Culture in Action: Studies in Membership Categorization Analysis

This collection of new studies in ethnomethodology addresses sociology's classical questions by developing that strand of ethnomethodological inquiry dealing with membership categorization. This book provides detailed studies of members' use of membership categories across various settings from the O.J. Simpson trial, via TV commercials and news headlines, to school staff and referral meetings. The studies show that category use is occasional, that culture is always internal to action; accordingly sociology's key theoretical problems and substantive areas are re-specified in terms of members' methods of membership categorization. This is the first collection of original, unpublished studies by internationally renowned practitioners of ethnomethodology of members' uses of the descriptive resources of language to describe persons. Co-published with The International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis.