American sociologist Harold Garfinkel (1917-2011) is the founder of ethnomethodology, an approach that he developed on the legacy of symbolic interactionism. The term itself comes from the title of Garfinkel's book Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967). Although half of the texts in this book were published earlier, the year of its publication is mostly taken as the year of the approach's origin. The term itself, as well as the whole theory, refers to the methods that people use in ordinary, everyday life, to create meaning and achieve common sense through the interpretation of these events. Ethnomethodology sought to question the sociological conception of the self, developed by symbolic interactionism.

Garfinkel believes that how individuals cope in everyday situations is identical to the procedures that these individuals use to explain those situations to themselves. Individuals use already existing, common sense knowledge about the same type of situation, in order to explain the situation in which they currently find themselves. Individuals are, at the same time, actors in situations, but also interpreters of those situations, and the knowledge acquired in these activities is fluid and never complete. Because people have the knowledge and experience of these everyday situations, they take their own competence for granted, that is, they do not think about the way they came to acquire that knowledge. Sociological knowledge itself is a product of common sense knowledge, so the concepts and theories that sociologists create have no priority over other forms of knowledge.

Ethnomethodology in its study starts from several key assumptions. The first is that common sense knowledge is created, above all, through linguistic communication. Another assumption is that in everyday speech one should distinguish between contextually neutral expressions and those whose meaning changes following the specific context and situation. The third is that the explanation of practical action is always reflexive. The fourth assumption is that purposeful behavior, within a context, should be studied as a practical achievement.

Talcott Parsons was Garfinkel's professor and mentor for his doctoral dissertation, and Parsons' book The Structure of Social Action influenced the further development of Garfinkel's approach. Garfinkel radicalized Parsons' theories of action. According to Garfinkel, the social order is not a simple product of socialization, because the actors are active and reflective about norms, and create values ​​and meanings in creative ways. The choice of goals, made by the actors, is based on the empirical everyday knowledge available to them. Garfinkel believes that the sociological theory of action must include the actor's own view of an activity. Individuals are constantly striving to establish new rules when they are in a situation, and ethnomethodology should reveal these implicit rules and the planned nature of everyday life. The actors, while acting, pay attention to the other actors and plan the next moves. If the situation does not go according to their plan, then they strive to repair the damage and restore normalcy. Society consists of reflective social activities that contain a variety of meanings.

In the empirical study of everyday speech, Garfinkel studied how people complete the meaning of the message with context, beyond what is explicitly said in a speech. Studying the queues that form in public places, he found that even such an unstructured situation requires an active and reflective approach. The most famous example of Garfinkel's application of the ethnomethodological approach in empirical research is a case study he conducted in 1967 and represented in the book Studies in Ethnomethodology. He studied an intersex woman named Agnes, who had genitals of both sexes but looked completely feminine on the outside. In her daily life, Agnes managed to "pass" as a woman, although she was constantly at risk of someone discovering that she was an intersex person. Garfinkel concluded that sexual and gender identity is, in essence, a constant endeavor that represents "accomplishment", achieved through practical activities.

Other notable practitioners of ethnomethodology are Aaron Cicourel, Jack Douglas, Johan Asplund, Alain Coulone, Suzanne J. Kessler, Melvin Pollner, George Psathsas, David Sudnow, and Don Zimmerman.

Books:

Agre, P. Computation and Human Experience (1997);

Atkinson, J.M. Discovering Suicide: Studies in the Social Organization of Sudden Death (1978);

Button, G., ed. Technology in Working Order: Studies of Work, Interaction and Technology (1993);

     -     Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences (1991);

     -     Computers, Minds and Conduct    (1995);

Cicourel, A.V. The Social Organization of Juvenile Justice (1968);

Coulter, J. ‘‘Perceptual Accounts and Interpretive Asymmetries.’’ Sociology (1975);

Douglas, J. The Social Meanings of Suicide (1967);

Garfinkel. Ethnomethodological Studies of Work (1984);

     -     Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967);

     -     Ethnomethodology’s Program: Working Out Durkheim’s Aphorism (2002);

     -     Seeing Sociologically (2005);

     -     Toward a Sociological Theory of Information (2008);

     -     “A Conception of, and Experiments with, ‘Trust’ as a Condition of Stable Concerted Actions.” In O. J. Harvey, ed., Motivation and Social Interaction (1963);

     -     ‘‘Practical Sociological Reasoning: Some Features of the Work of the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center.’’ In E. S. Schneidman, ed., Essays in Self-Destruction (1967b);

     -     ‘‘Ethnomethodology’s Program.’’ Social Psychology Quarterly 1996.

     -     , M. Lynch, and E. Livingston  ‘‘The Work of a Discovering Science Construed with Materials from the Optically Discovered Pulsar.’’ Philosophy of the Social Sciences (1981);

Gilbert, G. N., and M. Mulkay. Opening Pandora’s Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists’ Discourse (1984);

Goodwin, C. “Professional Vision.” American Anthropologist  (1994);

Gurwitsch, A. Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology (1966);

Heath, C. & Luff, P. Technology in Action (2000);

Heritage, John. Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology (1984);

Hilbert, Richard A.. The Classical Roots of Ethnomethodology: Durkheim, Weber, and Garfinkel (1992);

Jordan, K. and M. Lynch  ‘‘The Dissemination, Standardization and Routinization of a Molecular Biological Technique.’’ Social Studies of Science (1998);

Livingston, E. Making Sense of Ethnomethodology (1987);

     -     Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics (1986);

Lynch, M. Scientific Practice and Ordinary Action: Ethnomethodology and Social Studies of Science (1993);

     -     Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science (1985);

     -     , and D. Bogen  The Spectacle of History: Speech, Text and Memory at the Iran–Contra Hearings (1996);

Pollner, M. ‘‘Mundane Reasoning.’’ Philosophy of the Social Sciences (1974);

     -     Mundane Reason: Reality in Everyday and Sociological Discourse (1987);

     -     ‘‘Left of Ethnomethodology,’’ American Sociological Review (1991);

Maynard, Douglas W. and Steven B. Clayman. “The Diversity of Ethnomethodology.” Annual Review of Sociology (1991);

Suchman, L. Plans and Situated Action (1987);

Sudnow, D. ‘‘Normal Crimes.’’ Social Problems (1965);

     -     Ways of the Hand (1978);

Wieder, D. L. Language and Social Reality (1974);

Zimmerman, D. ‘‘Record Keeping and the Intake Process in a Public Welfare Agency.’’ In S. Wheeler, ed., On Record: Files and Dossiers in American Life (1969).