deals with the investigation of unarticulated rules and activities that individuals use in creating social reality. This ethnomethodological approach from Garfinkel highlights ways in which people themselves interpret and negotiation meaning within the sphere of everyday interaction, thereby connecting with the hermeneutic and interpretative traditions.

Harold Garfinkel is a vital topic to be studied for the economics related exam such as the UGC NET Sociology Examination.

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• Harold Garfinkel Hermeneutic and Interpretative Traditions

Harold Garfinkel Hermeneutic and Interpretative Traditions

Harold Garfinkel (1917–2011) was a groundbreaking American sociologist known for his creation of ethnomethodology, a theoretical approach aiming to explain how people make sense of their everyday lives. His work gives a unique lens onto how social order and meaning are constructed through ordinary practices and conversational norms. His attention to the implicit rules and everyday procedures through which individuals interpret their social world aligns both hermeneutic and interpretative traditions. Hermeneutics is concerned with the understanding of meaning within particular historical and cultural contexts, while interpretative sociology is more generally interested in subjective meanings people attribute to their actions. The ethnomethodology of Garfinkel overlaps with such traditions because it underlines how human beings themselves continuously create and negotiate the social reality through everyday interaction and practices.

Harold Garfinkel and Hermeneutic Traditions

Harold Garfinkel's ethnomethodology aligns very well with hermeneutic traditions in its emphasis on the role of context in understanding social interactions. Hermeneutics calls for interpretation of texts and actions within their historical and cultural contexts and stresses that meaning is derived from contextual understanding. That approach by Garfinkel emphasizes how individuals use context-dependent practices to make sense of their social environment. Finally, when Garfinkel investigates the implicit rules and conversational norms guiding everyday interactions, spelling out all of the often-unnoticed methods people use to navigate and interpret their social worlds, he underlines that meaning is constructed in situ. In so doing, his approach makes a general case for the central argument in hermeneutic philosophy that one can grasp social behavior only by being sensitive to the contextual and procedural aspects of meaning construction.

Harold Garfinkel and Interpretative Traditions

The work of Garfinkel thus makes a significant contribution to interpretative traditions, which emphasizes that social actions must be understood in terms of the meanings actors attach to them. In interpretative sociology, influenced principally by the sociology of Max Weber, the concern is toward the understanding of how personal and social meanings resonate to behavioral form. Put simply, ethnomethodology is a detailed explication of how people make use of everyday practices in such a way as to bring off and maintain social order, emphasizing the subjective nature of meaning-making. His "indexicality"—the view that expressions have meaning based on the context of their use—places enormous weight on the interpretative process of understanding social interactions. By showing how members use practical methods to interpret and negotiate their social realities, Garfinkel refers to subjective and procedural aspects of social life that allow for a more grounded appreciation of how meaning is generated and sustained in everyday contexts.

Conclusion

The work of Harold Garfinkel substantially contributes to both hermeneutic and interpretative traditions by elaborating on the complex ways in which individuals form and interpret their social realities. His ethnomethodological method comes under hermeneutics as it insists on the contextual and procedural aspects of meaning formation. In the same way, Garfinkel's interest in the tacit rules of social interaction overlaps the interest of the interpretative traditions that study how individually formed and subjective meanings influence social behavior. 

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